The worlds of The Legend of Zelda have never been really restrictive, but with Breath of the Wild they reached a new level of freedom. The open world was consistently used in the recently released Tears of the Kingdom, according to the producer Eiji Aonuma it is even the format of the future.
With The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Nintendo made the leap into a true open world for the first time in the history of the series. The recently released Tears of the Kingdom offers you just as much freedom, which fans appreciate with enormous sales success.
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In an interview with GameInformer, series producer Eiji Aonuma explained why this type of game world is the future for him. As a comparison, he draws on the classic Ocarina of Time, which also set an immense milestone for the series. However, Aonuma also acknowledges that 3D graphics are somewhat limiting for developers and players. At least if you use the format from Ocarina of Time as a case study.
Accordingly, Breath of the Wild was important to him as a game that completely turned The Legend of Zelda upside down again: “Of course, the series after Ocarina of Time has constantly evolved, but I think you can say that with Breath of the Wild and the new type of open play and freedom it offers. I think it’s fair to say that it has created a new type of format for the series that we will continue with.”
According to him, after the end of production of Breath of the Wild, there was still a lot of untapped potential in this new version of Hyrule. Ultimately, after a presentation from director Hidemaro Fujibayashi, the team was fully committed to set Tears of the Kingdom in the same world.
Bad news, then, if you don’t want to warm up to The Legend of Zelda’s reimagining. Then again, they’re not the only offshoots of the series, and who knows, maybe we’ll get decent reboots of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess one day. One can still dream…
In preparation for the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom this week, catch up on the story behind Breath of the Wild here.
