The Zelda Series Needs to go Back to go Forward - A Far Less Adaptable Formula

The Legend of Zelda is my favourite video game series of all time. Not exactly a controversial or particularly "out there" choice, I know. But most of my favourite videogames are standalone games, specific entries from a series, or don't have enough titles to be considered a series. But what sort of Zelda fan am I? If you've been on the internet long enough, you'll know there are many different types of Zelda fans! You can't just put em all into one box.

This art is so cool. Putting this here so that this is the embed thumbnail. 

Some of us love the 2D games to death, some think the series died at Twilight Princess. Some really like the Zelda Timeline and think it's the coolest thing since sliced moblin. Good thing that a modern man like myself is easily able to compress a lot of opinions into one convenient image. Introducing: The Tier List! 

Yeah, I'm a "Majora's Mask" type fan. I'm a bit of a "Zelda Boomer" because I don't tend to like the remakes/remasters. Especially not MM3D & WWHD. But that's a topic for a different blog post. (They make the game worse and/or uglier!)

So, yes. I like the Zelda series both old and new. So what's the deal with "formulas" here? No game series really starts out with a formula. The first two Zelda games march to the beat of their own drum, but you explore an overworld, and get items that allow you to explore more of the world. Link to the Past ends up setting the first "Zelda Formula" in place, by having a more involved story, and a slightly more linear structure. Interestingly, Link's awakening makes the dungeon structure even more linear, and the story is the most involved story yet. Still, side activities in the open world gradually reveal themselves to the player the more progress has been made, similar to Link to the Past.

Then, the series goes 3D for the first time. The fifth* Zelda game! It continues to have a heavily involved story, going for a much grander and less cerebral tone than Link's Awakening, but opening up the dungeon order a little. At various points in the game, the next dungeon you do can be whichever you happen to stumble into, which feels suitably adventurous and dynamic. Not like Navi's gonna let you forget what the developer intended next dungeon is, though.

Some people call Navi hate forced, and to an extent, I can see what they mean, but is is annoying when she tells you about something you were already doing.

For the next 19 years, that's basically what A Zelda Game was like. Of course, each has its own individual permutations, but "What OoT and LttP Did" really stuck. Zelda games were a consistent mix of action, adventure, puzzles, and combat. One of the things that sticks out to me about the series is how it doesn't really excel at the stuff it does, but is more of a jack of all trades. You can find better action, better stories (usually), and better puzzles in other games. But the way the series manages to tie all these gameplay ideas together into one clear adventure is so effortless that it's easy to forget how difficult it is to design!

But that's why the Zelda series is most associated with "Adventure". That's the primary feeling and function for everything else. After the release of Skyward Sword, which, I'm going to be honest, barely feels like an adventure because the overworld is all corridor, seems like Nintendo wanted to reexamine what Zelda games were really doing. They'd not done anything seriously different in a while, and the Wii U still hadn't had its own real Zelda game. Time was running out.

Somebody! Anybody!! Goddess of Time, help us please! We need more time!

Long story short, after a delay from 2015 to 2016, and then another delay to 2017, we were blessed (or cursed!) with Breath of the Wild. The most popular Zelda game of all time. No items, micro-dungeons spread across the map, physics based gameplay systems, the entire world is open to you from the very start. Interestingly, they claimed the concept was a return to Zelda 1's gameplay structure, but I don't think that's even close to accurate. Zelda 1 actually stops you from going to certain places if you don't have the right items.

Breath of the Wild is a new formula entirely, don't let that little NES thing fool you. Chopping down trees? Not something that happened in Zelda 1. What even was that thing, anyway? When will someone leak it? 

Breath of the Wild's main tie back to previous Zelda games is its emphasis on adventure. That, again, is it's strongest point. Exploration and experimentation. Of course, it wasn't long until they added the Motorbike to the game. Probably one of the most fun things in the entire game. I love the motorbike. One of the things I liked most about the game was how you could combine its systems together to solve problems in bonkers ways. 

Wasn't long before a sequel was announced. One of the few times in the Zelda series where they actually create a direct sequel with the same art style. In BotW tradition, the game was delayed multiple times until 2023 where it finally released. It's a very polarizing game. It's designed around a very specific way of playing, my way of playing. So I adored my time with the game.

Seriously. Tears of the Kingdom is some of the most fun I've had with any video game. A twisted, science experiment adventure, allowing me to fuck around with every single element of the game's engine. Creating whatever I wanted, using as many zonai parts as I could. Fusing and combining the weirdest stuff possible. It was a dream come true. I could truly do anything I wanted. A sorta-structured-sorta-not-magical-techno-swordsman-adventure. I adored it.

Of course, my enjoyment of the game was entirely pure. By the way... Have you met my husband?

But of course, I have to look at the game outside of its vacuum. It was not released as a standalone title, it's a sequel to Breath of the Wild, but it doesn't care about the story of that game in the slightest. It seems entirely uninterested in what sequels normally offer, instead doing the fresh start type thing typical of other Zelda titles.

It's even further away from what the series is. It's batshit insane. It's respectable that it's one of the best functioning physics sandboxes ever coded. They leveraged the opportunity to use Breath of the Wild to create a truly unique experience. But they also didn't want to talk about Breath of the Wild at all. The game forgets its meant to be a sequel an awful lot. Almost as much as it forgets to be a Zelda game. A truly once in a lifetime game.

You see, that's the problem. Once.

I don't want another game like Tears of the Kingdom. I feel like we have stretched how sandboxy you can make an adventure like this before it all becomes meaningless. The only further step you can take is to allow the player to alter the game's code, and at that point the game is even more "as only as fun as you make it". If you want to play a game that's like that, Double Fine's "Hack 'N' Slash" exists. 

