Daily Debate: Should The Legend of Zelda Games Allow You to Play On After the Ending?
Posted on October 10 2023 by John Furby
If you’re anything like me, the Legend of Zelda games provide hundreds of hours of gameplay, especially those in the “Wild Saga”. It took me a year and a half to finish Breath of the Wild, and not because I got stuck and couldn’t figure something out, but because I knew once I entered Hyrule Castle to face Calamity Ganon, Hyrule would be saved and this beautiful quest would be over. I beat Tears of the Kingdom a lot faster but I’m still going for that 100% completion, and wandering the land looking for Koroks and the two or three side quests I’m missing. I know you can return to a finished saved game and keep playing, but it only saves your progress up until your final fight and Ganon/Ganondorf is still a threat.
Most Zelda games follow a familiar end of game pattern. You beat Ganon or the big bad, and we see a happy Hyrule and its citizens rejoice and return to their lives pre-occupation, usually in a fun little montage lovingly started in A Link to the Past. If I had one major gripe about the games in the Wild saga, it would be the endings — they’re too short. I want to know what EVERYONE is doing post-Ganon’s defeat, not just Zelda, Link, and the Sages. In A Link to the Past, they even update us on how the Lumberjacks are doing. They moved on to the next tree and they’re doing just fine.
Every time I finish a Legend of Zelda game, I’m always left wanting something more. I’m reminded of Toejam & Earl (I think about Toejam & Earl a lot more than what’s probably considered healthy) where post-game you’re allowed to wander around your home planet of Funkotron and interact with all the happy aliens welcoming you back, for as long as you want. Why can’t Zelda games, with their already countless hours and hours of play time, allow the player to continue on after defeating Ganon? Let us explore a free and prosperous Hyrule for once. Let us wander the wilds and sleep under the stars without the looming dread of the final battle of Breath of the Wild. Let us wander the Depths with the Research Team in Tears of the Kingdom. Let us travel and visit with the free peoples of Hyrule as Adult Link in Ocarina of Time. Give those of us who are bad at goodbyes a reason to never have to say goodbye.
Do you think there should be an option in Zelda games to continue on after the final boss? What would be some of the things you would do in a free Hyrule? Let us know in the comments!
John Furby joined the Writing Team at Zelda Dungeon in mid-2023, and has been a Zelda fan since the age of four in the distant past of 1988. He graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a degree in Film/Video with a concentration in Screenwriting. When he’s not spending his free time traveling through the newest incarnation of Hyrule, he raises a sassy and powerful daughter. Somehow he also finds time to collect video games, action figures, comics, VHS, vinyl and cassettes, LEGO, Nintendo Power magazines, and old fancy phones, all while golfing, writing screenplays, editing video, and enjoying a snifter of port at Christmas.
