Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom producer Eiji Aonuma has responded to fans’ hopes of a traditional linear Zelda game, saying he believes games with a strict path are “games of the past”.
The debate has been argued ever since the release of Breath of the Wild, and Aonuma gave his thoughts on the topic in a new interview with IGN.
“It’s interesting when I hear people say [I miss traditional linear Zelda],” Aonuma revealed, “because I’m wondering ‘why do you want to go back to a type of game where you’re more limited or more restricted in the types of things or ways you can play?'”
Games which have a strict order of events are “kind of games of the past,” Aonuma said, whilst modern games “can accept a player’s own decisions and give them the freedom to flexibly proceed”. This is the design philosophy of the Zelda team at Nintendo, he stated, though he added “I do have to admit making games that way always carries with it additional development costs”.