Nintendo will certainly continue the franchise, which is approaching a significant anniversary, on its new hardware.

The Nintendo Switch 2 launches worldwide tomorrow, and fans are already eager to see what a new-generation Zelda game could look like on the console. Several Legend of Zelda games have already landed on the Nintendo Switch, including the two “open-air” (Nintendo’s own term for open-world) titles, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, as well as Echoes of Wisdom back in 2023. The Switch also saw the Link’s Awakening remake and a new remaster of Skyward Sword, meaning there’s a pretty big Zelda selection available for the platform. That won’t be changing with the Switch 2, as Nintendo has already announced next-gen updates for both open-world Zelda games in the franchise.

Nintendo fans are now daydreaming on Reddit about what the next big Zelda adventure could look like, with the extra power of the Switch 2 in mind. An embedded blog post asked users what they’d want to see in the next mainline, open-world Legend of Zelda game. The opening post simply wished for something different from Breath of the Wild, arguing that Tears of the Kingdom suffered from being too similar—right down to reusing the same map. While a new map is inevitable, the poster fears Nintendo will stick too closely to the Breath of the Wild formula, resulting in a game that feels all too familiar, just with new characters, abilities, and locations.

With the announcement of the Switch 2, what do you want to see from the next "open air" Zelda game that will inevitably come out on it?
byu/Tainted_Scholar intruezelda

The responses to the post all had their own take on what they want in the first Zelda title on Switch 2. One commenter wants dungeons to be gated by items in a more open-ended way: instead of requiring a specific item for every dungeon, maybe the hookshot could unlock two different dungeons or similar, making the order less rigid without going full open-world or fully linear. Another commenter wants to ditch the shrine system entirely and bring back full dungeons and caves—hoping for 30–50 “meaty” dungeons, which is much more satisfying than 150 shrines and just a handful of real dungeons. A third simply asked for underwater exploration.

The question is what, if any, of these ideas will actually come true… By the way, the franchise turns 40 in February, so perhaps we’ll see an announcement by then.

Source: Gamingbible