Daily Debate: Do You Want The Sky Or Ocean To Return As Key Settings For Future Zelda Games?
Posted on June 09 2020 by Sean Gadus
Two games that I always really enjoyed playing were The Wind Waker and Skyward Sword. These were not necessarily the most original games from a gameplay perspective, but both titles had great characters and stories that I fell in love with. Another thing the two games had in common were intriguing and memorable settings. The Wind Waker took place on The Great Sea, a massive ocean filled with mysterious islands, fearsome sea monsters, and secrets galore. Skyward Sword had its central hub town set high above clouds and allowed players to visit some floating islands scattered across the sky.
While both these settings proved to be memorable, the Zelda series hasn’t utilized either of these “landscapes” since their respective debuts. While The Wind Waker was followed up by Phantom Hourglass, another seafaring adventure, that was the last time Link had a solely ocean based adventure. Skyward Sword’s sky area received a great deal of criticism for not achieving its full potential, and no other Zelda game has really even attempted to do anything above the clouds since 2011.
With this in mind, would you want either the sky or ocean to return as primary settings in future Zelda games? I think that both concepts have great potential, especially with the open-world design that was established in Breath of the Wild. It easy to imagine an open-world game that allows the player to explore an ocean in all directions. The dungeons and other key areas could be scattered islands (both massive and tiny landmasses) across the world. In the same vein, the technology of the Switch could allow designers to finally utilize the full potential of the sky as a setting and the Loftwing as a mode of transformation to create a wide open Zelda experience.
One potential draw back of having Loftwing and a sky-based open world would be that it might make climbing somewhat irrelevant, especially if you can simply fly around the map and land on the top of mountains. The developers at Nintendo might have to be creative in how they restrict your Loftwing’s abilities and skills early in the adventure. Setting another Zelda game in the ocean has a lot of potential, and this is truly my dream for a future Zelda game. Since the shorelines and parts of the ocean were accessible in Breath of the Wild, the Zelda team could build off the foundation they already created. With the new hardware power of the Switch, designers could make larger islands than were possible in The Wind Waker, keeping many of the elements of traversal and gameplay that were featured in Breath of the Wild.
Would you like to see the sky or ocean return as the primary setting of a future Zelda game? What would some drawback or downsides of bringing these design ideas back? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
Featured Image by VickyViolet
Sean Gadus is a Senior Editor at Zelda Dungeon. His first Zelda game was Ocarina of Time, and he loves all of the 3D Zelda games from 1998-2011. The final battle of Tears of the Kingdom is one of his favorite final battles in the entire series. He wants to help build a kinder, more compassionate world. You can check out his other written work at The-Artifice.com.
