At the heart of Hyrule lies Lookout Landing, your base of operations. This is where you get most of your main assignments, but also a variety of trophy items, where I have my eyes on those. There were more Hinox to hunt, Taluses to crush, and wells to find, which is what I've primarily been up to for the last two weeks. But I also found the missing Old Maps, as well as lots of Koroks on the way...
Today Nintendo has announced via Twitter that they are going to release an orchestra concert for The Legend of Zelda on Friday, February 9th, where we will be able to watch the pre-recorded concert on Youtube. Well, that's certainly cheaper than visiting a live symphony, but I also wouldn't mind if something like the Symphony of the Goddesses were to return at some point.
This is giving me 25th Anniversary vibes in any case, because the corners of the artwork use the same design as the special 25th Anniversary Edition of the Nintendo 3DS, which was released together with Ocarina of Time 3D in 2011. This artwork was also used for the 30th Anniversary Concert album, which has been available in Japan in 2016, where this might be related.
We don't have a major anniversary coming up before 2026, however, where they may have simply updated their program with music from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, as a bit of advertisement. I'm not expecting much here, other than some lovely entertainment, but there is also the slight chance that this may tie into some upcoming announcement...
After February 9th the next Nintendo Direct should be just around the corner, maybe it's even the day before. And if we're getting some remake or remaster for the Zelda series this year, then that's where we will learn about it. This Zelda Orchestra Concert then could be the perfect opportunity to feature some music from the upcoming release, to get us in the mood.
I'm personally hoping for a remake of the Oracle games and a big question always has been how they will handle the music there, because music rights are somewhat complicated in Japan. It's probably part of the reason why the Capcom Zelda games never got featured at the Symphony of the Goddesses and similar concerts. But maybe the remake could be getting new music to make it happen and this is where we will first get to hear some of it... It's wishful thinking, I know, but I'm looking forward to it in any case.
Update: this concert was originally supposed to be part of Nintendo Live 2024 TOKYO, an event scheduled for the last weekend, which had to be cancelled because of some threats (source). So, this pre-recorded concert, where there will be also one for Splatoon, is simply a replacement. With that in mind, I wouldn't expect it to feature anything that is currently unannounced, of course.
Starting today, Nintendo will distribute four new waves of Nintendo Switch Online user icons about Tears of the Kingdom. There will be a cute, little Backpack Korok icon, among others, adding to the 101 icon elements from before, though some of those are returning as well.
Right now they also have the icons for the five Zonai abilities: Ultrahand, Fuse, Ascend, Recall, and Autobuild. They look really cool, so I recommend to grab those while you still can. I made myself an icon with Ascend, because that one is underrated.
Sometimes they do re-runs of previously released icons, like over last Christmas, but I don't think they've ever brought back such an extensive collection as a whole, so there is a bit of FOMO with this stuff. You can also only get them with an active Nintendo Switch Online membership, where it cannot be the free trial period.
Source: Twitter
The Nintendo Switch will soon enter its eighth year and has the potential to become the best-selling video game system of all time, if Nintendo keeps it going for a little while longer. Still, they are with all certainty in the middle of preparing its successor and a number of new games for it, where it's even likely that any big titles that remain, like Metroid Prime 4, are going to be saved for the new system. In the meantime, Nintendo will tie us over with smaller titles, remakes, remasters, and ports, like Mario vs. Donkey Kong, or Luigi's Mansion 2 HD.
Now, this is going to be a wish list of ten titles, where I would still like them finding their way onto the Nintendo Switch, either for the sake of convenience or the sake of completeness. I will focus on games that can be either remastered or ported, meaning that they wouldn't need a from-scratch remake in order to look good enough. This essentially limits the choices to GameCube, Wii, Wii U, and Nintendo 3DS titles.
This can be anything previously published by Nintendo, so this won't just be about Zelda games. If you want to read more about those, check out my Future of Zelda Remakes & Remasters article, though there will be a bit of overlap here. Also, I'm perfectly aware that this post may look ironic, considering that I wrote this about six years ago. But times change and by now I really prefer having all games on my Nintendo Switch, where I rarely go back to my older Nintendo systems to play on them.
