Open World Zelda & Transformations

New Zelda games usually experiment with new ideas. Whether that's the ability to manipulate objects in both space and time in Tears of the Kingdom, or summoning monsters in Echoes of Wisdom – Nintendo and their partners like to come up with something new for each title (with a few exceptions). And that's both fantastic and admirable. However, there have been Zelda games with ideas so good that it's a shame that they might never come back. One of these games is Majora's Mask, which both had the repeated three-day-cycle and its transformations masks going for it. And it could be very interesting to see the latter return in a modern Zelda game.

The formula is simple enough: take an open wold experience, like in Breath of the Wild, and combine it with the ability to transform into other species from Majora's Mask. It doesn't have to be via masks, where you could have some other artifact that is causing these transformation, but the idea remains the same. This should still include a Goron and a Zora, but swaps the Deku for a Rito, because these have been more prominent lately and they will give you more freedom. And freedom is what's this is all about.

However, it's a freedom that needs to be earned. Unlike in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, where you're given all essential abilities right at the beginning of the game, it should be your goal to unlock these transformations one after another. And with each one you will be able to explore parts of world that previously were inaccessible to you.

You can still obtain these transformations in any order, but each one will bring unique advantages that might make your journey easier. For example, the Zora's water powers allows you to cool down lava for easier traversal around a volcano, which then may lead to the finding the Goron transformation. But you can still do it without.

Weapons will also be handled differently. In Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, Link used weapons from all the different tribes to emulate their combat styles somewhat. In this hypothetical game, however, Link may rely mainly on his Master Sword, which is going to transform alongside him. So, when Link turns into a Goron, it becomes the "Master Hammer", or when Link turns in to a Zora, it becomes the "Master Spear". Maybe the game's story is even about transforming into heroes from other timelines or dimensions, heroes who aren't a Hylian boy for a change.

You can also power up the Master Sword with elemental magic, which by default will be light, but can become fire, water, or wind respectively. And don't worry, the Master Sword won't break in this game. However, secondary items, like bombs and arrows, are still depletable and can be all used as a Hylian. But each of Link's transformation specializes in different types, where they can add more punch to them.

This concept has been on my mind for several years now, where the current "Majora's Mask Month" feels like the right timing to finally discuss it in more detail. Plus, I have recently played through Donkey Kong Bananza, which actually features a part of these ideas, just not in a Zelda game. Now, let's take a look at the individual transformations:

 

Goron Link

As a Goron, Link will be able to roll around the world, but his strength also let's you freely dig through the ground, similar to Donkey Kong in Donkey Kong Bananza. This will make you the "Hero of the Earth", who is able to explore vast cave system that were entirely hidden underground.

Goron Link wields a large hammer as his weapon, but he is also versatile in using all kinds of explosives to maximize his destructive power. In addition, he can withstand high temperatures for a longer period of time and explore areas covered in lava or magma, but he has trouble dealing with water or mud, where he just sinks.

 

Zora Link

As a Zora, Link can swim gracefully at high speeds, but he can also freely explore underwater, making you the "Hero of the Ocean". The game world will have a large marine section, similar to The Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, or the Ocean Realm in Spirit Tracks, where at first you will have to travel it by boat or fly across it as a Rito. Once Link has obtained the ability to transform a Zora, he can also now dive into the ocean, where an underwater Zora civilization will await him, as well as sunken ruins.

Zora Links wields a spear, but he can also greatly enhance the effects of Splash Fruits, which allows the creation of larger bodies of water wherever needed. He can easily take out fires, but is weak to electricity and ice.

 

Rito Link

As a Rito, Link can freely fly through the air and effortlessly reach the top of even the highest mountains. The game world will feature a set of sky islands, similar to Tears of the Kingdom, which can only be accessed as the "Hero of the Sky".

Rito Links wields a swift dagger, but he's also an expert archer, who is able to shoot multiple arrows at once and also infuse them with different elements. When he's in the sky, he can freely shoot in all directions around him, as time freezes to assist with aiming. His warm feathers give him a greater resistance to cold, be he is very vulnerable to fire.

Evolution of Jumping in the Zelda Series

Arguably one of the biggest gameplay changes in the upcoming Ocarina of Time remake is that you no longer will jump automatically, but instead do it manually with a dedicated button. It's an interesting development, because the automatic jumping was part of the many revolutionary things the original did for 3D gaming, amongst the Z-targeting. You didn't have to worry about timing your jumps, because Link would always do it perfectly. This system remained a staple in the 3D games up until Breath of the Wild, which re-introduced a jump button.

The added level of detail might be part of the reason why they did it for the remake, because you don't necessarily get the same sharp edges to jump off. And it will be interesting to see how this plays out. You get some control back and you can now also climb faster with the added jumps, while parts of the environment also became more jump-friendly, like the small stream near the entrance to Hyrule Field from the forest. There may even be new challenges where you have to time your jumps correctly.

Anyway, with this change in mind, it's fascinating to look back at each game in the series and see how it implemented jumping. When you need to jump over a gap, there have been three different ways for you to do so: with a button, with an item (the Roc's Feather or Cape), or automatically. There are also games where you simply are unable to jump over gaps, so you will need other items to cross them, like the Hookshot. Here is how it's done in every Zelda game: 

• The Legend of Zelda: -
• The Adventure of Link: button
• A Link to the Past: -
• Link's Awakening: item
• Ocarina of Time: auto
• Majora's Mask: auto
• Oracle of Ages & Seasons: item
• The Wind Waker: auto
• Four Swords: item
• Four Swords Adventures: item
• The Minish Cap: item
• Twilight Princess: auto
• Phantom Hourglass: auto
• Spirit Tracks: auto
• Skyward Sword: auto
• A Link Between Worlds: -
• Tri Force Heroes: -
• Breath of the Wild: button
• Tears of the Kingdom: button
• Echoes of Wisdom: button

In the original The Legend of Zelda it wasn't possible to jump in any way or form. You needed the Stepladder to cross gaps and rivers. And while many consider Zelda II - The Adventure of Link to be the black sheep, it did jumping with a button in the Zelda series before it was cool. It was a natural part of its side scrolling action, where you even had special sword techniques to go along with your jumps. The Downthrust eventually became an important inspiration for the very satisfying pogo-technique in the Hollow Knight games.

