Dawn of a New Year – 2024

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.