Make no mistake, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has transformed the enduring series for the better. 2017’s epic open-world adventure reinvented every that'd come before with its focus on exploration, out-of-the-box thinking, and player freedom. For many, BOTW marked their first Zelda game – and their favorite.
The temptation, then, will be for the franchise to go with the Epona it rode in on. Breath of the Wild and its sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, account for nearly a third of the series’ all-time sales, and it’s hard now to imagine a return to the more rigid dungeon structure of adventures’ past.
