I wonder how long it will be before an original game comes out.

I think they should’ve waited some time before announcing a sequel to Breath of the Wild. I liked the game fine, but I’m antsy for something new now that I’ve seen the potential for what they can do. Instead they’re just following up on the same story.

Because of that antsiness, I’m going to use this topic to list off all the things I want the next not-sequel game to have.

1.) The option to play as Linkle, whether via a separate story for her or just a single narrative in which Link’s gender isn’t significant. (No romance plots, basically.)
2.) An overworld that’s not predominantly in ruins.
3.) Dungeons.
4.) Carryovers from the old formula where sidequests, rather than just shrines, give you useful items like Pieces of Heart.
5.) A musical instrument that does stuff.
6.) Regular items.
7.) Less effort put toward making Zelda progressive and relatable, if she needs to be in the game at all.
8.) No voice acting, or the option to turn voice acting off.
9.) I can stomach them retaining the durability system if they make things more durable and/or give you the option to repair them. And set some weapons apart by making them unbreakable, at least.
11.) The ability to call your horse from anywhere in the overworld; even if you need a special item to do so, have it be an actual usable item, not a bridle or saddle that makes the horse look silly.
12.) It’s not a necessity, but some type of traveling companion would be nice.
13.) No Sheikah technology whatsoever.

Those are the ones I can think of right now. I’m sure I’ll come up with more eventually.

14.) Less bad attempts at adult humor. This game stopped feeling like a Zelda game every time they tried to crack an adult joke. If they want to do that kind of thing, do it right, and don’t be so blatant about it.

I imagine I’ll stop numbering these after a while.

tldr

So basically like the previously Zelda games, just in BotW's engine?

I did enjoy BotW due to its simplicity (grown tired of open world games), but I definitely don't want to play another game just like it.

I think the announcement was a bit pre mature too

15.) NO MORE HYLIA

How did I forget to include that?

OK...My wonderment is starting to become impatience.

I'm sick of all this Breath of the Wild stuff. I haven't heard great things about Age of Calamity, and I'm very much on the fence about buying the sequel.

Overall, I'm afraid that my tenure as an active Zelda fan may be coming to an end, partly owing to Nintendo's recent "Let's change everything!" attitude to releasing new material. I want them to just put a completely new game out so that I know sooner where they're planning to go in the future.

I've always thought a rated M game in the Zelda franchise could be potentially super fantastic. Majora's Mask already exists as this low-key mega-classic, and the "dark themes" of that title could have only been improved with a higher ESRB rating.

Wrote the following scenario when I was a kid, actually on gfaqs like...15 years ago?

"Link is a young soldier of the Hylian army, having lived on the streets for half his life before being unofficially adopted by the castle-town's guard captain 10 years prior to the start of the game. Tutorial section might feature flashbacks with a "young Link" character learning the basics of fighting and the controls - the actual game starts after this prologue-tutorial-flashback with a sudden attack in the night on Hyrule's capital. Link is awoken by this, and the player immediately gets attacked by Ganon's monsters after a fellow soldier barges into his room only to get killed from behind right after."

It goes on for a while, basically it's like what I imagine happened between Ocarina of Time's time-skip but Link is actually already an adult when it starts and present in the thick of it. Basically everyone dies, including Link's adoptive father (who returns as a possessed boss-fight near the end of the game). Link and an Impa-type Sheikah character survive, and the premise of the game is essentially to reclaim Hyrule from Ganon's forces but it's very WW2 occupied France vibes...survival/stealth/navigation were supposed to be the main focuses especially at the start, and then after Link systematically liberates the various tribes of Ganon's taint they would let the player have access to stronger methods of fighting back against the occupation (stuff like advanced bombs, vehicles, allied-attacks, etc).

Still think that'd be an epic Zelda game, especially with a M rating to capitalize on the dark themes. Nintendo obviously will never do something like that, but that doesn't change my opinion lol.

I would rather play as a warrior Zelda, before playing Linkle.

So your suggestion for making an original game is to do the same things they've already done half a dozen times in previous games?