 Today I want to talk about this sentiment out there that Tears of the Kingdom, Breath of the Wild, etc. have killed the Zelda franchise. I think it's a little overblown, but we're going to have a conversation on this because I just saw this article over on Metro.co.uk a few days ago that I think is just worth talking about. Now, notably it was posted on April 1st, but it doesn't appear reading through it that it's like some April Fool's prank. It's really honest feelings I think from this author, and I've seen these feelings represented by other Zelda fans as well, so I want to talk about it, but before we do, I want to remind you that we're on our way to 100,000 subscribers. We're almost there guys. If we happen to get there before Tears of the Kingdom, we'll be giving away a Zelda Switch OLED, we'll also be giving away a Collector's Edition of the game, and much more. Now, looking at this article it says the Zelda games I love are dead, and Tears of the Kingdom killed them. Again, the premise is really interesting because I don't understand how we can say that the old school style Zelda games are dead. We did get Link's Awakening remade. I know we haven't had a new Zelda game in between, but I don't think we're just going to be waiting five, six years between Zelda games. There's going to be more, but let's just be fair and give the article a little read here. It says, a reader is unhappy with the new gameplay footage of Tears of the Kingdom and worries that the original formula for the series is gone forever. So he says, I get it. I really do. Zelda Breath of the Wild was the most successful entry by a mile, and so naturally Nintendo would want to make a follow up that was similar and not go back to the classic Zelda formula. From a business point of view it makes perfect sense, but as a long time Zelda fan I watched the new 10 minute Tears of the Kingdom gameplay video and it was everything I didn't want to see. I can appreciate the whole fusing concept is very clever and difficult to do, but for me it just seemed to double down on all the parts I didn't like about Breath of the Wild. I know people will say I should embrace the changes of the last game, but the problem is not only is Breath of the Wild's formula completely different to classic Zelda, but Nintendo is not making any new games in the old style anymore. It's 10 years since the last brand new Zelda using the original formula. With a link between worlds on 3DS, I can argue Triforce Zeroes, but we'll let it go. It's 12 years since the last big budget 3D game with Skyward Sword. We've had a few remakes and remasters since then, but nothing actually new. And now I'm worried that if Tears of the Kingdom is also a big success, that we never will. Everything I love about Zelda is being marginalized or removed completely, and I can't help but be upset at it. I've seen people complaining about breakable weapons this week, but my problem with that is not that it's annoying, although it is, but that it feels so un-Zelda-like. The Master Sword is Link's main weapon, and while he does use others occasionally for specific purposes, that's his Excalibur. I don't want Zelda to turn into a survival game where I've got to constantly be picking up resources and cooking meals and making arrows. For the majority of its life, Zelda has been about 3 things. Exploration, puzzle solving, and combat. And none of those work well in Breath of the Wild. I highly disagree with that take. I think Breath of the Wild has some of the most brilliant puzzles, some of the most breathtaking combat, and exploration wise, maybe the best exploration in the entire series. But again, personal opinions. The new games certainly have exploration, but it's very aimless, and because of the open world design, there's never any guarantee of a reward. Korok Seeds and Shrines are kind of the rewards, the scenery, learning about the history of Hyrule, finding runes, there was plenty of rewards in my opinion, but again, this is a personal take. You might find a new area and an interesting bit of treasure, or you might not. It depends on where you happen to go, and that's the point of exploration. Literally, that's the point of exploration. If you always found something all the time, then what is the point of exploring? You're just guaranteed to find things all the time. Going to this corner of the map and not having anything there, that's also part of exploration. We'll just leave that alone, moving on. Combat in Breath of the Wild is very different from the norm. I mean, you press a button and he swings a sword. It's not that different. I can argue the slow-down bow mechanic is different, and obviously all the various abilities are, but basic combat beyond breakable weapons isn't that different if we're completely honest. Let's just fight for a moment. Even with all the different weapons, which begs the question of why have them, because they break and they want to give you variety in your combat, but that's not the end of there, but the boss battles are terrible. I could agree there. Two samey. They're all basically the same. I will note the one in the Gerudo Desert. That one's a... I want to say that samey, visually samey, but a significantly more difficult fight, anyways, going on. Unlike all the varied and imagined bosses of previous games, that is a very fair criticism. The biggest issue for me, though, is the puzzle solving and the lack of dungeons. This whole aspect of Zelda is just a shadow of itself in Breath of the Wild, with very brief shrines, but there's 120 of them. Like, there's a lot of... There's almost more puzzles in Breath of the Wild than any other game, but anyways. Half are just mini-bosses, and four very subpar mini-dungeons for the Divine Beast. The dungeons should be the beating heart of a Zelda game, but now they're just a minor aside, most of which can easily be left out entirely. Breath of the Wild just isn't a Zelda game, as far as I'm concerned, and here's the kingdom looks even less like one. I'm sure the fusing is all very clever from a technical point of view, but it seems like it's going to be very fussy and fiddly in practice. I didn't like this stuff in Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts. Nobody did. The game was a big flop, and I definitely don't want it in Zelda. I think this is way beyond what happens in Nuts and Bolts, but I actually played Nuts and Bolts. I don't know how many of you have. It was a pretty limited feature in the game. It was the obvious problem is that now there's no proper solution for any of the situations you find yourself in. They aren't puzzles you have to figure out. They are an obstacle you have to fudge your way around, seeing how you can manipulate the physics engine in your favor. I haven't played the game yet, obviously, but it's the way these physics-based sandbox games always work. I have no interest in them. There's also an intended solution to all