Breath of the Wild completely transformed The Legend of Zelda series, and Tears of the Kingdom expanded upon the established formula, offering even more freedom and complex gameplay systems. However, Hidemaro Fujibayashi does not intend to use the same foundation again. The game director wants future installments to offer fresh ideas rather than simply refine the solutions from the last two games.
During discussions with the team, Fujibayashi regularly returns to a simple question: “Will this be fun?”. He encourages designers to think beyond the mechanics used not only in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, but also in classic titles like Ocarina of Time. Developers should not limit themselves to the existing set of ideas that the series has accumulated over decades.
This does not yet mean that Nintendo will completely abandon the achievements of Tears of the Kingdom. However, Fujibayashi’s words make it clear: the next Zelda should not be a safe sequel to the second installment. This is an ambitious challenge, as the studio must once again figure out how to surprise the audience of a series that has redefined adventure games several times.