Daily Debate: If Setting One More Game in Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule Was Absolutely Necessary, What Would Nintendo Have To Do To Pull It Off?

The decision to set Tears of the Kingdom in the same world as its predecessor, Breath of the Wild, was made very early on in the game’s development. In a pre-launch interview, director Hidemaro Fujibayashi explained, “Just like somewhere you know inside and out, we understand where everything is in Hyrule from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and because of that, we believed it was possible to create new gameplay. For this reason, in the initial proposal, we clearly stated ‘the setting will not change’ as an important concept.” He went on to say that the team wanted to respond to “fans saying that they wished they could forget everything about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and play it for the first time again.”

Many considerations were made to make Breath of the Wild‘s Hyrule feel fresh and new in Tears of the Kingdom. On top of Link’s new abilities that drastically changed traversal and players’ freedom of movement, Tears featured substantial changes to familiar areas and introduced entirely new ones like Sky Islands, The Depths, and cave systems on the surface. All these changes and additions were, according to art director Satoru Takizawa, efforts by the team “to make sure players experience [the same world] with a new sense of wonder.” The team did a very good job in that regard, if you ask me.

Now, despite the development team’s success in remixing Breath of the Wild‘s world and presenting anew in Tears of the Kingdom, it seems unthinkable that they would try to do the same thing again in a future Zelda title. There’s no way we’d see that version of Hyrule again, right? Well, for the sake of argument, let’s consider the unthinkable: What if the Zelda team wanted to set one more game in that world? What would they have to do to pull off such an insane proposition?

To me, mere aesthetic changes or new / expanded areas would not be enough to make exploring Breath of the Wild‘s Hyrule again satisfying or fun. That map is big and complex enough already. In my opinion, the only thing Nintendo could do to make another return to that world worthwhile would be to add multiplayer to the experience. Giving players the opportunity to journey through that massive map with a group of friends — in a spiritual successor to Four Swords, for example — would effectively shake up the Breath of the Wild formula enough to make the entire experience feel brand new. It’d be such a seismic shift in gameplay that one could conceivably forget that they’ve explored every mountain and cave in that world already.

But what do you think? Consider the impossible for a second: What would Nintendo have to do successfully return players to Breath of the Wild‘s Hyrule one last time? Join the debate in the comments below!

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