In a new interview, Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma ruled out a direct sequel to Tears of the Kingdom.
When Tears of the Kingdom was announced as “The Sequel to Breath of the Wild”, a lot of people were wondering how a direct sequel to a Zelda would look like, as the series very rarely did that. Instead, a new Zelda game usually means a completely new world, vibe, story and gameplay approach.
But Tears of the Kingdom built on top of Breath of the Wild in amazing and surprising ways, making an amazing game even better (in my opinion). However, it looks like that was it for this part of the Zelda series, as the next game is apparently set to not be another direct sequel.
Zelda Producer Rules Out Direct Sequel To Tears of the Kingdom
In a great new interview with Game Informer, producer Eiji Aonuma and director Hidemaro Fujibayashi talked about the reception of Tears of the Kingdom and the potential future in the series. When asked about a direct sequel to the 2023 masterpiece, Aonuma laughed and straight up denied the possibility of that happening:
Well, that would be a sequel to a sequel, which is getting a little bit wild when you think about it! But as I've mentioned previously, with Tears of the Kingdom, we were seeking to build on top of the world we created with Breath of the Wild and really exhaust the possibilities of what we could put into that world. I think it is – to use a bit of a term – an apotheosis, or the final form of that version of The Legend of Zelda. In that regard, I don't think that we'll be making a direct sequel to a world such as that, that we've created.
Earlier this year, Aonuma also denied that we will ever get Tears of the Kingdom DLC, so that might have actually been it. While that is kind of sad, at least they went out with a bang. And hey, no one likes too much of a good thing. At least it looks like Nintendo could keep the open world approach from BOTW and TOTK and develop them further in new titles.
Whatever Aonuma and his team will do, I’m sure the next Zelda game will once again be amazing. And hopefully the Switch 2 will be as powerful as rumored, so that the next game can really step up on a technical level as well.