The creators of Tears Of The Kingdom don’t want to go back to the old style of Zelda games – and they don’t seem to care about lore either.
If it was purely a financial decision there’d never be any chance of going back to the old style of 3D Zelda game, given Breath Of The Wild and Tears Of The Kingdom have been massively more successful, commercially speaking, than any of the previous titles.
Nintendo has already said that whatever the next Zelda game is it won’t be a direct sequel or use the same map, but beyond that there’s no clue as to what it’ll be… other than it won’t be walking back the changes introduced by the newer games.
‘It’s interesting when I hear people say [they prefer the old entries] because I am wondering, ‘Why do you want to go back to a type of game where you’re more limited or more restricted in the types of things or ways you can play?’ said producer Eiji Aonuma in a new interview.
That comment seems to leave little chance of ever going back to the old ways, but he added: ‘I do understand that desire that we have for nostalgia, and so I can also understand it from that aspect.’
You could be optimistic and say that is a nod to rumours that Nintendo is considering a remake of Ocarina Of Time, or one of the other older games, as a way to keep the old style alive, and that certainly does seem a possibility.
Remakes and purposefully retro titles are much quicker to make and a good way to keep the series’ name alive between mainline entries, but Aonuma is a long way from confirming anything like that.
Speaking to IGN, after the recent The Game Awards, he also made it clear that he’s not all that bothered about chronology and making the often contradictory series lore make sense.
‘Personally, I don’t like to put too much stock in the chronology of the series, because from the design perspective, that can kind of box us in and limit where we’re able to take the story as we continue making games in the series. And so, I do think it’s something that is best for people to interpret on their own.’
Nintendo has given some credence to fan’s three-pronged timeline concept but it’s clear they don’t consider it very important and certainly not something that would stop them retconning a detail the moment they felt like it.
And yet, perhaps the most interesting comment from the interview regards one thing that fans have repeatedly been asking for, especially in recent years: for Zelda to be a proper, playable character.
‘It is interesting when you think about the name of the series, The Legend Of Zelda, but Link is always the main character,’ says Aonuma.
‘Zelda has always been involved and they have a relationship and their own rules in each of the games, but it is true that I think there’s always room for thinking about this type of thing and Zelda’s role. And there may be some sort of possibility for something like that in the future.’
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