We haven’t heard from Nintendo regarding the upcoming Legend of Zelda game in a while- the last time we saw it, it looked awesome, and we were pretty thrilled at a next gen realization of some age old Zelda concepts. But one question always lingered in our minds- if the hook to the new Zelda game is that it is open world, and there are already so many other open world games on the market, what, exactly, is Zelda doing different? Rather, would there not be the risk that the game would end up diluting its identity and become just one more Assassin’s Creed clone, like the countless others that litter the market?
Well, not if Nintendo has anything to say about it. In an interview with IGN, Zelda director Eiji Aonuma said that Nintendo would do things differently with Zelda.
“We actually had some feedback from Skyward Sword, where people were saying, ‘This is not exactly the Zelda game I was looking for, I was looking for a bigger open world.'” Aonuma told IGN. “Unfortunately, I can’t go into details but I’m hoping to put a surprise, or kind of a twist, on my view of an open world game. I hope that you’ll look forward to it.”
Aonuma also acknowledged the development team reads a lot of what fans think about the series- but that doesn’t mean that they always take all of this feedback into account.
“If we put all the feedback the fans write directly into the game, there won’t be an element of surprise,” he said. “If there’s a comment and they’re asking for certain element, I would think, ‘Oh, why not interpret this in a different way that you wouldn’t expect?’ That’s how we create a new element in a Zelda game. I always want to implement something new and surprising into every game.“
The Legend of Zelda is widely expected to launch in 2016. It is confirmed for a Wii U release, and rumored to be coming to the NX system as well.