We're soon going to get Luigi's Mansion 2 HD for the Nintendo Switch, a remaster of the Nintendo 3DS title. The first game was brought onto the Nintendo 3DS as well in 2018 by GREZZO, where this could serve as the basis to later also have it remastered in the same style. With that we would have entire trilogy on the system.
These titles always have been such an obvious choice for ports from the Wii U that this kept coming up ever since the dawn of the Nintendo Switch. And after such a long time it's perfectly okay to take the last bit that the Wii U still has going for it. It would allow to play all 3D Zelda games on the Nintendo Switch, which is a big deal for those who don't own any older Nintendo consoles.
On the other hand, if Nintendo was willing to put more effort into these, then they would make great titles for the next console. Imagine Twilight Princess getting the same treatment as Metroid Prime Remastered – it would certainly make a lot of fans very happy if this were to happen over a simple port of the previous HD remaster.
Speaking of Metroid Prime Remastered, it would be nice to see the sequel getting the same treatment, because it's really one of the best looking and most impressive games on the Nintendo Switch from a technical standpoint. This would serve as another filler in 2024, before we're finally getting Metroid Prime 4 and it could also be shadow-dropped in the same style as last year.
As a separate title once more, they could also put bigger focus on the multipayer mode, maybe even allow you to play it online for the first time ever. If Metroid Prime 4 also were to get multiplayer, this could serve as a play test, so to speak.
At one point it will be nice to have the entire Metroid Prime trilogy on the Nintendo Switch in some form, but there may be a split here. If Metroid Prime 4 really is one of the first major games for the Nintendo Switch successor, then a remaster of Metroid Prime 3 might be something that they will keep for later, also making use of the better hardware. After all, there was a generational gap between the first two games and the third, even if it only was a slight one.
This Wii game was the last entry in the Wario Land series, which is a shame, especially since it returned to its roots of Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land here, meaning that Wario won't transform whenever he gets hit by something. It is a hidden gem made by Good-Feel, the studio that would later make such cozy platformers like Kirby's Epic Yarn or Yoshi's Woolly World. Both of these got ported to the Nintendo 3DS as some of its last titles and maybe the Nintendo Switch will get a similar treatment from Good-Feel in its last years...
Coming from Jump 'n' Runs and games made by Retro Studios, we move on to a combination of both, where they had revived the Donkey Kong Country series with two fantastic games. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze was already one of the first ports for the Nintendo Switch and it would be nice if its predecessor were to find its way right next to it. There was a Nintendo 3DS version, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, which added a couple of levels, better controls, and some helpful extras, but came at the price of the frame rate. A Nintendo Switch release therefore could become the ultimate version of the game.
This was one of the early Nintendo 3DS games and the only "recent" game by Masahiro Sakurai that wasn't a Super Smash Bros. title. It was also the revival of the Kid Icarus franchise, which didn't last... But it had a number of barriers, where the biggest one were probably the controls. The whole AR card collection thingy, which was going on at the time, may also have been something to put you off. There have been rumors that Sakurai has been working on a remaster of this title, where this certainly would do it some good...
Just for the sake of completion, to have the entire series on the Nintendo Switch, there's one more game to port over from the Wii U: Xenoblade Chronicles X. But if we're truly getting a "Xenoblade Warriors" this year, as I'm personally predicting, then this could also be something for later.
Finally, after the success of Metroid Dread, MercurySteam may update their first Metroid title from the Nintendo 3DS for some quick cash. Well, they will probably go for another remake entirely, like Super Metroid or Metroid Fusion, or they are already working on Metroid 6. But in case that the assets for Metroid: Samus Returns already were developed in HD and only got downscaled for the Nintendo 3DS (which happened with other games, e.g. Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS), then a remaster would be a very good side project for the meantime and allow you to play this excellent game in the same glory as Metroid Dread.
"Aus Alt mach Neu."