It's not very good. Interestingly, it's also a Zelda parody. Did they know?

Tears of the Kingdom has better dungeons than Breath of the Wild, but they're not exactly masterpieces. The dungeons of OoT, Wind Waker, Etc have generally been more compelling to me. The limits you have as a player create more interesting puzzles. You are too free to do whatever you want in TotK. You can skip all the dungeons in the game and go straight for the final boss. Combining ascend, a box, and recall gives you the ability to bypass most heights and ledges in the whole game.

The issues with a game with no limits and no intended order is that it's hard to craft a a good story around that. You have to make a story that truly bends to the player's will. Very hard to craft an epic tale that can meander like that. Nearly impossible. But Nintendo is not committed enough, and just uses the linear story structure anyway. TotK takes so many risks, and so few at the same time.

With all this, it's obvious that the next Zelda game wasn't going to be what we expected at all. Honestly, the fact the final Switch 1 Zelda wasn't TotK is still pretty wild to me.

Echoes of Wisdom released in 2024 to a polite applause. But the choices it decided to make are very interesting to me. It has pieces of heart, linear dungeon order, items in the dungeons. It's far from the best that the series has to offer, but it represents something important. They went back. Less freedom, more linearity. It's not perfect, though. You can use a combination of Water, Beds, and Guay to solve basically the entire game.

"Hey guys! It's me, Guay. Cuthbert's Favourite Zelda enemy. Only appeared in OoT & MM, TP (with a crusty disgusting design), and Skyward Sword (with a bad design) until a truly magical re-appearance in Echoes of Wisdom, where my amazing flight ability allowed Cuthbert to skip many of the game's trials, tribulations, and puzzles. Caw!"

There really appears to be an attempt to marry the old Zelda fundamentals with the new, Create YOUR solution gameplay. Was it successful? Kinda. I don't think it was a particularly well received game but I enjoyed it. It's just interesting to me that the first game they made after Tears of the Kingdom is a game that retreats back to old elements. If I had to guess, Nintendo attempted to design a game more open and free than TotK, but ran into the brickwall of that being impossible.

This is where the inevitable Switch 2 Zelda is so interesting to me. Of course I'm sad that it is inevitably going to cost 90USD, but Mario Kart fans have dug everyone else's grave and I don't wish to derail this post into pricing concerns. We could be getting a game far closer to OoT, or we could end up with Breath of the Wild 3. 

If it's the former, I think the series is saved. The game is going to sell well regardless of what they do, so they'll take the lesson of whatever they put out as "What they should do from now on". This also means that Breath of the Wild 3 could release and, even as a fan of the gameplay format, I will not be interested in anything remotely like that. I want a NEW artstyle. A NEW gameplay style. I know Nintendo's thing is meant to be innovation, but sometimes their "innovations" are really not super innovative.

Like, the worst part of Echoes of Wisdom are the Echoes themselves. They're not as engaging or as fun as Dampe's creations or activating the sword mode. They're also not as interesting as it's very hard to combine them, and you're usually best served by just doing what works. Unlike making crazy contraptions in TotK, it just isn't as dynamic. And, Unlike the OoT style of game, it doesn't make you use your brain.

But I don't just want them to make exactly what they made before. There is no more damaging adage to video games than "If it ain't broke... Don't fix it!" This is something that holds best for functional things like screwdrivers and cupboards. Not video games. There's a lot of value in games feeling different. If you don't like Tears of the Kingdom, it's likely because it's too similar to Breath of the Wild. Aonuma said that Breath of the Wild was the series standard going forward, like what Ocarina of Time was. 

In retrospect, the 25th Anniversary feels a bit like a goodbye.

Now, maybe I'm just unimaginative. But I feel able to imagine new games in the Ocarina of Time format. I can picture new items, new dungeon themes. I can picture where I would personally take a game afterwards from Skyward Sword's release. I can't imagine making something interesting in the Breath of the Wild format after Tears of the Kingdom. Like, what? Do you want a game about digging for dungeons underground with Minecraft-style digging? Is that how sandbox you want to go? Seems that Donkey Kong already stole that thunder. Nothing I can think of is as interesting to me as something more linear.

In a way, it's basically time for a new formula already. If they don't want to go back to OoT, that's fine. (It's not. I'll miss that type of game!) But we need a worthwhile replacement. Mario's here doing a great job innovating on what people loved about Mario 64. Never feels like any new Mario thing treads on the toes of something that came before it. I love 64 the most, but Sunshine and Odyssey are also superb. I don't think the Zelda team needs to fear losing the novel aspects of the series.

This game will probably be good. But will more freedom make a platformer more fun? Is maximum freedom actually fun?

If a game doesn't present any friction to a player; A faultless game that exists entirely as a toy to be messed with. What is the point of the game design part? I love making my own fun with a game, but I need some collaboration from the game's side, too! Imagine a Dungeons & Dragons dungeon master who just let you do whatever you felt like, even to the logical extreme. Just lets you pass any gap, any crevasse, any combat encounter at your will. That's what the Zelda series could become. Does anyone actually want to play a game like that?

Or, are people going to enjoy a game that hands them puzzles they can't cheese, unlocking new items and ways to interact with enemies/the world across the whole playthrough. A story that progresses the way the developers intend instead of requiring you to get lucky with the order in which you locate story pieces. A game that encourages the player to enjoy the world they're playing in. To care about the characters along the way. Give people a truly unforgettable experience. Maybe even go harder on the combat. I don't know, I'm not Nintendo.

And for FUCKS sake, man. Don't have the characters ask "Demon King? Secret Stones?" 4 times in a row. 

demise? amber relics?