A Link to the Past was effectively the game to introduce auto-jumping in some form, but it was only there to leap down off a ledge to the lower level. This continued to be a thing in all top-down Zelda games going forward.

Link's Awakening then brought back side-scrolling sections and even added Goombas along with them, inviting you to jump on them. But since the Game Boy only had two buttons, they had to come up with a different solution: you would jump with an item, the Roc's Feather. This item can be assigned to either A or B, instead of your sword, shield, or other things. And this item or its stronger version, the Roc's Cape, returned in all Zelda games on the Game Boy line, as well as in Four Swords Adventures.

As already mentioned, Ocarina of Time then came up with automatic jumping whenever you walk off a ledge – not just to drop down, but also to cross gaps. You could jump from one side of the Zora River to the other... if you picked the right spot. And in all 3D Zelda games from Majora's Mask to Skyward Sword this system was implemented again.

Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks also featured this automatic crossing of gaps for the first time in a top-down scenario, with their touchscreen controls. You would just draw over the gap and Link would automatically leap across, even when there is ground below.

The two Nintendo 3DS titles, A Link Between Worlds and Tri Force Heroes, on the other hand went back to no jumping at all. Instead, they featured items that would lift you up, like the Tornado, Sand and Water Rods. But that doesn't really count.

Finally, Breath of the Wild completely revolutionized the Zelda series from the ground up with its free-climbing nature, where it became necessary for you to manually jump again. It's also there to initiate paragliding, which became an important part of the new 3D Zelda gameplay. And now this manual jump finds its way back into the classics with Ocarina of Time.

Ironically, in its early stages of development, Ocarina of Time used to still have a jump button. But they had removed it in favor of the auto-jumping to streamline the gameplay and shift the focus on other elements (see Iwata Asks). It's funny how things sometimes go... or in this case, how they jump.

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.

Re-Imagining Ocarina of Time

The recent rumors had me thinking... What if they are not remaking The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, like Grezzo did on the Nintendo 3DS? What if Monolith Soft (or whatever studio is set on this hypothetical project) is actually working on a complete re-imagining of the game? What would that look like? And what could this lead to?

Remaking The Legend of Zelda

A week ago the original The Legend of Zelda has entered its 40th year of existence, and maybe Nintendo is about to give fans a whole new way of experiencing the classic to celebrate this special anniversary. So, let's take a deeper look of how this could look like.

Of course, a remake always has been a possibility, but one that got dismissed by this blog several times. And there have been good reasons... The NES classics are rather bare-bones and if you start infusing elements from later Zelda games, you will eventually end up with a re-imagining, instead of a remake. And then this may as well become a whole new game of its own.

That's exactly what has happened with Oracle of Seasons. When Capcom was working on Zelda projects for the Game Boy Color, they first had pitched a remake of the first game in the style of Link's Awakening. But before you knew it, you were able to ride on a Dodongo and the project evolved into something else.

Source: VGMaps.com

You can even see where the idea of changing the seasons may have come from, by looking at the game's world. There is this Akkala-like area of autumn trees to the southwest, while the graveyard to its north is surrounded by white trees and rocks, almost like it has been snowing there. And this sudden change of scenery could have been an inspiration for the game's core mechanic.

Anyway, this perspective has changed with the Link's Awakening remake, which is currently leading to whole bubble of potential follow-ups. There are even rumors that GREZZO has been busy with a third game already for a while now, a project called "Bernard", following "Richard" (the Link's Awakening remake) and "Edward" (Echoes of Wisdom). But we have no idea what "Bernard" actually is, where there are a number of possibilities, like a new coop Zelda game or even a dungeon maker.

But on top of the list is certainly a remake of the two Oracle games, which turned 25 years old just yesterday. However, Echoes of Wisdom came out only one and a half years ago and remaking two whole Zelda games since then is rather ambitious. Maybe a little too ambitious to make it in time for the 40th Anniversary. And that's why they could have considered something simpler: the original The Legend of Zelda.

Now, remaking the first Zelda in the new Link's Awakening style makes sense for a number of reasons. There is the aforementioned history of how Capcom was trying to achieve the same on the Game Boy Color, where this could be finally be realized. It could even serve as an interim step for remakes of Oracle of Ages & Season, since they could re-use new enemies (like the Bubble) and all of the bosses, where Aquamentus, Gleeok and co. were featured in the Oracle games as well.

It also makes sense in the context of Link's Awakening alone. While the Game Boy classic was originally meant to bring A Link to the Past to the handheld, it also looked back at the NES original to make it happen. You have the same screen-transitioning system, and as a result dungeons were constructed in a pattern of square rooms, which ultimately led to the Color Dungeon in the DX version as a homage and the whole Chamber Dungeon feature in the remake. Certain enemies, like the Pols Voice, Vire or even Gohma, also returned for the first time since the original.

And by re-using the assets of the Link's Awakening remake, as well as Echoes of Wisdom, they could actually cover quite a lot already. Most of the normal enemies would already have models. Items like Bombs, Boomerang and Bow have already been implemented before. And they could even re-use the meat echo for the bait item... The more you think about it, the more it feels like the game is halfway remade already.

Keep in mind, though, that such a remake would mainly be about modernizing the visuals and the combat in the current top-down Zelda style. But this alone would already make it much more accessible and fun. Some enemies, like Darknuts or the Wizzrobes, could become less aggravating, while others may even become more challenging, first and foremost the Lynels.

The world and the dungeons should stay the same, however, as it was intended. The overworld would become seamless, just like with Link's Awakening, and they may add some visual clues as to what trees you can burn and what rock walls can be blown up, because nobody got time for that nonsense today. But there is no reason to fill it with stuff that wasn't there before, unless they want to go down the same route as Oracle of Seasons.

You would also now be able to assign items to both the X and Y buttons, while the letter and potions may even work fully automatically, so you don't have to put them on a button at all. And for the remaining seven items the game could make use of the Breath of the Wild quick select, without it being a pain, since there are only so few.