This is a German saying that translates to "from old make new", and fits nicely into the topic of enhanced ports, remasters, and remakes of video games. You may not like it, you may not need it, but it's an important topic nevertheless, because it helps keeping games accessible to newer generations of gamers, while it's also always a chance to improve older games, to make them as good as you remember them – or even better.
This may backfire, as in case of Majora's Mask 3D, where it's possible to improve something for the worse ("Verschlimmbessern"), but for the most part the Zelda series has a solid track record when it comes to bringing its old games back in new glory. And in this article we will go through all generations of the Zelda series and evaluate their likelihood of making a return on the Nintendo Switch or its successor in the upcoming years.
With the sole exception of Four Swords Adventures, all Zelda games were made playable during the previous generation in some form, on either the Nintendo 3DS or the Wii U, some even on both (see here). But with the Nintendo Switch came the first hard cut in a long time, providing no backwards compatibility whatsoever. And there also came a big wave of new players, who didn't have a Nintendo console for a long time or maybe even never.
So, before we talk what Zelda games will potentially be remade or remastered in the upcoming years, let's first look what the Nintendo Switch has to offer at the moment. The following games run natively on the system:
With a Nintendo Switch Online (+ Expansion Pack) subscription you can also get access to a variety of emulated games:
All in all, that's twelve of the 20 mainline titles and three out of six spin-offs (from those released outside of Japan), which is very solid. But there is still a good chunk missing and some of the emulated games haven't aged all too well, which is why we will also consider them for potential remakes despite their presence.
There is currently no reason to believe that the next Nintendo system won't be backwards compatible, which means that all of the above titles will likely carry over, some might even get performance improvements or upscaling. In the very least, it should be in Nintendo's own interest to keep their current account model, together with the Nintendo Switch Online service, which gives you access to the classic console libraries.
The two Zelda games for the NES are the most re-released titles in the series, where they have been playable in some form on every Nintendo system for the past 20 years, with the sole exception of the Nintendo DSi. They were on the Collector's Edition disc for the Nintendo GameCube, they were part of the NES Classics series for the Game Boy Advance, they were on the Virtual Console on the Wii, Wii U, and Nintendo 3DS. And finally, you can play them with a basic Nintendo Switch Online subscription, as mentioned above. In addition, you can also find them on dedicated hardware, where we had the Nintendo Classic Mini in 2016, as well as the Legend of Zelda Game & Watch system from two years ago.
Nintendo made sure that you can play these two games somehow, if you're truly interested. Still, despite the availability, they aren't the easiest games to get into, where fans have been asking for remakes since the 90s. But the NES classics aren't exactly remake material, because they are lacking many of the elements that make a Zelda game today and that were introduced with A Link to the Past. Better graphics and controls wouldn't change that these games are rather archaic in comparison to later titles in the series.
They are better candidates for re-imaginings, similar to Metroid: Zero Mission and Metroid: Samus Returns, where you still have the same premise and roughly the same worlds, but it's been updated in every possible aspect, putting them on par with games of their era. But by doing so you are more likely to end up with something that becomes a Zelda game of its own...
In fact, that's what happened with Oracle of Seasons, where originally Capcom was going to remake the first The Legend of Zelda for the Game Boy Color, but then they've added in new ideas, like the animal buddies or changing seasons.
It would still be nice to get something one day, which captures the magic of the original games in a new livery. But the reality is that there is to gain a lot more with less effort from remaking or remastering any of the later Zelda games...
We are skipping over A Link to the Past for now and move right on to the next duo of games, Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Both already got remade on the Nintendo 3DS, but at some point Nintendo will start over with the 3D Zelda games. And there already have been rumors about a potential remake of Ocarina of Time coming to the Nintendo Switch, but the timing is rather odd, because you can't say Ocarina of Time without Majora's Mask. These two games belong together and whatever treatment Ocarina of Time gets, its sequel should get it as well.
With that in mind, it makes more sense to have a remake of Ocarina of Time in the early lifecycle of a Nintendo system, so that they can follow up with Majora's Mask, using the same engine and assets, later on. They could potentially make HD remasters of the Nintendo 3DS remakes (which are technically close to being remasters as well), or they could remake both games from scratch.
