Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are both fantastic games - and Tears of the Kingdom really does feel (to me) like they just took Breath of the Wild, and added a few more years of dev time to it.
Where do you think Nintendo will take Zelda from here though? Can they keep with the same new formula? Should they? Will a more traditional game feel disappointing after this?
I don’t really know what I want myself. I think they should try something different though. At the same time, I can’t help but think I’d be disappointed if the next game was more similar to something like Twilight Princess. Have they boxed themselves in?
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To speak just to plot, I think there is one direction they could move towards next.
In this series, we have yet to even hear whispers of the Triforce. What was previously a central pillar of prior Zelda games has fallen by the wayside. So, the Triforce can come back.
In Tears of the Kingdom, we learned interesting facts about how dragons are made. We have three dragons who have been there since Breath of the Wild: Dinraal, Farosh, and Naydra, who correspond to the goddesses Din, Farore, and Nayru, who created the Triforce. Presumably, these “goddesses” were people once, who ate secret stones and turned into dragons, and they could be key to unlocking the mysteries of the Triforce. If we can un-draconify them like we did Zelda, it would be interesting to have these entities be actual characters in the story.
As far as threats, it’s hard to say. Could bring back old man Demise if they want to stick with the progressively scary Ganon line of villains, but they could easily bring in someone else new or old as well.
Of all the ideas people have replied with so far, this one’s my favorite. I had wondered about the other three dragons from the moment I finished the Dragon Tears quest in TotK, and your idea would be a pretty cool way to give a lot more attention to that aspect of the world.
I’ve sat on this idea since the release of Hyrule Historia. And I think it would legitimize the entire crazy timeline, and do what Nintendo must do next to level up Zelda: massively up their story telling. And it combines with this OP idea of the return of the triforce.
This new game does one key thing: it firmly establishes BOTW/TOTK Link as unequivocal successors to the Child Timeline after the hero is victorious in OOT.
BOTW Threequel continues and concludes this Link’s adventure, and is the first Zelda trilogy with Link-Zelda continuity. We’ll call him Blue Link.
After a banger of an opening sequence, Blue Zelda reveals to Blue Link the cause of this “banger sequence” and its solution: there is a relic called the triforce and it must be reunited not only to seal away evil—but to fix space and time, which has been fractured for millennia.
The three dragons—the fairie surrogates—are basically functioning like the TVA (Time Variance Authority) from the Marvel series Loki. Their human forms exist in another realm: the past.
This past is ultimately met.
It is Old Man Link from the Fallen Hero timeline and is the same Link from Zelda II: Adventure of Link. Who is also the same Link from Zelda I. Think Snake from MGS4 Guns of the Patriots, or Logan/Wolverine from the Old Man Logan story.
So this game is the end of a trilogy for Blue Link and Zelda 1 + 2, simultaneously.
And it’s co-op (if desired). As both Links.
The game might as well be called The Legend of Link.
A Link to the Past it up. Give me Hyrule in the distant past, now, hell, even the future. Design the puzzles around it. And give me a Hookshot as well
Hookshot, a good boomerang and more light puzzles!
I think it’s time for a true, mainline, spinoff.
Maybe a Xenoblade-like jrpg. Maybe a multiplayer mmorpg style game with a singleplsyer campaign. Or what about a Zelda shooter?
I just wanna see Nintendo go nuts, no matter what the Zelda fanboys say.
Edit: Also lets be honest Nintendo can’t keep up with the size of these games. BOTW took an entire console generation and so did TOTK (even though it’s based on BOTW)
With the success of BotW and TotK, that style of game is probably here to stay. But I would really like to see another more ‘grounded’ classic 3D Zelda. Not like Skyward Sword. More like Twilight Princess.
Assuming we get a third game in the botw run, I would love to see link travel back to early Hyrule like Zelda did. Nintendo could use the blueprint of the depths ruins as the backbone for a thriving Zonai civilization. Aboveground would be a truly wild Hyrule similar to what the depths are now. No sky islands as this would predate their creation. Instead we could have a ‘dive’ feature that lets us visit an ancient Zora, spread out in the waters in and around Hyrule. All new characters (except maybe Raru and friends), but many characters could be ancestors of current characters so they would be familiar in some ways. I would love to see the ability to tame monsters, more complex Zonai devices, and yes, perhaps real dungeons.