One of those items could even get a dedicated button, where the best candidate is probably the Candle. You needed it all the time in dungeons to light up the dark rooms and this could get annoying very quickly, because it forced you to swap items every so often. Also, the screen-based usage of the Blue Candle won't make any sense when there are no transitioning screens any longer, so it may simply have a cooldown, which gets shortened by the Red Candle. And it should create a sphere of light around you inside dark rooms when you haven't used its fire yet, so you can still see a little bit.

The Bow could also be overhauled to use actual arrows as ammunition. And the shops that offered you an arrow now simply sell bundles of them for a refill. However, to still offer the classic functionality, the Magic Book now also upgrades the Bow (in addition to the Magical Rod), so that it still uses up Rupees when you're out of arrows. Kind of like how the Magic Armor in various Zelda games lets you deplete your Rupees instead of your health.

On the overworld the Clock power-up would probably freeze all enemies in sight or within a certain radius, like it does in Hyrule Warriors on the Master Quest map. And with the Bait it would be nice if you could carry more than just one at a time, so you're not just keeping it to bribe certain Goriyas.

Finally, the Compass would be another good candidate for a revision, because all it did in the original was showing you the location of the Triforce in a dungeon. It should still do that, of course, but it could also give you a signal in dungeon rooms that have a key, just like in Link's Awakening. Or it may even give a general signal whenever there is a secret related to defeating all enemies in a room.

And that's pretty much it. No fuzz, no nonsense, just the original game modernized. However, to make this a bit more interesting and to offer something new for most fans, this should also come with the maps and dungeons of the first BS-X Zelda game, released in the 90s for the Satellaview peripheral for the Super Nintendo. It was essentially a 16-Bit remake of the original, but it got broadcasted like a TV show with time-based events, where in each episode you were playing two dungeons.

Because of their unusual nature, these games have never been re-released by Nintendo in any way or form, but they still could remake the two maps and their unique dungeons without any of the event stuff. Fans have done it before, so it's entirely possible. In the remake it could look like this:

When you start the game you get a choice between four different quests. The "Classic Quest" is the game as you know it. The "Second Quest" lets you play the devious altered version of the original, without naming yourself "Zelda" or beating the normal game first. And the "Lost Quest", which comes in two variants, would bring you to the maps from the BS-X Zelda.

This could even be seen as difficulty modes. The Classic Quest would be the normal difficult, the 2nd Quest hard, while the Lost Quests would be a lot easier, because their overworlds are only half the size and the dungeons were meant to be cleared within a short time. 

Of course, GREZZO could also add the usual Hero Mode option for those who are looking for a bigger challenge. But this probably should be implemented in the same way as in Echoes of Wisdom, meaning that you can just turn it on and off at any time.

Also like in Echoes of Wisdom, outfits could give Link a different appearance, to add some variety and novelty without altering the gameplay. This is where amiibo could come into the equation. For example, the 8-Bit Link could give you something like the Timeless Tunic from Tri Force Heroes, so that Link appears in a retro voxel style (and the music changes to the classic chiptunes from the NES). Or there could be a variant based on A Link Between Worlds, so he looks more like the classic Link, in case you don't like the toy style.

They should call this remake "The Legend of Zelda: The Hyrule Fantasy" to distinguish from the original – at least in the west, since this has been the subtitle of the Famicom Disk game in Japan. It should be available on the Nintendo Switch, but with a free upgrade for the Switch 2. And maybe this could even be something that they will simply shadow-drop at the end of a Nintendo Direct, where they will offer a physical release later on, similar to Metroid Prime Remastered. You know, as a surprise for the 40th Anniversary...

Oracle of Ages & Seasons: 25 Years

Today is Pokémon Day. And 25 years ago, on February 27th 2001, Nintendo and Capcom released a different spin on the "Blue and Red" formula with The Legend of Zelda: The Mysterious Seeds, which got divided into two chapters released as two separate games. They would later be known as Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons to the west, and instead of being two different versions of the same game, they were two unique games in the same scope of their Game Boy Color predecessor, Link's Awakening DX, with the twist that you could connect their stories and worlds via passwords.

So, two new Zelda games came out on the same day and you had to decide which one to play first, where depending on this choice certain events in the games will play out differently. It was a fairly new concept, which adds a lot of replay value to both games, because you have to play each of them at least twice to experience all of the story and collect all of the items. (And at least four times to experience absolutely everything, due to some other choices you can make.)

It wasn't the only thing to let these games stand out within the Zelda series, even to this date, as their titles may indicate. Oracle of Ages brought the time traveling ideas from Ocarina of Time to the next level, where can swap between past and present on the spot with hundreds of years between, while small changes in the past may have big effects on the present. And Oracle of Seasons lets you alter the world's time of the year, where lakes freeze in winter and dry out in summer.

These games were quite ambitious for Game Boy titles and you can already experience them on the Nintendo Switch, via the Nintendo Switch Online offerings. However, the password system is far from intuitive, which is why this blog has been a strong advocate for a remake, ever since Link's Awakening was announced for the Nintendo Switch. You can read all about this idea in the Oracle of Worlds article from 2019, which I later renamed into Seeds of Courage, following the release of Echoes of Wisdom.

But the concept is quite simple: same engine and look as the new Link's Awakening and Echoes of Wisdom, one single game, no passwords. You start by choosing either "Holodrum" or "Labrynna" as the starting point of Link's adventure and everything unfolds naturally from there. After beating the first story chapter, you will then be transported into the other land, but the Maku Trees are now connected via a portal, so that you can easily travel back and forth both lands without switching between games.

That's the short version, but my ideas from 2019 have stayed mostly unchanged. After Echoes of Wisdom, however, it makes sense to revise the Magic Rings to work in the same way as the accessories, meaning that you should be able to equip multiple rings at once and carry them all around. This would make a number of rings a lot more useful in certain situations, which you otherwise probably would just ignore.

Now, this title would become a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive and there may even be a good technical reason for this. Switching between the ages and seasons isn't as simple as switching between screens in the original, because you would have to load a whole other world. And maybe on the Nintendo Switch 2 this can be achieved without major loading times.

In any case, such a remake would be the perfect way to celebrate both the 25th Anniversary of the Oracle games, as well as the 40th Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda in the year 2026. After all, Oracle of Seasons was half a remake of the NES classic. Maybe they could make use of that fact and feature the classic enemies and bosses in new ways that re-explore the original Zelda... Or maybe they will remake the first game first and then re-use those assets for the Oracles afterwards.