Whatever will be the case, they should undo some of the changes made with Majora's Mask 3D, which weren't well received. With more buttons available you can already separate the fast swimming of Zora Link from his magic barrier, and there is no good reason to limit the Ice Arrows like they were... But let's not dwell in details here.
Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are of course not the only case where two Zelda games share the same visuals and engine, which ties them together. In this case we even have three...
The Nintendo Switch saw the excellent remake of Link's Awakening and it makes all the sense to follow up on this with a remake of the other two Game Boy Color titles, Oracle of Ages & Seasons, which were made by Capcom back in the day. They've reused a lot from Link's Awakening, where GREZZO could just take what they had created for the remake to bring back these games in the same glory in one neat package.
There is a lot of potential for improvements, where you can read all about it here: Oracle of Worlds. And this could also be something that still makes it onto the Nintendo Switch in 2024 or 2025. If we're going to see another Zelda remake in the near future, it's likely going to be this, because everything needed is in place. The only problem might be music rights, but they could just make new music for this.
While Oracle of Ages & Seasons are already playable on the Nintendo Switch via the Game Boy library, the whole password system for linking both games has never been all that convenient and can also be a bit confusing at times. To experience both games as a whole, without having to deal with that, would be an additional selling point, other than the upgraded graphics and other quality of life improvements.
If there's one 2D Zelda game that still looks very good today, then it's without a doubt The Minish Cap. You can play it on the Nintendo Switch via the Expansion Pack online membership, which features the Game Boy Advance library, and its visuals have aged very gracefully.
This doesn't mean that it wouldn't profit from a remake. 3D graphics really could make the shrinking effect a lot more impressive and let you dive even deeper into the world of Picori. It could make an already beautiful game even more astounding... But because it still looks and plays as nice as it does today, The Minish Cap is not very high on the priority list, where other top-down Zelda games have to gain a lot more from being remade.
Now, The Minish Cap probably wouldn't exist without Four Swords, where the multiplayer Zelda episode was used as a basis for Capcom's final Zelda project. That game was once re-released as DSiWare during the 25th Anniversary of Zelda, which added a singleplayer mode and new levels, but this is already its whole history.
Remakes or remasters of the multiplayer Zelda games will be questionable in general, because Nintendo would probably invest that effort into a new multiplayer game instead, which was designed for the Nintendo Switch. But in case of Four Swords there is at least the chance to see it again, since the Nintendo Switch Online game libraries all support online multiplayer with friends. If A Link to the Past & Four Swords were to make it onto the service, the game really could really see a new dawn, and this may even allow some Zelda fans to experience it for the first time ever.
This may sound like a broken record, but The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD are some of the few Wii U titles that haven't been ported over to the Nintendo Switch yet. With such ports all 3D Zelda games would become playable on the Nintendo Switch and that in itself is already a desirable milestone, where this would be the perfect filler for the year 2024.
The real question is how they are going to bring back these two games. Most people would certainly prefer a two-in-one collection, but since we're talking about Nintendo here and these two games couldn't look any more different from each other, it's also possible that they could see individual releases. But maybe those would come at a discounted price, like Metroid Prime Remastered, or they could follow the excellent example of Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, where they add they add a side game as an incentive...
In case of Twilight Princess HD it would make a lot of sense to include a remaster of Link's Crossbow Training. This small Wii shooter was fully based on Twilight Princess, so they could bring it back in the same HD assets, and maybe even add some new levels to it. That would certainly sweeten the deal.
With The Wind Waker HD on the other hand it's not as obvious, but there is one game that would fit nicely here and which was never released in the west: Navi Trackers. It uses the same art style as The Wind Waker and is even a direct follow-up, where Link has to master a pirate test.
It was originally meant to be its own title on the GameCube, but then got released as part of the Japanese and Korean versions of Four Swords Adventures, which is in a similar position to Four Swords. Maybe one day the Nintendo Switch Online service will offer GameCube titles (which is more likely to happen on the next system) and with it you will be able to emulate the unique setup that Four Swords Adventures required, where each player had their own screen in the form of a Game Boy Advance, while the TV showed something for everyone.
