When I was perusing some old posts of mine, few stood out as sorely requiring a revisit than a review I wrote back in 2017 about Breath of the Wild.  When the game first released, it was a momentous occasion for any Zelda fan.  Hyrule was larger and grander than ever before, and we had an unprecedented level of freedom to explore it to our heart’s content.  Seeing as we had never experienced a Zelda game of such magnitude before, it was no surprise that I had a blast not only uncovering an adventure that was, in some ways, entirely my own, but discussing and comparing my experience to others, who had found and done some thing I hadn’t, while I myself had discovered other unique finds that they had yet to encounter.

So what’s changed?  To start, let’s ask a few questions.  Is Breath of the Wild still an amazing game?  Yes.  Was my excitement over playing it exaggerated?  No.  But do I want more of it?

No.  No, I don’t.

Okay, the answer to that question is actually a bit complicated (hence the post).  I love open games.  Games like Subnautica and Outer Wilds are some of my favorite games of all time, and you can explore pretty much anywhere at any time…with some limitations.  I would absolutely love to play more games LIKE Breath of the Wild, but here’s where my new feelings veer away from how I felt all those years ago.  Because, while I do want more open-world games…I don’t want them to be Zelda games.  For you see, while BotW was new and glorious at the time, while I was having a blast at the time, I was failing to consider the future of one of my favorite franchises.

Many years later, we got the sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, which reused the same map (plus the underground and sky islands, but they weren’t as good as the recycled Hyrule) and added the ability to create vehicles.  For some reason.  And that’s when it hit me.  This game might be fine for what it is, but at what cost?  Well, my dear readers, the cost came in the form of the traditional Zelda gameplay that many of us grew up with and fell in love with being sacrificed.  Sure, we are still getting more traditional top-down games like Echoes of Wisdom (which I’ve, personally, never cared for outside of A Link to the Past), but as far as 3D games go, open-world is apparently what we’re stuck with.

To confirm the fact that one of my favorite franchises has indeed met with a terrible fate (reference, babyyyy!), I did some quick research and read that Aonuma, the producer of the Zelda franchise (so he sounds pretty dang important…) doesn’t want to return to “linear” Zelda games and doesn’t understand the appeal, believing it to stem merely from nostalgia and nothing else.  And with all due respect, Mr. Producer-Man, I think you’re missing the point.  It’s not that us old-school fans just want a linear experience.  I’m not sitting around and saying to myself, “You know what’s wrong with modern games, they don’t boss me around as much!  Start telling me what to do again!”  It’s that linearity sometimes is better for creating a cohesive and interesting narrative with rewarding progression, something that is very difficult to do in an open-world game.  Even in a 3D platformer with large worlds to explore, these worlds are still unlocked in a specific order.  (Imagine playing Banjo-Kazooie, and instead of ending on the amazing Click Clock Wood, you finish the game with Mumbo’s Mountain.  How anticlimactic would that be!)

And on another note, why does Zelda strictly need to be linear again?  I know I sound like I’m contradicting myself now, but hear me out.  Why can’t we have a more traditional Zelda experience AND have one that is more open?  Why is it only one or the other, huh?  Why can’t we just have both?  Because the Zelda series is no stranger to freedom.  Just a few months ago, I replayed the first 3D Zelda game, Ocarina of Time, and was impressed by how open the latter portion of the game was.  While the first half of the game is pretty linear, the latter half really isn’t.  I was really excited to visit the Bottom of the Well and the Shadow Temple, so I completed them before the Water Temple.  And back when I was a duckling, I would often complete the Spirit Temple before the Fire Temple (even though the Fire Temple should, technically, be adult Link’s second temple, and the Spirit Temple should be the last).

The reason this was possible was because the story was open enough to allow us to experience many of adult Link’s later temples in any order (each location had its own story that didn’t interfere with the stories of others) and because the items we found in each temple, while useful in other locations, weren’t always required for the later temples.  But Duck, the hover boots were required to even reach the Spirit Temple!  Nuh-uh, you can also get there by using the longshot on the box on the other side of the quicksand!  This was the perfect way to balance open freedom with the traditional gameplay and progression us Zelda fans grew up with.

And now, for one last example that strays outside the Zelda series, but is equally relevant…Metroidvanias.  I love the Metroidvania formula because you have a good amount of freedom to explore, while also being unable to progress to certain parts of the map until after you collected a certain item or completed a certain task.  That was a great way to avoid hedging the player in and giving them the room to explore, while also keeping the game’s narrative intact by blocking off difficult sections for later or not allowing one to progress somewhere that might spoil part of the story too early.  I think older Zelda games balanced this very same formula quite well.  If anything, Ocarina of Time is proof that linearity is not required to make traditional Zelda games work.

I liked Breath of the Wild a lot back then.  But my love for the game has since faded, while my adoration for old-school Zelda games has not.  Unfortunately, Nintendo seems to be pretty stubborn with what they do with their games.  Just look at the Paper Mario situation…we asked for more games like what we loved on the N64 and GameCube, and they just turned to us, made eye contact, and gave us a big fat “Nope”.  And I know Nintendo, technically, has the right to do with their franchises as they will, but the fans have a deep attachment to their games, and I wish that, sometimes, what we wanted actually had some bearing on their decision-making.

Will we get more traditional 3D Zelda games?  It’s possible.  I recently saw Nintendo finally cave about bringing back a certain favorite character of mine (I won’t say who it is because of spoilers), so maybe there is hope.  Not in our near future, I assume, but someday.  Maybe.  They are remaking Ocarina of Time, so…that’s cool.  I can’t play it because I don’t want a Switch 2, but…that’s cool.  Fortunately, while BotW is no longer what I want, I still can replay the games I do want.  And as I replay Majora’s Mask for the umpteenth time, I will hope for a Zelda revival that may or may not come.  And even if it never does, I gotta admit, I’m pretty happy with what I already have.

Banner image captured from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild gameplay (© Nintendo). All other images are also © Nintendo.