Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom – the team still has no DLC plans either (Picture: Nintendo)

There’s no telling when the next Zelda game will arrive, but it sounds like it won’t feature the same world as Tears Of The Kingdom.

Long-time fans of The Legend Of Zelda know that the series has rarely kept to the same setting from game to game. While you typically explore the land of Hyrule, it’s never been the exact same Hyrule every time, due to each game taking place at radically different points in history (and Nintendo not really caring about lore).

This wasn’t the case with Tears Of The Kingdom , which saw you return to the same setting of Breath Of The Wild , albeit one slightly altered and featuring new sky and underground areas.

Given how successful both games have been, it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if Nintendo opted to stick with this iteration of Hyrule for a while longer and keep building on top of it. However, the producer appears to have confirmed this won’t be the case and that the next Zelda game will feature a new iteration of Hyrule.

This comes courtesy of a Telegraph interview about the making of Tears Of The Kingdom, featuring series producer Eiji Aonuma and director Hidemaro Fujibayashi.

Frustratingly, there’s no direct quote about this from either Aonuma or Fujibayashi, although they’re described as being adamant about moving onto a new version of Hyrule in the future.

This makes sense when you remember that Aonuma has ruled out any DLC plans for Tears Of The Kingdom, explaining that the team already accomplished everything they wanted to do with the game.

‘When making Tears of the Kingdom, we were able to implement all of the ideas we had on the development side,’ Aonuma tells the Telegraph.

‘I think lots of players will have already completed the main game, but we aren’t creating any DLC this time. We as the development team are hoping you will continue to enjoy this huge land of Hyrule.’

Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom – should we expect a new Link and Zelda too? (Picture: Nintendo)

Presumably, this also means that the next Zelda game will feature new iterations of Link and Zelda in a new time period, plus an entirely new cast of characters rather than any returning favourites from the Switch duology.

Unless they decide to stick with the current cast and have them travel to a new region entirely. Much like how Majora’s Mask saw Link leave Hyrule to explore the land of Termina instead.

This also implies they have at least some idea of what the next game will be, although whether that will be another epic, that will be six years in the making, or something smaller scale remains to be seen.

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Elsewhere in the interview, Fujibayashi expresses pride for managing to create a world that still has secrets most players haven’t discovered yet, even five months after launch. For instance, you can tell if someone is a Yiga clan member in disguise if you’re holding a chicken (or cucco as they’re called) near them, since the chicken will react and ‘make a fuss.’

Fujibayashi also took time to address a question fans have had about the Guardians and Sheikah Towers from Breath Of The Wild, which are mysteriously absent in Tears Of The Kingdom.

So, what caused them to disappear in the sequel? Unfortunately, you may not be satisfied with the answer as Fujibayashi says their disappearance is a mystery in-universe as well.

‘They disappeared after the Calamity was defeated,’ explains Fujibayashi. ‘All of the people of Hyrule also witnessed this, but there is no one who knows the mechanism or reason why they disappeared, and it is considered a mystery. It is believed that since the Calamity disappeared, they also disappeared as their role had been fulfilled.’

Whether there is actually a secret explanation for their absence, or Nintendo just didn’t care to make an excuse for it is open to interpretation.

The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom is available for Nintendo Switch.





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