In an online environment you could just put the player's screen and the main screen both on the TV together, so this could actually work just fine. Navi Trackers could also be played alone or against a CPU Tingle, so it wouldn't necessarily require an internet connection to be played today. But overall it remains questionable whether Nintendo would be willing to put in the effort to fully remake/remaster such a title. At least it would bring some novelty to the table for the players in the west.
Alternatively, Nintendo could also decide to save The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD for later, to upgrade them to UHD on the next system(s), maybe even make a 4K-collection together with Skyward Sword. The graphics of both The Wind Waker and Skyward Sword should scale very nicely and look beautiful in any resolution, but in case of Twilight Princess they will eventually arrive at a point where upscaling the textures isn't enough. Here you would need more detailed models, which means a lot more effort.
This may even be an argument for why it's in Nintendo's own interest to bring Twilight Princess HD from the Wii U on the Nintendo Switch as soon as tomorrow. On the other hand, if they have the resources for a remaster that turns heads the way Metroid Prime Remastered did, then they will be making something that gets much more praise and potentially also more sales.
The two Zelda games that would easily profit the most from a remaster or remake – in visuals, controls, and gameplay – are without a doubt the ones on the Nintendo DS, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. Their graphics have aged very poorly, where they look worse than N64 games today. The touchscreen controls weren't received well by everyone, and parts of the gameplay are despised. Here's an article from 2016 about this topic, which still holds up today:
Remaking Phantom Hourglass & Spirit Tracks
One concern remained at the time and that was how button controls couldn't possibly match the speed and precision of the touchscreen controls, especially when it comes to aiming with the Bow or Boomerang. But the newest Zelda games have provided a solution for this problem: just slow down time. Whenever you take aim, it will make everything around you go in slow motion, giving you the necessary time to align your shots.
If we're getting more remakes of handheld Zelda titles, then Oracle of Ages & Seasons should have priority. But Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks would certainly be worthy candidates to become the next duo of Zelda remakes afterwards.
Remastering A Link Between Worlds is what you would call an "easy win". The remake of Link's Awakening already has re-used some of the assets from the Nintendo 3DS title and brought them into HD, where this could go full circle and GREZZO could use the same engine to bring A Link Between Worlds onto the Nintendo Switch. It's not that easy, of course, but out of all Zelda games that aren't already available in high definition resolution, this probably would be the one that requires the least amount of effort to make it happen.
Now, we haven't talked about A Link to the Past yet in this article and this was for a good reason: if they ever remaster A Link Between Worlds, they could remake A Link to the Past right along with it. A Link Between Worlds is entirely based on the Super Nintendo classic and provides at least 80% of the assets required for a remake. It's one of the reasons why fans already wanted such a thing on the Nintendo 3DS, because it seems like a no-brainer. The graphics, all the enemies, most items and sounds... It's all there, it just needs to be re-arranged accordingly.
So, this could become a nice two-in-one, A Link to the Past & Between Worlds, where you both get to re-experience the beloved Super Nintendo and the Nintendo 3DS classics on a modern Nintendo system. A very sweat deal.
Tri Force Heroes on the other hand wasn't as beloved and falls into the same multiplayer trap. We may see it again one day, especially since it also shares part of its visuals with A Link Between Worlds and the Link's Awakening remake, but since this game wasn't a big hit, Nintendo may just move on and create a completely new multiplayer Zelda game instead.
Now we're already getting ahead of ourselves, but both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will eventually get remastered at some point. Their graphics allow for some upscaling, maybe not as simple as with The Wind Waker, but still. Theoretically, we could even see an update for both games on the Switch successor, making them 4K-ready. But full re-releases in the form of remasters probably won't happen until the generation after.
There's currently an event in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, where you can obtain four new Spirits from the Spirit Board. These are:
Each of these games would have been worth a Spirit Event of their own, where the last one to receive such an event was Metroid Dread in 2021, back when Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was still being updated via the Fighters Passes.
