Video games have naturally evolved over the last 40+ years to become what they are now. However, some people still love the “old ways” when it comes to creation. For the recently released Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, the teams at Nintendo and Grezzo worked hard to make a new and fresh top-down title starring Princess Zelda that would feel new and exciting while still paying tribute to the numerous top-down titles that Link had starred in before. Producer Eiji Aonuma talked with the BBC about the game and admitted that the title surprised him in certain ways.
Specifically, he thought it was “close to impossible” for them to do a top-down title that had new elements, and yet, they pulled that off via the Echoes and Zelda’s starring role:
“And so this game made me realize that there’s still a lot of possibility for these top-down Zelda games as well.”
What does that mean for the future of The Legend of Zelda? Simply put, Eiji Aonuma teased that we’ll be seeing both the large-scale 3D worlds from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom while also building off of what Echoes of Wisdom did:
“So we will also have those dynamic 3D Zeldas as well. But in addition to that, we’re also hoping that we can continue with these 2D top-down Zeldas.”
Given that the two top-down titles that were put onto the Switch sold incredibly well, and the “dynamic 3D” titles were Game of the Year contenders, it makes sense for Nintendo to play both sides of this coin and reap the benefits.