Zelda Producer Says Tears Of The Kingdom Will Be The "New Format" For The Series

thegamer.com:

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild completely transformed the Zelda series. With an open world and a bunch of different ways to approach challenges, it was like no Zelda game before it. Even so, it's safe to say that it manages to win over the fanbase, quickly solidifying itself as one of the most popular games on the platform. So, when it came to a follow-up, it was no surprise that Nintendo stuck with these changes.

Now, as this formula proves successful with Tears of the Kingdom, the devs are never looking back. Speaking after Tears of the Kingdom's launch, series director Eiji Aonuma confirms that this style of Zelda game will be the "new format" going forward, leaving the style of previous instalments behind.

Related: If You're Missing Out On Tears Of The Kingdom, Wait For Baldur's Gate 3

Speaking with Game Informer, series producer Eiji Aonuma confirms that Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom's style will be the blueprint for future Zelda games. In explaining this, he compared it to the effect that Ocarina of Time had on the series in 1998.

"With Ocarina of Time, I think it's correct to say that it did kind of create a format for a number of titles in the franchise that came after it," says Aonuma.

However, he doesn't necessarily believe that this was always a good thing. "In some ways, that was a little bit restricting for us. While we always aim to give the player freedoms of certain kinds, there were certain things that [the Ocarina of Time format] didn't really afford in giving people freedom."

With this in mind, Breath of the Wild, and now Tears of the Kingdom, seem to be the antidote to this, with a heavy focus on player freedom. And this isn't a development philosophy that it will be ditching