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Zelda Producer Addresses Fans Wanting “Traditional Linear” Adventures

• Jacob Chambers
• December 11th, 2023

Tears of the Kingdom builds on Breath of the Wild’s beautiful open-world formula, continuing the Zelda franchise’s new direction. Despite their critical acclaim, some fans miss the “old-style” Zelda and the more “linear” games.

Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma knows that, and he gave IGN an interesting response. Aonuma attributes fans’ desires to nostalgia and “the thing that we don’t currently have” after Tears of the Kingdom changed the series.

However, Aonuma believes that Tears of the Kingdom has a “set path; it just happens to be the path that [the players] chose.”:

“…it’s interesting when I hear people say [they want more linear Zelda] because I am wondering, “Why do you want to go back to a type of game where you’re more limited or more restricted in the types of things or ways you can play?” But I do understand that desire that we have for nostalgia, and so I can also understand it from that aspect.”

Tears of the Kingdom received a lot of feedback, especially on dungeons. The pseudo-dungeons of Breath of the Wild, the Divine Beasts, weren’t enough for many. In one response, Aonuma discusses dungeons from Tears of the Kingdom.

He says the team wanted “to put a bit more density or thoughtfulness into the designs” when designing dungeons in this sequel. Many of the puzzles in these dungeons have multiple solutions. The team “broke apart” Zelda to “rethink the conventions of the series” in Breath of the Wild. Though Aonuma heard fan requests,

“But then we did hear the desire from fans for a bit more of a designed dungeon, and that led to our approach to dungeons for Tears of the Kingdom. And so as we proceed, whenever we’re making a game, we look back at our past and then consider where we are now with the freedom that we give to the player in these games.”

The extensive IGN interview with Aonuma and the game’s director, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, reveals the team’s goals for this sequel and other Zelda series possibilities.

Future Zelda games may feature playable Zelda. Aonuma is vague but leaves the door open.