The producer of The Legend of Zelda series, Eiji Aonuma, has addressed the demand for more traditional, linear Zelda games, but believes that “people have a tendency to want the thing that we don't currently have.”
Excluding The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (2019) and Skyward Sword HD (a remake and remaster of two older games), the two newest entries in the series, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, have both followed a non-linear open-world format. While this proved to be an enormous hit with fans new and old, it’s now been a while since the classic linear design has been used.