Interestingly, they don't even need to update the game to add new Spirits to it. It still runs on version 13.0.1, which was the final update in late 2021. But for events and such it must have its own API, where it's also possible to add more "content" at any time in the form of Spirits. Makes you wonder why they didn't... Well, they did this once before, in fact, with the Evil Ryu Spirit in early 2022, but that was it.
Even if they are just glorified PNG files, the Spirit battles are all unique challenges. It would have been a good reason to get back into the game regularly if they had kept making such events. Multiplayer games really profit from content additions, no matter how small they may be.
And at the same time this is great advertisement for new Nintendo games. Titles like Bayonetta 3, Fire Emblem Engage, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and of course Tears of the Kingdom could have all had events of their own with a number of Spirits. Why not also have the new Ganondorf and the Sages along with him? Seems like a missed opportunity if it's that simple.
Anyway, the Rauru Spirit battle itself is quite neat, where you're basically reenacting the Imprisoning War, but from Ganondorf's side. You can choose any character, of course, but he works pretty well here, because you can just spam his Smash Attacks. I did it first try, even though it's a Legendary Spirit.
It's played on the Battlefield version of Hyrule Temple, which looks just like a sky island. The six Sages are represented by Pit (Rito), Charizard spamming Flare Blitz (Goron), a blue Inling (Zora), female Robin spamming Elthunder attacks (Gerudo), R.O.B. (Mineru), and Zelda herself. Then, at the end you will have to fight a giant Mewtwo, who represents Rauru.
And it's perfect how they've chosen Rauru's spirit form for his Spirit. For what's possible with the Spirit system, they did a great job here and had some cool ideas. I also liked the Oatchi battle, where the dog gets represented by a giant, yellow Kirby.
Overall this was quite the fun event, even though you can finish it in like 15 minutes... But maybe this gets you back into online play or some other mode for a bit as well. For me this came at the right time, where I didn't have to dust off the game, because I was playing it more often lately, trying to get better at at it, facing people online. But this is a different tale for a different day.
This was going to be the last update of the year 2023, but I hadn't reached my intended milestone yet, where over Christmas and the New Year I've been mainly hunting different materials to enhance all of my armor sets to ★★★★.
I've also been adding a good number of entries to my Hyrule Compendium, where both of this went hand in hand at times, because with certain materials and critters it really helps to set your Sensor+ on them. And I've also started to wear the Korok Mask most of the time to see where I may have missed some of the little forest spirits.
With The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild a new era began for the Zelda series, where by now the game got its own spin-off prequel with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and of course a whole sequel – The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, all set in the Hyrule established by Breath of the Wild.
But where will we go from here? Will Tears of the Kingdom shape the future of the series on a similar level as Breath of the Wild did? Or is it the end of the line for this era of Zelda, before we venture into a new Hyrule? Let's discuss potential follow-ups to the most recent entry in the series and what the future could hold for the series in the upcoming years...
This post is just meant to be an overview for a rough timeline, where all bullet points will get their own posts later on, discussing things in more detail.
Let's get the big topic right out of the way. Tears of the Kingdom was the 20th installment in the Zelda series and it most likely won't be the last, where it will be interesting to see what's next. And here we are looking at a variety of possibilities.
While the game's ending technically allows for another sequel with this Link and Zelda, we probably shouldn't expect that. In the very least, the next game won't take place in the same Hyrule, where producer Eiji Aonuma already has said as much (see GameInformer). And that's understandable. The Zelda development team has worked on the same world for over ten years, they certainly want to move on to something new and fresh. So, even if we were to get another story with this incarnation of Link and Zelda, they would probably adventure into some distant land.
The next Zelda game won't be for the Nintendo Switch, however, but for the next hardware generation. And with that comes new possibilities, which most likely will lead to a different art style and gameplay. The next The Legend of Zelda title will likely have its own identity, setting itself apart from the rest of the series, much like most 3D Zelda games before it. Sequels like Majora's Mask and Tears of the Kingdom always take place on the same hardware generation, re-using the previous game's engine and assets, which won't be the case here.