40th Anniversary of Zelda

On February 21st 1986, ゼルダの伝説 (The Legend of Zelda): THE HYRULE FANTASY was released for the Famicom Disk System in Japan. 40 years later the game has left a legacy like rarely any other, with a succession of 20 more titles, half of them remastered or remade, a rich variety of different art styles and gameplay ideas, and even an ongoing spin-off series with Hyrule Warriors.

The Legend of Zelda is the reason why this blog exists, though I was still in the making myself when the original came out. But Europe had to wait until November 1987 anyway to get their NES version.

When you first played the game you were presented with a choice: will you go left, right, up, or down into that cave? Well, you won't get very far if you don't go into the cave first, but that's a lesson for you to learn and it's really up to you. It is your adventure. And it's this level of freedom that later inspired Breath of the Wild to go in a bold new direction, where even the rocky walls aren't an obstacle any longer, bringing the series to a whole new level of popularity and success.

Despite that, Nintendo had decided to skip over celebrating the 35th Anniversary in 2021, save for a Game & Watch system. And to be fair, 35 years are an odd anniversary, where it doesn't necessarily scream for attention, but that's different in the case of four whole decades. Nintendo won't let this opportunity for marketing slip away, especially when they have a whole Legend of Zelda movie coming out next year (even though the series will be 41 years old by then).

But don't hold your breath just yet. They are still in the middle of advertising the 40th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros., where Mar10 day is coming up, the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Super Mario Bros. Wonder and of course the Super Mario Galaxy Movie on April 1st. We shouldn't expect to hear about the Zelda anniversary from its creators before that's all behind us. And this also has been true in the past, where they have waited until June to announce something for 25th and 35th Anniversaries and even until September in case of the 30th.

So, at this point we can only speculate and here it's easy to bring up a number of ideas from the past, like those for the 35th Anniversary that weren't meant to be at the time:

• A game collection
• Special-themed hardware
• A dungeon / shrine maker 

Giving us The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD in a collection is still on top of many fan wishlists, where similar to Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 this could run on both the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, offering something for the fans who have yet to migrate to the new system. However... it's probably more in Nintendo's interest for those people to move on and also to subscribe to the Expansion Pack of the Nintendo Switch Online service, which gives you access to GameCube games on the Switch 2, including The Wind Waker. They will certainly also add Twilight Princess at some point, maybe even this year, and an HD collection would only make such offerings less interesting.

By the way, it will also be the 20th Anniversary of Twilight Princess, sitting right in the middle of the franchise's history. There won't be any better timing to bring this game back, but this may come down to releasing Twilight Princess as part of the NSO GameCube library and finally adding its soundtrack to Nintendo Music. We can anticipate this to happen in the very least.

As for Special Editions of the latest hardware, that's a strong possibility, since the Nintendo Switch 2 doesn't have much to offer yet. Resident Evil Re9uiem will be the first game to come with a themed Pro Controller and that's really it. We could also see a Pro Controller for the 40th Anniversary, or some Joy-Cons, or maybe even a whole Nintendo Switch 2.

But Zelda-themed hardware usually launched alongside a new game, like Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom in the more recent years. It's a bit early for a brandnew Zelda game, though. If we're getting some release in 2026, then it will likely be a side project.

One such side project could be the equivalent to the Super Mario Maker, which became a thing during the 30th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros., more than ten years ago. And it's time that Zelda gets something of its own here. This could be a top-down dungeon maker experience, or a Shrine Maker based on Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Both could have realistically been in development at Nintendo / GREZZO for many years now, in parallel to the latest games.

Something simpler would be the Zelda World Championships, which is like the Nintendo World Championships, where you play short slices of the games and try to solve tasks as quickly as possible. But instead of different games from one system, this would be focused solely on the history of the Zelda series, featuring the two NES classics, A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening DX, Ocarina of Time and more.

Alternatively, we could be looking at a remake. The internet is currently obsessed with the idea of remaking Ocarina of Time again, which will happen eventually, but it needs the right studio for the job. And GREZZO, the developers behind Ocarina of Time 3D, effectively became the top-down Zelda team over the last decade. Speaking of, a remake of Oracle of Ages & Seasons may actually be the more likely candidate.

Of course, it hasn't even been two years since the release of Echoes of Wisdom, so this is a bit too hopeful, but they can re-use a lot of assets from both the Link's Awakening remake and Echoes of Wisdom, which could have sped up the development significantly. They also wouldn't have to create new environments and scenarios, just recreate old ones and mash them together in a more satisfying package.

Well, such a remake doesn't necessarily have to do anything with the ongoing anniversary. In fact, they rarely ever do. Ocarina of Time 3D was tied into the 25th, but this happened retroactively. Meanwhile, both Twilight Princess HD and Skyward Sword HD came out in the year of an anniversary, but weren't marketed as such.

Yet, the Oracle games are in a more unique position, because their development started out as a remake itself – a remake of the very first Zelda game, the one we're all celebrating today. As a result, nearly all of the game's enemies and bosses can be encountered in the GBC classics, which are also seeing their own major anniversary in less than a week: it has been 25 years since their launch on February 27th, 2001.

If they were to remake Oracle of Ages & Seasons, then those assets could theoretically be even used for a remake of The Legend of Zelda. Nothing too crazy, just the original game in the Link's Awakening style, as it was once intended by Capcom. This would be a throwback to a throwback and the ultimate deal for the anniversary, which also could be released for both the Switch and the Switch 2. Maybe they will even have focused on such a project first, because it doesn't require as much development effort, before moving on to the Oracle games in the next step.

Otherwise, Nintendo could also repeat some of things they had done for past anniversaries:

• Start a new symphony orchestra tour
• Launch some more Zelda amiibo
• Release a new book 

The simplest option are amiibo, where they already have been some trustworthy rumors earlier this year that Nintendo will be breathing them in 2026. We're still waiting for the amiibo of Mineru's Construct, but that one will be entirely separate. (Or maybe it launches alongside that Shrine Maker?) For the 40th Anniversary they could just go over the entire series and fill some gaps: Zelda from Ocarina of Time and Echoes of Wisdom, or Din, Nayru and Farore as the Oracles, or Twili Midna, Fi, Linebeck, Ravio...