Also I could even see a fourth game in this series that totally turns all of the formula on its head. It would actually star Zelda, and she would travel through time to different eras of Hyrule. We’d get to see areas and dungeons from ocarina of time, twilight princess, skyward sword and even many of the 2d titles, redesigned with botw graphics and controls. The focus of the game would be for Zelda to help Link. She must stay out of sight, navigate dungeons to place keys, compasses, maps and/or key weapons that the link of that era will need to defeat whatever evil he faces. I think this would be super cool.
At first I was like I don’t wanna play as Zelda but as you went into more detail I was like hell yeah that sounds amazing!!!
Instead we could have a ‘dive’ feature that lets us visit an ancient Zora, spread out in the waters in and around Hyrule.
The Legend of Zelda: The Way of Water
In all seriousness though, this sounds amazing. There are so many unanswered questions from the BotW universe. It would be interesting to see another addition to the series.
What questions would you like to see answered?
Is it possible to post spoilers on Lemmy?
I don’t think so. I’m going to try now with reddit code.
!testing testing one, two ummm 12!<
Edit: looks like no :(
Agh that’s too bad! In that case I’ll just say I want to know more details about the reward you get when completing all 152 shrines. So many questions!
Messaged you!
I know I’m 10 days late, but you can post spoilers on Lemmy
Like this
Spoilery text goes here
And here
Etc
Which you do like this:
I would like it if their next game would be more traditional 2d style, something akin to Links Awakening. Personally I like both the 2d and 3d style games, so alternating between the two would be great.
For the 3d games I’m not sure for the direction they should take, but I think a blend of the open world style combined with the more traditional dungeons would be great.
The two major things I loved about BOTW and TOTK were the flexibility of the puzzle solutions and the story; I think if those aspects can be put into a new world and setting, I would be very happy.
Also in both games if a puzzle is too hard or you’re just not in the mood, you can step away and do something else; I loved this, it lets your mind refresh so to speak. I want the new game to feel this welcoming.
I agree with this.
In a later part of Tears of the Kingdom, I was presented with one puzzle. A large object needed to be transported up and to the other side of a large room. There was a big spiraling rail going up to the other side, along with a hook and some Zonai fans. So I thought “Just stick it to the hook and propel it up with fans.” Easier said than done, unfortunately, because there were supports along the rail that would stop it from moving further.
But then I remembered I had time powers. So I just grabbed the object, held it up about halfway on the other side for a good 10 seconds, and let it fall. Then I just climbed up the other side, rewound time on the object to lift it back into its midair position, and grabbed it with ultrahand.
I know exactly what puzzle you’re talking about. I did pretty much the same thing lol
You’re talking about the room to retrieve the arm or leg for the construct?
I just went through that room yesterday.
You just hang the hook sideways and problem solved. It will pass through all the supports, carrying the box.
That’s it exactly. I thought it might be something along those lines, since there is obviously a solution they intended with the way the room is set up. But ultimately, after finnicking around with it for a minute or so, it just dawned on me that lifting it and rewinding time would just be way quicker and more direct, so that’s what I did. The way this game is able to accommodate multiple solutions is a thing of beauty.
I think they need to find a way to merge the BOTW open world with the more traditional structure of Zelda games. The issue is that those two philosophies are sort of at odds with each other, with BOTW and TOTK not wanting the player to be locked out of anything while exploring the world while the traditional structure has you unlock items throughout the game in order to solve puzzles, which there are much fewer of outside of dungeons. It can work though, if Wind Waker is any indication with its side islands.
Story/progression gating the dungeons is probably the right move. That seems to be what most people want.
The overworld itself is (literally) giant Hyrule Field—a big open space with secrets to explore that connects all of the main story-relevant areas together. But the dungeons themselves don’t need to be open/available from the get-go, and it’s possible to gate access behind specific story progression or tool access.
I think what we see as far as difference in design is that the BotW/TotK dungeons are nonlinear and relatively gimmick free. In BotW, the one feature of each dungeon was manipulating it’s position from the map to make things happen. In TotK, it’s your allies’ abilities. And then from there, you have X number of things you need to turn on, and then you can proceed to the boss.
