Game news After the immense Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, the Nintendo series must reinvent itself… The next Zelda will have to hit hard!
After being blown away twice by the Zelda series, its developers have announced that they want to fundamentally rethink its mechanics for a future opus. But how can we improve a formula that has managed to charm the whole world? We talk about it in our JV Debate!
The first anniversary of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is fast approaching, the opportunity to look at the future of the series. By the developers’ own admission, if the gameplay of the last two episodes had refreshed the license, it is time to make it evolve again. Very discreet on the subject, it is up to the fans to fill the Internet with ideas and to express their own vision of the path the Zelda series should take. But then, should we continue to develop current mechanisms or would it be better to go backwards? We discuss it in our JV Debate.
Check out The Legend of Zelda: Tears of Kingdom on Amazon
More iconic enemies
If the last two iterations of Link’s adventures are full of qualities, certain points still obscure the picture, such as its bestiary notably. In fact, the ranks of Demon King Ganondorf are generally made up of the same enemy races, their level being simply decided according to their color. From then on, and to avoid the hassle of creating a multitude of enemy types, why not take inspiration from the Nemesis system in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.
The Monolith Productions title embeds said system where the eponyms “Nemesis” are in fact randomly named enemies within Sauron’s ranks. These then have an evolving personality which will change according to the player’s habits and according to the progress of the game.. They can, for example, flee the fight or even mix with a horde to do more damage. By defeating these “Nemeses”, the player is then handsomely rewarded. Transposed to the Zelda universe, in addition to the different Lynels which almost already represent sub-bosses, it would be interesting to see one or several recurring enemies attack Link throughout the adventure and offer a greater challenge than their peers.
A more in-depth and better managed narrative
If the series has not necessarily always shone for its storyline, the more the episodes progress, the more the stories develop. However, the last two opuses may have frustrated some players eager for stories, the narration being much less central in the latter. If the fragmentation of the story was justifiable in Breath of the Wild via Link’s direct memories dating back over a hundred years, this is less the case with regard to Tears of the Kingdom. In fact, even if regional investigations further segment the player’s journey and develop small stories, all linked to the central points of the scenario, however, they have no impact on each other.
In fact, the recoverable memories are, this time, not those of Link, but those of Zelda in the past. These provide a lot of keys to understanding current events, including the response to certain intrigues, such as that of the false princess which is at the heart of said regional investigations . From then on, and if Link is aware of the imposture, why doesn’t the scenario adapt, by changing the dialogue to make it a known threat, or by modifying its dangerousness? A more organic narration, where choices and events have a real impact on the rest of the story, as in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for example, would be much more relevant story-wise for a series as ambitious as The Legend of Zelda.
If these are just two ideas among those discussed during the discussion. To find out more, don’t hesitate to watch our JV Debate!
This page contains affiliate links to certain products that JV has selected for you. Each purchase you make by clicking on one of these links will not cost you more, but the e-merchant will pay us a commission. The prices indicated in the article are those offered by the merchant sites at the time of publication of the article and these prices are likely to vary at the sole discretion of the merchant site without JV being informed.
Learn more.