Breath of the Wild’s “freedom” will be used to shape future Zelda games

After taking home the award for 2017’s best game at The Game Awards, Zelda: Breath of the Wild undoubtedly stands as one of the best games of all-time. Naturally, that means that deviating from the seemingly endless freedom that the game offered would only be a step back. At least, series producer, Eiji Aonuma seems to think so.

In speaking to IGN, Aonuma said that it was an eye-opening experience to see how players reacted to the game’s level of freedom.

He said:

“You know, I can’t speak to what other people, other companies will do in their own games, but I think for me, especially just in terms of the Zelda series, the incredible freedom that this game offers you and how well that’s been received…to me, it means that freedom, that level of freedom is something that needs to be maintained in Zelda games going forward. My eyes have been opened to how important that is.”

Director Hidemaro Fujibayashi added that a major design goal for the game was that there should be “multiple answers, multiple methods, multiple ways of doing anything.”

“It had to be an environment where [players] could do things we couldn’t predict if it would work,” he added. Fujibayashi had previously said that he has “lots of ideas” for the next game in the series, so it doesn’t seem as though Nintendo will be waiting around long to get to work.