But it wouldn't be Nintendo if they didn't come up with something special, something that no one is expecting or even talking about. It could be a new cooperation with another video game franchise, some unique merchandise or events, or introducing Rupees as an actual currency in Japan. Let's wait and find out, though the Nintendo of late has been playing it quite safe and by the numbers. However, after the two lackluster anniversaries in 2016 and 2021, which paled in comparison to their Super Mario counterparts, it would be nice to see some more attention on our favorite franchise.

 

Happy 40th Anniversary, The Legend of Zelda! 

The Legend of Zelda: Face of the Trials (Shrine Maker Concept 2.0)

Both The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are going to be relaunched on June 5th with their Nintendo Switch 2 Editions. You can just pick up from where you have left on the Nintendo Switch or potentially even start all over again, using the second save files. Or maybe you will be playing them for the first time ever.

Whatever is the case, thanks to the power of the Nintendo Switch 2, both titles should be free from any limitations of their previous systems, so you can enjoy them with smooth frame rates even when there is a lot going on at once. And with that in mind, this opens the doors for new possibilities, which brings us back to the idea of a Shrine Maker, an idea as old as Breath of the Wild itself.

 

The Basics

First, let's run through the basics again, but with some refinements. This will be Zelda's equivalent to the Super Mario Maker, but instead of 2D platformer levels you will be making 3D mini-dungeons. This will set it apart from both the Super Mario Maker, but also something like the Super Dungeon Maker, which was inspired by traditional top-down Zelda dungeons. It will utilize a similar interface to the Puzzle Creator from Portal 2, where you carve out a 3D space via a voxel-based grid, while making good use of the different assets from Breath and Tears.

Each level has an entrance and you will have to reach the shrine at the end, which is essentially your flag pole. Both can be freely placed by the person designing the level, and whatever challenges await the player between is also up to that person, where they could design a puzzle, or have the player defeat enemies in a series of rooms (like the Trial of the Sword). But in order to upload a level you will need to beat it yourself first.

Clearing a shrine will reward the players with something akin to the Spirit Orbs or Lights of Blessing, let's call them "Hero Tokens", where four tokens can be traded for either a Heart Container or a Stamina Vessel, just like in the main games. The maximum is the same as in Tears of the Kingdom, so 40 hearts and three stamina wheels, where unlike in the main games you can actually maximize both here, since there is technically an infinite number of tokes to obtain.

Designers can define a recommended value of hearts and stamina for their trials and they will have to beat the shrine with these prerequisites, but players are not bound to them, so they can try their luck with less or completely steamroll shrines that are meant for beginners.

As additional rewards, the shrines can contain optional treasure chests with Rupees in them. The system will be similar to the Chamber Dungeon from Link's Awakening, meaning that their value will be determined by the shrines theoretical difficulty. Of course, this system still can be cheesed somehow, e.g. by making a shrine full of strong foes that can be avoided, but you won't just be able to create a shrine that offers a hundred chests filled with Gold Rupees. Replaying shrines will also lower the value of Rupees obtained from any previously opened chests and you can't get a token from the same shrine twice.

Rupees then can be used to purchase and enhance armor, which the players can freely equip before a trial... given that the trial allows it. Tokens will also be required to enhance your armor, so that they still have a usage once you've maximized your stats. The available armor will offer anything from the main games that can be somehow useful in a trial, which is most of it. They can also be dyed, where applicable, for an amount of Rupees – you don't need to collect any other materials here.

So, unlike Super Mario Maker, this game will offer constant progression, which will allow you to overcome more difficult challenges. A number of default trials that come with the game could even give you a basic goal, without the need of dealing with player-created content.

There even could be an actual story, taking place after the events of Tears of the Kindom. Purah discovers a plethora of ancient shrines all hidden deep under the earth and sends Link to investigate them, by teleporting him directly into the shrines. Simple, but effective.

 

Inventory

As already mentioned, players are able to equip a set of armor before starting a trial, where they can pick whatever they feel is best suited for them, given that they have unlocked it, and can also mix and match pieces as they see fit. Set Bonuses still apply, so you could use an enhanced Flamebreaker set to avoid fire damage. But you won't be able to change armor in the middle of a trial, unless certain pieces are given to you as part of the challenge.

Players will also be equipped with the basic Master Sword and – unlike in the main games – it will not break, so you will always have a fallback weapon. There will also be plenty of mechanics to ensure that the players won't run out of necessary resources to beat a trial, where weapons can respawn or fruits will regrow. Potentially, you could even make select weapons unbreakable as well.

However, the creator still has the option to make limited resources part of the challenge. They can also make their trial a "Proving Grounds", in which case the player won't be able to choose armor and won't have the Master Sword. The creator can give them a set of pre-defined armor, however.

In any case, you will have access to the Paraglider, where all the different fabrics could return as another unlockable, whether that's from amiibo, from Rupees, or both. Potentially, you could also have the Earthwake as a fallback for when you have no weapons. And the other key item(s) may be determined by what type of shrine we're looking at...

 

Sheikah or Zonai?

The most important choice when creating a level is whether you want to build an Ancient Sheikah Shrine or a Zonai Shrine of Light. It's a choice made upfront, because this will not only alter the aesthetics, but also the different gameplay elements, where unlike in Super Mario Maker they won't be easily interchangeable. The main reasons for such a split are Fuse and the Ultrahand.

Fuse, in particular, changes heavily what kind of equipment you should have access to. Tears of the Kingdom only had very basic weapons and plain arrows, where you are meant to fuse them with materials or other weapons. It's not really compatible with all the advanced weapons you had in Breath of the Wild, which is why they got cut. What would happen if you were to fuse an opal to a Flameblade, for example? Would their elemental effects cancel each other out? Nintendo probably didn't want to bother with figuring out such questions, since Fuse is already insanely complex as it is.

So, when going for a Sheikah Shrine, you may not be able to fuse things any longer, but you will have access to all the weaponry from Breath of the Wild, including the different arrow types. Maybe there could even be new ones, like Water and Wind Arrows, just to give you a bit more of the versatility of Fuse without having Fuse.

