Next "back-to-basics" Zelda may ditch linear progression

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Series director Eiji Aonuma says his team is rethinking linear progression

The next Zelda will "get back to basics," series director Eiji Aonuma revealed in today's Nintendo Direct presentation. Aonuma didn't mention specifics about the next Zelda game coming for Wii U, but he did address its driving themes.

"I'm referring to things such as the player is supposed to complete dungeons in a certain order. That you are supposed to play by yourself, the things that we've come to take for granted recently."

That's a lot to take in at once! Every major Zelda title since the series made the jump to SNES has imposed a strict dungeon progression (not counting speedrun tricks), though the first game famously left players to figure out their own path through Hyrule.

"We had actually worked on this kind of challenge with Skyward Sword, but we weren't able to put efforts in changing the linear structure of the game," Aonuma said.

Aonuma may be implying the next Zelda will have multiplayer, or it may just make good use of Miiverse (though the Gamepad could very easily serve as a Tingle Tuner for a second player).

"We want to set aside these 'conventions,' get back to basics to create a newborn Zelda so players today can enjoy the real essence of the franchise."

Don't get your hopes up for too much more news on that front any time soon--Aonuma said the game is pretty far off, though we can look forward to the HD remake of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker until then.

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.