The Future of Zelda: Leaving Hyrule

My first adventure with Link was on the island Koholint, which is a virtual world that I keep close to my heart. And after I had explored the different iterations of Hyrule from the NES classics and Ocarina of Time, Nintendo invited us to visit the strange lands of Termina, Labrynna, Holodrum and Subrosia. When the Zelda series first had gained traction in the early 2000s, half of the games took place in Hyrule and the other half someplace else.

As exciting as this was, Nintendo has not followed this trend. In fact, most of the games that came after featured some version of Hyrule, where lately they even have revisited the Hyrule from a previous title. Now, the upcoming Ocarina of Time remake certainly won't change any of that, but going forward it will be nice to breath some fresh air... And that's what this article will be about.

The Future of 2D Zelda

We are going to get a remake of Ocarina of Time later this year, while a new 3D Zelda game is presumably in development at Nintendo EPD3. So, the Zelda fans who prefer the big adventures from a 3rd person perspective already have a lot coming on the Nintendo Switch 2. But if you also enjoy following Link's and Zelda's journeys from a top-down or side-scrolling perspective, then you will have to wait and see for now.

To be fair, the latest installment in the series is still Echoes of Wisdom, which isn't even two years old yet. But presuming that GREZZO is not the studio behind the Ocarina of Time remake, it's likely that they are already working on the next 2D Zelda game, whether that's another remake or a new title. So, let's talk about how this could look like... and what may lie beyond.

Super Zeldathon

Zeldathon is running the whole week, collecting money for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Check it out and maybe leave a donation. This time it's digging deep into the 90s nostalgia and they even have SuperMCGamer back on board, who started the whole thing, but stepped down from his leadership role after Zeldathon 1986 two years ago. And that's making me nostalgic as well.

Echoes of Wisdom ~ Multiplayer Sequel Ideas

In The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom you briefly play as Link, before you slip into the role of Princess Zelda for the first time in the mainline series. Unlike Link, who still relies on his trusty sword, shield, bow and bombs, Zelda primarily fights by summoning echoes of monsters, while she can also freely steer entities around by binding them to her own movements.

Now, this is a great basis for another cooperative multiplayer Zelda game, following Four Swords, Four Swords Adventures and Tri Force Heroes, but this time tailored to two players. It would be perfect for pairs who are into Zelda, where Hazelight Studios has popularized this genre of games, with A Way Out, It Takes Two and Split Fiction.

This idea is as old as Echoes of Wisdom itself, but let's finally get into more detail here. Spoiler warning for the game's ending! Don't hit "read more", unless you have beaten Echoes of Wisdom or don't care.

Echoes of Wisdom ~ Stamp Rally Challenge

GOOOOOO STAMP RALLY! As a fellow stamp enthusiast, why just collect stamps when you can collect stamps in a specific order? Isn't that some stamp-tacular idea? Yes? Let's doooo this!

Okay... So, in Echoes of Wisdom you get five stamp cards to fill, where each of them has five slots for stamps. And there exist five different stamp designs in the game, where each design has five designated stamp stands in the world. The game remembers which stamp was put in which slot, meaning that the stamp cards will look different at the end for a number of players.

Knowing this, you can plan ahead and fill out the cards in an order of your liking. And that's what I did when I was recently replaying the game. There are very different approaches you can take here, but if you want some order to your order, then you will either go for five different stamps on each card or five of the same stamps. Let's talk a little bit about this...

Echoes of Wisdom ~ Review Added

This is to inform you that a new review was added to Hyrule Blog, one for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Most of it got written back in late 2024, after I had first played through the game, so I decided to add it into the archive around the time, because it makes the most sense there historically. Here is the link:

Read the Review

All the screenshots were also taken during my first playthrough in 2024, but a lot of them didn't find their way into my Adventure Log. And here it's nice to show off some more, so they don't just rot on my harddrive.

Well, at the time, I wasn't able to finish the article for personal reasons. And it can be tough to write a review when I already have talked so much about a new game, because it feels redundant. Still, I find them to be very valuable, because they collect all my important thoughts from the play logs. But once some time has passed, I need to play the game again to refresh those thoughts, which is what I have done in this case (see here).

There are also half-finished reviews for both Age of Calamity and Imprisonment somewhere in my drafts, where hopefully I will get back to those one day. Sadly, for Breath of the Wild I only have an intro and some notes, while I didn't even bother with Tears of the Kingdom...

PS: I also added a post about the connections to Oracle of Ages, which is also something I meant to write back then.

Replaying Echoes of Wisdom

After replaying Ocarina of Time back in June, I was in the mood for some top-down Zelda goodness, where Echoes of Wisdom was on top of my list. It and Tears of the Kingdom are the two most recent Zelda games, where I had played and completed both of them only once so far. Well, this won't change anytime soon for Tears of the Kingdom, because I'm fed up on that game, but with Echoes of Wisdom it's hard to say no when it's so short and sweet, just like a good classic Zelda.

But there is more to it, because I was also able to experience the game in new ways. This time I played it from start to finish in Hero Mode, which I had ignored entirely during my initial run. And thanks to the free update for the Nintendo Switch 2, I was now able to play Echoes of Wisdom in 4K and fluid 60FPS. In addition, I've went through the game's dungeons in a completely different order. Hit "read more" to learn more about all of this.