Legend Of Zelda 2019: How Nintendo Can Beat Breath Of The Wild

What To Keep And What To Revisit (And That 2019 Release Date)

So here we are in 2019, eagerly anticipating the next Legend of Zelda.

A new Zelda game has been released at least every two years since 1998, and we are approaching 2 years now since Breath of the Wild. As well as producer Eiji Aonuma confirming that a new game is in production, game director Hidemaro Fujibayashi confirmed he has lots of ideas and motivation for the next game, but could not confirm if it will indeed be a sequel to Breath of the Wild, or what form the game will take.

However, one thing he did confirm was that, because of how well it was received, the incredible freedom that came with Breath of the Wild will be something that needs to be maintained in Zelda games moving forward.

There is every possibility that this new Zelda title will be a smaller project, such as a 3DS game. Nintendo have been very clear in the past that they do intend to keep supporting their 3DS playerbase, however with the massive success of the Switch, it’s hard to believe that Nintendo wouldn’t capitalize on that market. Nintendo certainly won’t want to mess around with the formula too much after Breath of the Wild broke sales records, selling 11.7 million copies worldwide.

If the new game will use the same engine as Breath of the Wild, then it is safe to assume that we will see the same cel-shaded graphics style, however, while Breath of the Wild was also developed for the Wii U, we would expect to see a much more refined and detailed art style on a switch exclusive release, now free from the ties of the older, less-capable Wii U hardware.

In a perfect world, Nintendo will take everything groundbreaking that stunned consumers with Breath of the Wild, and inject more of the classic Zelda charm that was missing from it. Now that we have had a giant sandbox Zelda, the next title should maintain the level of exploration, but have more of a linear story, with more to see and do, to keep up the pace.

Keep the same sense of being able to ride off in any direction you fancied, but cut out a lot of the dead space. Don’t get me wrong, visiting every corner of the map searching for shrines and korok seeds was a blast, but now that we’ve had that, our new Zelda must be tightened up a bit.