Ultrahand on the other hand relies a lot on the different Zonai devices. Of course, they could simply make a Sheikah variant of everything, so it's not necessarily a limitation by style, but it would make sense from a lore perspective and also makes it clear right from the start what type you're dealing with.

Let's say that Link obtains some sort of Zonai bracelet, which gives him access to Fuse, Ultrahand, Ascend and Recall again. But it's only active within the Shrines of Light. Likewise, there could be a "Purah Pad 2" (as a nod to the Nintendo Switch 2), which by default gives you the Camera Rune and maybe the compendium. But within a Sheikah Shrine it draws power from them to enable Bombs and Stasis (in their enhanced form), as well as Magnesis and Cryonis. There could even be Bombchus as a third type of bomb and maybe you could use Cryonis on lava in this game to create rock platforms.

But throwing materials will work in any type of shrine, so finding a Sapphire would be actually useful in a Sheikah Shrine for some freezing blasts. In general, the quick inventory management will be based on Tears of the Kingdom, so you can quickly drop stuff and so on.

There also shouldn't be any limitations regarding enemies, other than what kind of weapons they are able to wield. But you could theoretically deploy a Guardian in a Shrine of Light, or a Gloom Spawn within a Sheikah Shrine. The only exception might be the Constructs due to their ability to fuse, but otherwise that's something where you could break completely loose from the usual shrine conventions, where you only ever face either Guardians or Constructs. Instead, you can have any type of enemy, even overworld bosses, similar to the Trial of the Sword. But Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity already has done this as well with its Coliseum challenges.

And this does not only concern the monsters, but other elements as well. You wouldn't normally find a cooking pot within a shrine, but this could be something that can be placed nevertheless. They could even go wild and include all sorts of recurring structures from the overworld, like trees or the skull caves... Again, the Trial of the Sword already did the same, even though it is not a real shrine, but a trial of the mind.

 

Themes

Well, if we really were restricted to only having the blue Sheikah Shrines and the green Shrines of Light, then the visual variety of the game would suffer quite a bit. It's already a major complaint about both Nintendo Switch games that their shrines all look the same. One way to avoid this would be a number of skins, which can be freely swapped during creation.

The first thing that comes to mind are the Divine Beasts as an alternative to your typical Sheikah Shrine. The Final Trial from The Champions' Ballad shows how those aesthetics can be used to create something that was essentially a larger shrine. There could also be a twisted Yiga Shrine variant, where everything is in red/orange and the Sheikah symbols are upside down.

As for the Shrines of Light, maybe let's reduce those lights and go for a "Zonai Mining Facility" variant, where they are placed within the Depths and give the same gloomy feel. There could also be a theme based on the ancient Zonai ruins, like the Lomei Labyrinths.

screenshot from ArchitectureOfZelda.com

If we wanted the fanbase to lose their minds, however, there could even be styles based on past Zelda titles. The most obvious example is something based on the Palace of Twilight from Twilight Princess, which feels like a predecessor to the whole magical technology theme from the later games. In such a case you wouldn't just want it to be a visual theme, however, but also something that alters part of the sound effects or potentially even some of the gameplay elements. For example, instead of the usual metallic orbs, you could have Sols. And the sockets that are activated by these orbs could get a corresponding reskin.

Technically, this could even warrant a third main variant of shrines – Shrines of Twilight essentially, or Twilit Shrines –, where they could take things even further, maybe even re-introduce enemies like the Shadow Beasts. But with such a project they would probably just want to focus on re-using the assets from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom one more time.

Another good candidate for a classic theme would be the Tower of the Gods from The Wind Waker. It also gives similar vibes of ancient technology and fits the whole "trial for the hero" concept that these shrines all go for. Naturally, such classic themes would have to be created within the engine and visual style of the new games.

 

Only on Nintendo Switch 2

This whole idea isn't new and Nintendo could theoretically already have done this on the current Nintendo Switch, as a direct follow-up to the two games that this based upon. However, like with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, there might be a number of advantages of having this exclusive to the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2.

• Performance. That's the obvious reason, where both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom don't always ruin smoothly on the Nintendo Switch. Rest assured that things will be tested to the extreme with such a tool, where creators will certainly throw too many monsters at you. But at least you will have stable 60FPS when you fight those dozen Lynels all at once.
• Mouse controls. This new Joy-Con feature will certainly make it a lot more convenient to control a level editor in 3D. Pointer and touchscreen controls will still work as well, but won't be as comfortable.
  

If the next Zelda game continues the open world direction, then it will likely have shrines again, or at least something similar that works mini-dungeons. And if the next game were to continue the Breath of the Wild brand, then it would be possible to expand a shrine maker with everything new. Maybe it won't even come out before, so it will already feature the next game and its shrines as the basis, but also still supports everything from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

The Future of Zelda on the Nintendo Switch 2

Earlier this month Nintendo has given us all the information about what to expect from the successor to the Nintendo Switch, when it launches on June 5th, from the games to the questionable pricing. Whether the upgrade to Nintendo's future is actually worth the investment will be decided by its offerings, where Zelda has been one of the biggest hits next to Mario Kart in the last generation, mainly thanks to Breath of the Wild. But where will the franchise go from here and what could its future look like on the Nintendo Switch 2?

This article is a refinement of a similar post from last year, The Future of Zelda after Tears of the Kingdom. But a lot has come to pass since then. We have already gotten a new top-down Zelda title in the meantime with Echoes of Wisdom, still on the Nintendo Switch. One of the ideas from the previous article is actually becoming a reality with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. We've learned how they will treat both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom right out of the gate: by upgrading their Nintendo Switch versions. And we know what the Nintendo Switch 2 hardware actually brings on the table in terms of innovation... Which isn't that much.

All these insights reshape the image shown in the crystal balls of your nearest fortune-teller, and this primarily affects what's the most important topic:

 

The Next 3D Zelda

The Zelda series has been in constant change, always reinventing itself with each new console generation, both visually and in gameplay. We've had realistic styles, cartoon styles, and a mix of both. We've went from motion controls to a revolutionary open world concept. We have seen more than ten different iterations of the hero Link and the eponymous Princess Zelda over the decades, but we have yet to see a true trilogy of Zelda games. So, it's natural to expect a new face and a new style coming with a new system.

