A Link to the Future: Why Not a Futuristic Zelda Game?

Many likely read the title and began to face-palm. Zelda is a high fantasy style game, it can’t possibly be some futuristic steam punk or sci-fi type game. I mean come on, that’s not Zelda. We would lose the essence of the series and in the end, lose a majority of the fan base if the series went in that direction.

Of course this ignores the fact this almost happened anyways. For those that need reminding, the original concept for this came from Miyamoto himself. According to Hyrule Historia, Link’s name originally had nothing to do with the “link” between the player and the character on screen. Rather, the name had to do with how he “linked” with the past and the future. In essence, the original premise for the Zelda series involved time travel with a distant future.

These concepts were only further

brought to light in the early work for A Link to the Past, where we

can see actual concept drawings for such an event. For those not

aware, A Link to the Past is essentially what Miyamoto’s vision was

for the original Legend of Zelda, except as fate would have it

instead of the light and dark world it would be the past and the

future. This never came to pass for whatever reason, and as such we

have the series we know and love today.

Still, if this was one of the founding

ideas that was scrapped, is it not possible to execute in some

fashion? Other RPG-style games have some how blended high fantasy

into futuristic atmospheres without a hitch, and there have been

plenty of “high-tech” things in Hyrule over the years. While

much of this technology appears to be from a distant past, it’s clear

there was an idea of a pretty high-tech Hyrule at some point.

Would it honestly hurt us to finally

visit that time in Hyrule? When technology ruled the day? How were

weapons formed when things like laser beams existed? The fact is that

high-tech Zelda exists in the lore already, so a distant past or far

off futuristic game is far from something we should scoff at.

In looking to the past lore, we could

argue that doing so would only uncover an extra, not fully

understood, layer of depth in the Zelda mythos. In looking to the

distant future, we could finally see what has become of Hyrule as it

welcomed technology back into it’s world.

In both Skyward Sword and

Twilight Princess we get small tastes of times long forgotten,

a period that could easily repeat itself in the future. The question becomes: Should Nintendo stop beating around the bush and just

give us that version of Hyrule? While many may oppose, I say let’s

just see what happens. While you’re at it Nintendo, let me see what

happens to the people I just saved too. It’s a bit tiring saving the

world and then never seeing what becomes of it.