Nintendo has offered a brief tease about the next Legend of Zelda game following Tears of the Kingdom, just days before the highly anticipated Ocarina of Time remake arrives on Nintendo Switch 2.
It’s been over three years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom launched in 2023, following the enormous success of 2017’s Breath of the Wild and wowing fans by taking the franchise’s open-world exploration and puzzle solving each to another level.
Although Nintendo has kept quiet about its plans for another mainline adventure, the series‘ 40th anniversary has laid the way for plenty of speculation for new reveals. That’s especially with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake launching exclusively on Switch 2 on 5 November, sharing the spotlight with GTA VI to be one of the most hyped months in gaming history.
However, while everyone prepares to revisit Hyrule’s past, series producer Eiji Aonuma has now offered an intriguing glimpse into its future.
Zelda producer teases what’s next after Tears of the Kingdom
Nintendo has suggested that Tears of the Kingdom won’t receive another direct sequel (Nintendo)
During a recent visit to Paris, where he received France’s prestigious Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters honour, Aonuma spoke to AFP about the upcoming Ocarina of Timeremake and Nintendo’s approach to future Zelda games.
Interestingly, the 63-year-old developer revealed that several younger members of Nintendo’s development team had never experienced the original 1998 classic, something that ultimately helped shape its modern remake.
Aonuma explained: “It’s thanks to these young people, by thinking about how to adapt the game in the best possible way, how to make it fun once you have the controls in your hands, that this remake came into being.”
The youthful influence amongst the team didn’t stop either, apparently, as whilst looking towards the franchise’s future, Aonuma said: “I’m very interested to see what the younger staff will imagine”, also adding that he was ‘extremely happy’ to ‘think together’ when offering his guidance about the next Zelda game.
What this means for the next TLOZ game
Essentially, whilst these comments don’t reveal any concrete gameplay details about the next Legend of Zelda game beyond TOTK, Aonuma’s words suggest that Nintendo’s younger developers could play a significant role.
That could potentially mean a fresh creative direction for the series, particularly after two enormous open-world adventures built around the same version of Hyrule.
After all, Aonuma told Game Informer in 2023 that the sort of game the team had set out to build with Tears of the Kingdom — post-Breath of the Wild — had hit its peak for that particular take on TLOZ, saying: “…with Tears of the Kingdom, we were seeking to build on top of the world we created with Breath of the Wild and really exhaust the possibilities of what we could put into that world.
“I think it is — to use a bit of a term — an apotheosis, or the final form of that version of The Legend of Zelda. In that regard, I don’t think that we’ll be making a direct sequel to a world such as that that we’ve created.”
Featured Image Credit: Nintendo