The older style, conceptually, isn’t so far removed from today, but they go mostly linearly. Instead of finding X number of terminals in whatever order you want, you find a key that opens a path that leads to another key. Halfway through, you find a new tool that allows you to navigate the central gimmick of the dungeon in a different way, leading you to more keys and eventually ending with a big key for the boss room.
If TotK had a linear path from terminal to terminal, and each dungeon featured, say, some sort of unique Zonai device found nowhere else that becomes key to solving the puzzles, that would basically be the old formula people are looking for.
Assuming we get a third game in the botw run, I would love to see link travel back to early Hyrule like Zelda did. Nintendo could use the blueprint of the depths ruins as the backbone for a thriving Zonai civilization. Aboveground would be a truly wild Hyrule similar to what the depths are now. No sky islands as this would predate their creation. Instead we could have a ‘dive’ feature that lets us visit an ancient Zora, spread out in the waters in and around Hyrule. All new characters (except maybe Raru and friends), but many characters could be ancestors of current characters so they would be familiar in some ways. I would love to see the ability to tame monsters, more complex Zonai devices, and yes, perhaps real dungeons.
Also I could even see a fourth game in this series that totally turns all of the formula on its head. It would actually star Zelda, and she would travel through time to different eras of Hyrule. We’d get to see areas and dungeons from ocarina of time, twilight princess, skyward sword and even many of the 2d titles, redesigned with botw graphics and controls. The focus of the game would be for Zelda to help Link. She must stay out of sight, navigate dungeons to place keys, compasses, maps and/or key weapons that the link of that era will need to defeat whatever evil he faces. I think this would be super cool.
Although I might be in the minority, I hope that they try to make a story-centered game like Twilight Princess. I loved how deep the characters felt and the atmosphere so much. I think they could mix in more story telling and maybe even some kind of friendship/affinity system with NPCs. I don’t think it would interfere with the core mechanics too much.
There was definitely lacking in the story department in totk. In botw at least you got to find the villages, get to understand the different cultures etc. In totk being the same, that discovery factor was gone and the story elements were severely lacking. The missions are also very basic and somehow don’t have the satisfaction of completing them.
I haven’t finished TOTK yet and I feel the same. It’s a good sandbox game of zonai tech, but IMO it’s not a good “Zelda” game. I know people might argue that traditional approach of dungeon puzzle or boss design makes it too “linear” or not exploring the creativity of player. Basically, designer designed how a puzzle or boss should be dealt with. BUT, at least it was done in a meaningful way that you learn along the way of different mechanism and how older Zelda shine.
I will probably try finished all the shrines and story and put it away. Since the side quests I run into so far are mostly copy paste side quests. (photo quests I will probably do them all if I can find them. I like photo quests)
To be honest, other than theming, the old Zelda dungeons are overrated. Every dungeon from LttP and on – you’re going to get an item, and that item is critical to unlocking the 2nd half of the dungeon. It’s exceedingly linear. I don’t consider boomerang lock-on for 5 targets or using fire arrows to light torches amazing gameplay.
I do love totks crazy spinning fan torch puzzles.
I’m convinced lately the fan praise of Twilight Princess is due to youth having this as their first game. It doesn’t hold a candle to what OoT or Majora’s Mask was. Even then, OoT is LttP in 3d (for the first time, and it was phenomenal).
If nintendo keep the exact same formula, a Botw3, then that would be very out of pace for Nintendo and very disappointing. One of the most disappointing parts about Totk is that it’s very much botw again, fixed in many ways, with some new ideas. But Nintendo usually like to change things up much more than that.
I very much hope that the creative spark for something different is still there
OoT, considered one of the greatest games of all time, is literally Link to the Past 3d. Majora’s mask is like a mod of OoT. WW was a huge deviation, but same dungeon structure. Twilight Princess is OoT, but edgier and with a weird platformer mix that was common in the latter stages of N64 and early Wii.
I’m general, Nintendo iterates on Zelda. I’d love for a Wind Waker 2 a la totk.
The level of ingenuity and the story alone set it miles ahead and make BOTW feel like a hollow prequel