However, this time things might be different. Both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have been a massive success, true system sellers, more than any Zelda game ever could hope to achieve before. They have been so successful that their open world formula will be the way forward. And they are so distinct from the rest of the series that they have become a brand of their own.

With the Nintendo Switch 2 we will get enhanced versions of both games right at launch, where Nintendo wants their customers to keep playing these titles on their newest system. Not only that, they plan on expanding the universe of this new Hyrule with the upcoming Age of Imprisonment spin-off. So, it seems like that Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are already laying the foundations for what's to come.

Adding to this sentiment is that the Nintendo Switch 2 itself is also just a continuation of the Nintendo Switch. This isn't meant to be Nintendo's next revolutionary innovation, this is simply the Nintendo Switch in bigger and better, with a few improvements, mainly to the Joy-Cons. And given how popular the Nintendo Switch was, it doesn't have to be.

If we apply the same principle on the next 3D Zelda game and also take into consideration that it's clearly very important for Nintendo to still highlight both Breath and Tears, then it's not far-fetched to assume that we might be getting another sequel to these two Zelda titles. For the first time ever we could be looking at a true trilogy in the series. This doesn't mean that this next Zelda game won't be innovative. Similar to how the Ultrahand had shaped Tears of the Kingdom in its entirety, the next game will have some gameplay idea that makes it stand out.

However, in an interview with GameInformer from late 2023, Aonuma has already stated that they are not going to do a sequel, similar to how they are not doing any DLC for Tears of the Kingdom, because they had exhausted their ideas. He called it "the final form of that version of The Legend of Zelda." But he was mainly talking about the world, where nobody wants them to use the same Hyrule for the third time anyway. And a lot of people don't necessarily want a third game where all their stuff keeps breaking. There is a lot of room for doing things differently, while staying with the same Link and Zelda.

There is also the chance that it makes a generational leap, similar to how Spirit Tracks unfolded its story, but that it still uses the same art style and also embraces the same open world formula. But let's discuss how such a sequel could look like in an upcoming post...

 

Shrine Maker

Something that has already gotten its own post many years ago is the idea for a Shrine Maker, Zelda's equivalent to the Super Mario Maker, based on the shrines from both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. And if Nintendo truly were to make a trilogy out these games, then this would make this concept on the Nintendo Switch 2 a lot more appealing. They could start with all the assets from the first two games and later expand this to shrines from the third game.

So, the creators would have the choice between the blue Sheikah Shrines, the green Shrines of Light from the Zonai era, and whatever may come next... maybe golden shrines of the Triforce. It's also a big topic of its own, where I've been meaning to explore this concept a little further for a while now.

 

The Next Top-Down Zeldas

While Echoes of Wisdom and the remake of Link's Awakening aren't such huge hits as their big brethren on the Nintendo Switch, GREZZO's contributions to the Zelda series were still received fairly well and they have also established a new art style that – similar to The Wind Waker – may have a lasting impact, at least for the future of top-down Zelda games. There is just something very charming about looking at these miniature toy worlds from above.

Despite their simple aesthetics, both games also didn't really run all too well on the Switch, where their upcoming updates for the Switch 2 may finally give us some stable 60FPS, which was one of the biggest points of criticism about GREZZO's titles. And with that out of the way, it seems even more straight-forward to simply continue what they have been doing on the Nintendo Switch.

They could still make that remake of Oracle of Ages & Seasons, with both the Game Boy Color classics combined into one experience. They could also follow up on Echoes of Wisdom with a new multiplayer title, where one plays as Link and the other as Zelda. This all feels like a natural evolution coming from Link's Awakening and Echoes of Wisdom, where there is no real need of inventing something completely new right now.

 

Past Zelda Titles

As already discussed in my recent article about the future Nintendo Switch Online, there is the possibility that the Nintendo Switch 2 will allow you to play the entire Zelda series in some form at some point. Additional libraries for the Nintendo DS, 3DS and Wii could make it happen.

That doesn't mean that we won't be seeing any more remakes or remasters, however. As already mentioned, the idea for remaking Oracle of Ages & Seasons in the style of Link's Awakening still stands. Yes, both games are already playable on the Switch via Nintendo Switch Online, but a remake would not only offer much prettier graphics, it would also allow you to experience them as one, without the need for a convoluted password system. There is even an argument to be made that waiting for the Nintendo Switch 2 was a good thing, because its power may let you quickly switch between the seasons and ages without any loading times.

Both Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks would also gain a lot from remakes in the future. Even if Nintendo were to make them playable as part of a Nintendo DS service, they would still look horrible and they would still be dependent on gimmicky touchscreen controls. And they have many other aspects that are begging to be polished, like the atrocious treasure systems. Whether this will be happening on the Nintendo Switch 2 or a future Nintendo system is a different question. The Oracle games should have priority, because everything needed for a remake is already there.

It's similar with The Minish Cap, where out of all the handheld Zelda games it is the one that would need a remake the least. It's still something to consider, but maybe not for the Nintendo Switch 2.

Of course, what the media and most Zelda fans out there are begging for are neither of these games. They want Ocarina of Time. And maybe this will happen. We've been through remaking and remastering all the 3D Zelda games once already, where they eventually will start over. It's been 14 years since Ocarina of Time 3D!

The question is who should be doing it. GREZZO has done the remakes for the Nintendo 3DS, but they have proven themselves as the new studio behind the top-down Zelda installments, like Flagship in the past, which is equally important. But if Nintendo were to find the right team for the job of remaking the Nintendo 64 classics, then nothing would speak against it.

However, there is quite a commitment here, because Ocarina of Time has to be followed by Majora's Mask – both games were carved out of the same wood, so you shouldn't have one without the other. The same goes for the two Nintendo DS Zelda games and the Oracle games are overdue after Link's Awakening. But starting with the Nintendo 3DS, we've gotten exactly two remakes or remasters of Zelda games per platform, where there is no reason to suddenly expect many more on the Nintendo Switch 2. We can't have it all at once.