Whatever it will look like, after the massive success of both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom there is no reason to believe that they will abandon the current open world direction. They will certainly refine it even further and might even try to find more of a middle ground, but they will keep making Zelda games that put their emphasis on freedom first, because that's what selling. So, if you're hoping for the next Twilight Princess, you probably will be out of luck.
However, it will take a while before the next major 3D Zelda game will see the light of the day. We're in a similar position as twelve years ago, after the release of Skyward Sword on the Wii, which was nearing the end of its life cycle. It took five and a half years for Breath of the Wild to come out and it became one of the last games for the Wii's successor, the Wii U, and even the launch title for the Nintendo Switch. Zelda was essentially skipping a console generation in this case.
It won't be in Nintendo's interest to have a second Wii U, of course, but if it takes another five to six years for the next 3D Zelda game to be developed, we will be looking at 2028 or 2029 as a release, where the next Nintendo system already will be a couple of years old...
With that in mind, it makes sense for the Zelda team to release something in between, a smaller project that utilizes the top-down perspective. We haven't seen a new game like this since A Link Between Worlds and Tri Force Heroes on the Nintendo 3DS, which were released in 2013 and 2015 respectively. So, it's about time! Maybe it could even be something that makes creative use of the next console's features. For example, if the Nintendo Switch successor would offer a VR mode, then a top-down Zelda game would allow for a much more immersive experience, when you're looking down at a miniature world.
A smaller project would allow to get a new Zelda game out much earlier, as early as 2026, potentially even 2025, and also bridge the time until the next big 3D Zelda game. In addition, it would be the perfect basis for a sequel of its own, which was common for all the handheld Zelda games.
While the next Zelda games will very likely do their own thing, it's possible that Nintendo might explore the universe of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom in supplementary titles. One of these ideas could be a Shrine Maker, based on the Sheikah Shrines and Shrines of Lights from these games. It would be Zelda's equivalent to the Super Mario Maker, but instead of 2D levels you're making 3D shrines, similar to the Test Chamber Creator from Portal 2.
This idea came up with Breath of the Wild, but it makes sense that Nintendo hasn't done this already, because the Shrines of Light and abilities from Tears of the Kingdom are adding a lot to this now. And it would be a fantastic use of all the assets from both games, bringing everything together one last time before we move on.
We shouldn't hold our breaths, however, if we were to believe Aonuma's words from a recent interview with Polygon. There he says that they don't want to force the players to be creative when asked about this topic. But that's exactly what they did with the Chamber Dungeon in the Link's Awakening remake, even though you can argue that this was more of a dungeon puzzler than a dungeon maker. And you don't have to creative in order to play Super Mario Maker, since you can always just enjoy the creations of others or the preset levels. So, let's not rule this out just yet.
If we're ever returning to the world of Tears of the Kingdom, then it will very likely be in the form of the next Hyrule Warriors game. With Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity they've explored the current Hyrule from 100 years ago, during the time of the Great Calamity, with some time travel shenanigans to get as much as possible in there.
The very same thing could be done with Tears of the Kingdom. Make the next Hyrule Warriors take place during the era of this Hyrule's founding and the Imprisoning War, but also bring in Link, Purah, and the Sages from the present to tell a different turn of events. There's a lot of potential with this and we will talk about this later in greater detail.
Now, Koei Tecmo has been releasing their Nintendo-licensed Warriors titles in a two year schedule, ever since Hyrule Warriors in 2014. We got Hyrule Warriors: Legends in 2016, Fire Emblem Warriors (and Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition) in 2018, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity in 2020, and Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes in 2022. It's too early for another Hyrule Warriors in 2024 and the biggest contender for this year is probably a "Xenoblade Warriors", where it's the perfect timing after the conclusion of the trilogy with Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
This would put the next Hyrule Warriors in 2026, three years after Tears of the Kingdom, giving them enough time to make a Warriors game based on the most recent Zelda. Age of Calamity also came out three years after Breath of the Wild, so this would add up perfectly. This puts the game on the Switch's successor, but this would be for the best, seeing how Age of Calamity was already struggling on the Nintendo Switch. It's the Zelda-related title that would benefit the most from better hardware, where it would also be nice to see an update for it.
