The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild og The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom er begge uhyre åbne, de er så åbne at det er en del af deres centrale identitet. Og selvom at Nintendo allerede har slået fast at de ikke laver flere spil i samme direkte serie, så er lineære Zelda-spil noget der hører fortiden til.
I et interview med IGN fortæller producer Eiji Aonuma, at vi ikke skal forvente Zelda-spil der involverer "following a specific set of steps":
"Games where you need to follow a specific set of steps or complete tasks in a very set order, are kind of the games of the past. Whereas currently the games of today are ones in which that can accept a player's own decisions and give them the freedom to flexibly proceed through the game, and the game will allow for that. So I'm in complete agreement with that as our design philosophy, but as the producer, I do have to admit making games that way always carries with it additional development costs. And that is something I have to think about."
Præcis hvordan Zelda-holdet kommer til at bryde med denne specifikke underserie, samtidig med at de bibeholde det centrale element fra netop de spil, ja det må tiden vise.