Another question that comes up every time is about the Wii U remasters, The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD. With the introduction of the GameCube service to Nintendo Switch Online, it doesn't feel likely that this will happen anytime soon, because Nintendo wants to pay for the service, but only having the option of playing the emulated ports won't be appealing in the long run, just like with Oracle of Ages & Seasons...

 

The ?

Except for the Shrine Maker, this article is running with lots of safe bets. Nintendo will just keep doing with Zelda on the Nintendo Switch 2 what they've been already doing on the Nintendo Switch, just with more horse power. And maybe this will be true, because the Zelda series doesn't necessarily need to completely innovate itself yet again. Each new game usually brings a set of fresh ideas anyways, even when they borrow the style of a predecessor, as proven by Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom.

However, Zelda games are usually shaped by their gameplay ideas and with that there is no certainty to anything. We could be looking at something completely different on the Nintendo Switch 2, it's just that it would feel natural to pick up from where we currently are.

And there is also the chance that they might surprise us with something that rarely anyone expects, like a new spin-off out of the left field, similar to Cadence of Hyrule. But that is part of the fun.

The Spin-Off Debate

The upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom features a playable Zelda as the main protagonist for the first time and a completely new gameplay mechanic, where both fans and gaming journalists were quick to call this game a "spin-off" to the Zelda series. And it's far from the first Zelda game to be treated that way, where the most prominent examples are the multiplayer-centric episodes, like the recently re-released Four Swords.

But are these games truly spin-offs? And what is even a spin-off to begin with? Let's start by answering the second question. According to Giant Bomb a video game spin-off is the following:

A game that takes gameplay mechanics, characters, or story elements from an existing series in a separate and different direction, sometimes changing genres along the way.

That's a very loose definition and here it's easy to see why fans and professional journalists alike may classify Echoes of Wisdom as a spin-off. You play as Zelda and fight with summons, which is a different direction from the rest of the Zelda series, where you've always played as Link and primarily fought with weapons, so it can really be seen as its own thing. The Tingle games are spin-offs after all, because you play as Tingle, right?

Well, it's not as simple. The Zelda series has always been highly experimental and gimmick-based to a degree where you could identify many of the games as a spin-off somehow, because they do something extraordinary, which makes them stand out within the series. You may look at Majora's Mask as a spin-off, because there is a clock running at the bottom of the screen. And some fans do. Some fans also consider all handheld games to be spin-offs, because they were made for inferior hardware... Heck, there are even fans who think of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom as spin-offs, because the open world direction isn't a traditional Zelda.

Luckily, Nintendo has made it easy to identify which games are part of the official The Legend of Zelda series and which games can be considered as spin-offs. All mainline Zelda games do the following:

• Their title starts with "The Legend of Zelda".
• Their story is part of the official timeline.

There is one exception to the first rule and that is Zelda II - The Adventure of Link. But keep in mind that it is called "The Legend of Zelda 2" in Japan, so this mainly due to the translation for the west. If this game were to come out today, however, it likely would be treated as a spin-off, since it falls into the Action RPG genre. But it would be unfair to do this retroactively, because when the game came out the Zelda series wasn't truly established yet. That didn't happen until A Link to the Past came around...

As for the official spin-offs to the Zelda series, we are then left with the following:

• Game & Watch: Zelda (LCD)
• BS The Legend of Zelda (BS-X)
• BS The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets (BS-X)
• Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland (DS)
• Tingle's Balloon Fight (DS)
• Link's Crossbow Training (Wii)
• Too Much Tingle Pack (DS)
• Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love (DS)
• Hyrule Warriors (Wii U)
• My Nintendo Picross: Twilight Princess (3DS)
• Hyrule Warriors: Legends (3DS)
• Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (Switch)
• Cadence of Hyrule (Switch)
• Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (Switch)
• Game & Watch: Vernim (Zelda version)

The Broadcast Satellaview games are probably the ones closest to the main series when it comes to gameplay, where the main difference was the division into playable episodes as part of a live broadcast. But fans have proven that Nintendo could remake these games into proper Zelda titles, if they wanted to.

In addition, there is the first Tingle game, Rosy Rupeeland, which also emulates the classic Zelda Action Adventure formula, even offering a set of dungeons. The later Tingle games on the Nintendo DS all fell into different genres, however, where the sequel was more of a classic Adventure and Tingle's Balloon Fight was a Wind Waker-themed reskin of the classic Balloon Fight.

And this is what most of the Zelda spin-off games have in common: they fall into different genres. Link's Crossbow Training and the My Nintendo Picross are a shooter and a puzzle game respectively, both based on Twilight Princess. The Hyrule Warriors games are Hack and Slashs. And Cadence of Hyrule combines your classic Zelda Action Adventure with a rhythm game.

What's also of note is that these spin-offs often have the potential to spawn a series of their own, like the BS-X and Tingle games. We also have two different Hyrule Warriors games by now and there will likely be more in the future. And even though we never got one, the My Nintendo Picross concept could have featured other Zelda games, e.g. one based on Skyward Sword. But we may a get a Cadence of Hyrule 2 one day, eventually.

Of course, this is far from what the Super Mario series has done with its many Mario Karts, Mario Parties, other sports games, RPGs, and so on, where this is way clearer, but in general this still holds true with the few spin-offs that Zelda has seen.

And would someone honestly expect The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom to spawn a new series? If anything, it will pave the way for a playable Zelda and other playable characters in future installments of the main series, just like how Four Swords also was followed by two more Zelda games focused on multiplayer. Or how A Link Between Worlds let you get all main items at the start of the game, which became a new trend.

However, this doesn't mean that it couldn't. With Super Mario we even have examples where main games are also the first game in a spin-off series. The first Wario Land was labeled as Super Mario Land 3. And Yoshi's Island was labeled as both Super Mario World 2 and Super Mario Advance 3. So, it could happen that we get more games focusing on a playable Zelda, which really do their own thing and also have a different title. But Echoes of Wisdom will still be a part of the main Zelda series in that case.

And honestly, playing as Zelda is not that much of a deviation from the Zelda core gameplay that it justifies making a different series out of this. And the echo mechanic is really this game's unique gimmick, which will probably never return, like the three-day time loop, turning into a wolf, or the Ultrahand...