So far we've been looking at the games to come out on a potential Nintendo Switch successor, as if the Nintendo Switch is already done. But the Nintendo Switch isn't done yet and it might run a couple more Zelda titles in the end, even if those won't be exactly new.
The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD are eternally on the table, as some of the few Wii U titles that haven't been ported over to the Nintendo Switch yet. A remake of Oracle of Ages & Seasons, based on the one for Link's Awakening, also still feels like a logical next step. Any of these could still happen on the current system in 2024 and/or 2025.
And this is only the start, where the next Nintendo system will open the doors for a lot more: Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, and A Link Between Worlds are all good candidates to be remade (or remastered). And at some point they will likely even start over with remaking the 3D Zelda games, where Ocarina of Time 3D is already getting 13 years old in a couple of months... But placing a remake of the N64 classic on the Nintendo Switch still would create a similar situation to Metroid Prime Remastered, where you'd expect the sequel(s) to follow soon after, so it would be best to wait for the next system, where you have enough leeway for that.
One thing is for sure, we certainly won't get bored after Tears of the Kingdom. A lot of it depends on when the successor to the Nintendo Switch will launch and how this next Nintendo system will look like, but it's easy to come up with ideas to fill the years between the big Zelda releases.
A big point in this timeline might become the year 2026, where this could see the release of a new top-down Zelda, but also a new Hyrule Warriors based on Tears of the Kingdom. It's also the year of the 40th Anniversary, so there will be something to look forward to in 2026 in any case. And in the meantime there's a lot that Nintendo could do with remakes and remasters, given that they really don't to give use something like a Shrine Maker for both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
The year 2023 is over and most Zelda fans should be still digesting the big meal, which came in the form of Tears of the Kingdom, or maybe even still busy with playing the game, because it's quite a lot to do. We're now in the calm after the storm and with that in mind we shouldn't expect much from the year 2024, at least when it comes to The Legend of Zelda.
There has been a pattern here, where the year after the release of a big 3D Zelda game didn't really bring anything new on the table. In 2012, after Skyward Sword, we got basically nothing, unless you count The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest, which was part of Nintendo Land. It was the launch year of the Wii U and we could be in a similar position in 2024, where the Nintendo Switch may see its successor at some point...
In 2018, after Breath of the Wild, we got the Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition for the Nintendo Switch. And to be fair, this was a huge deal if you had skipped the Nintendo 3DS version, Hyrule Warriors: Legends, and/or its DLCs. But if you have played it all already, then it may not have been as interesting, serving as a pure filler for the year.
So much for the history lesson. A big topic for 2024 could potentially become the successor to the Nintendo Switch, where Nintendo may give us a first glance. Whether we will already get the next console this year is a different question... It certainly won't happen in the first half of the year, but there is a chance in late 2024 or early 2025. Of course this has been said pretty much every year since 2017 and the Nintendo Switch has proven that it defies the usual console cycle, where Nintendo's goal might be to make it the best selling video game system of all time, before they move on. We will see.
It doesn't really change much for Zelda at this point. We got the newest game and it will take some time before the next new title comes out. Until then we will see the usual mix of spin-offs, remasters, and remakes, where for some of it still makes sense to happen on the Nintendo Switch.
Ports of The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD always have been a possibility to serve as a filler, which will happen eventually. This would make all 3D Zelda titles playable on the Nintendo Switch, which seems like a sweet deal.
My personal hope for 2024 is that GREZZO has been busy working on a remake of Oracle of Ages & Seasons. As a follow-up to the Link's Awakening remake from 2019, it would make a lot of sense to still have this on the Nintendo Switch, and there is so much great stuff that they could do here. See my Oracle of Worlds concept if you'd like to know more about this. This could easily become my game of the year 2024, even if Team Cherry were to release Hollow Knight: Silksong.