these puzzles, by the way. You saw this in the shrines. There's the intended solution, and then the craziness you could pull off with the physics engine to work around the intended solution. So I mean, okay. Most people consider that to be fun. Anyways, if they had called these games something else, make them a new franchise and carry down with proper Zelda series, I'd be fine. But now they're doubling down on all the things I didn't like, and I don't know if I'll ever see the Zelda I love again. Now, here's my take on this. And obviously, Metro UK chose to publish this article. I think that, obviously, Breath of the Wild is a massive departure from traditional Zelda, as is Tears of the Kingdom. But also, Breath of the Wild is massively popular and sold way more than any prior Zelda game. What they did with this new concept for Zelda is they decided that, you know what, we've been doing the same formula for 30 plus years. And in 30 plus years, we have failed to even get Zelda popular enough to crack that 10 million base. Clearly, something about the way we're doing Zelda games isn't working to hit that next wave in the market. We just keep hitting on the same core fans over and over and over again. I mean, it was to the point that Zelda wasn't even guaranteed to sell four million copies. Let's let that sink in for a moment. Zelda games not being guaranteed to sell four million copies. I mean, that's less than Kirby in the Forgotten Land. Imagine Zelda selling less than that. So when you sit back and you think about this from a logical perspective, clearly they felt like they needed to try something drastic and take Zelda in a new direction. And yes, Breath of the Wild is a departure in many ways. It keeps some of the same elements. You do have some of the same combat scenarios, the enemies, the world. You even have a lot of the puzzles. There's block pushing puzzles and a whole bunch of different types of puzzles if we're completely honest, some of which stumped many of us for a while. I think that obviously, Well, Breath of the Wild is my favorite game of all time and I have a severe bias. I've played and beaten every Zelda game, including the CDI ones. And to me, well, nothing this person is saying is true. I also don't think they're not going to get traditional Zelda games anymore. I want to make this clear just because we haven't had one this generation. I think a lot of that is because they were sort of training Grezzo to work on traditional Zelda-style games. So I think After Tears of the Kingdom, the next Zelda we're going to get is going to be a brand new top-down Zelda game. They proved themselves with Triforce Heroes, which opposite didn't sell as well, but then Link's Awakening, they proved themselves doing that remake. I think we're getting a top-down Zelda game soon. Now maybe you could decry, we're not going to get a traditional 3D-style Zelda game and I understand that, but I also think you need to look at video games to not be in a bubble. Overtime video games need to expand. Overtime video games need to try new things. To stay relevant for as long as the Zelda series has, it has to keep trying new. And right now that new is the way Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have gone and it's worked to massive success in sales. So yeah, they're not going to go away from this for a while. Why would they? Just like when a Link to the Past set up the basic Zelda formula that every game has followed after until Breath of the Wild, Breath of the Wild has now set up the new standard formula for what they're going to be doing for Zelda games for the next 10, 20 years. And I know that that's disappointing for some, but also they had to. Zelda wasn't becoming as big as it deserved to be. You know, they changed up the formula with Mario as well and it's led to massive successes over the years. And they've done this with many other IPs that have needed a shakeup. Look, look what they did with Kirby in the Forgotten Land. They needed to shake up Kirby to hit that next tier of sales. And they did and it worked. This is what you have to do to maintain IP relevance. You can't just always live in the past. Nobody's taking those old Zelda games away from you, but you need to understand that they want to, they are a for-profit business, right? They want to bring the series forward. They want to bring in new audiences. I'll give you an example. My kids had zero interest in the old Zelda games. I tried to get them into it, but they're really into Breath of the Wild. So is my fiance who also doesn't like the old Zelda games. See, hitting on a new audience isn't a bad thing, even if it makes you feel like you're being left behind. But I also don't think you're gonna be completely left behind. I think we just need to have some patience. I think Grezzo is the team working on that next Zelda that you're gonna like and everything's gonna be fine. Maybe you end up not getting your next Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess, your big dungeon heavy game. But I also think Zelda relying so heavily on dungeons might have been one of the things holding it back. Like exploration is so fun in Breath of the Wild and likely even more fun in Tears of the Kingdom. I can't imagine going back at this point. And this is someone who's been a long time a Zelda fan. Like yes, give me some in-between traditional Zeldas. Sure, to fill in the gaps, but I personally can't imagine like when it comes to the big 3D open world Zeldas, like going back to a dungeon heavy game. And a lot of you guys do want dungeons. And by the way, I'm cool with dungeons being in Tears of the Kingdom, but in the past, it really just felt like you were going dungeon to dungeon to dungeon to dungeon. That was the game. I don't want that. I don't want Tears of the Kingdom to boil down to we have nine dungeons and your goal in this game is just to go from one to the other to the other to the other to the end of the game. And I don't think that's going to be the case. The world is so massive, it's impossible for the game to be like, oh yeah, we just got nine dungeons and that's the point of the game. But I would like to see dungeons included. I just, I think that there is this inherent separation that's existed since Breath of the Wild came out between traditionalists and people that are ready for the change. And I've been ready for this change for a long time. And I love, I even love Skyward Sword. It's one of my favorite Zelda games. But even I could admit, you know what? When Breath of the Wild happened, I was there, man. The people who think it's not a Zelda game, I just think are wrong, are not open to embracing change. And in the end, they're free to have their opinions. And I think they're still gonna end up getting their Zelda games. Anyways, you guys let me know your thoughts on this down in the comments below. I am Nathaniel Ruffaljantz and I'll catch you in the next video.