better-story

The next Zelda game needs a better story

It’s an exciting time to be a Zelda fan; the Nintendo Switch 2 is coming, and the next major Zelda game is in development. However, a large part of the feedback I hear about recent Zelda games is the story needs to improve. Today I’m going to dive open-world narratives, plus hear what you have to say about improving the story in the next Legend of Zelda game.

For the majority of the Zelda series the story has followed a linear path; we would start out with an introduction or framing of the story for the game, then as we progress through the game other story beats would unfold. We would take on the role of the main protagonist Link and be active in the unfolding narrative. That changed with Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. For the majority of these games, we’re not active paticipants in the story, we view the narrative through memories, taking a more passive ‘watching’ role in the story. I say majority because there are active events you take part in (especially in Tears of the Kingdom), but experiencing the story is very different from Zelda games that came before Breath of the Wild.

Open-world games allow the player to explore in any direction. As well as exploring the world in any direction, you can experience the story in any order. Players have much more choice available to them. With Breath of the Wild Nintendo decided upon the “memories” mechanic to help tell the story, but playing a through a story and watching a story from the past are very different. With the former you are taking an active role and the latter is much more passive, and it’s difficult to successfully blend the two.

There are plenty of advantages to the open-world formula; players can chose which order to tackle dunegons (for example the Divine Beasts in Breath of the Wild), and players can create their own stories in the vast open-world. Going from A to B you might encounter a world-boss, or come across an camp of Moblins. However, a major drawback of the open-world storytelling we’ve seen in Zelda games recently are you can experience the story out-of-order. While the developers do their best to make sure the story makes sense out of order, it just doesn’t have the same impact as a careful crafted narrative that players take an active role in and see in the order that the narrative team intend. We have game mechanics to allow us to see in-order, for example, once we have collected all the memories we can watch them again in order, but this isn’t the same as experiencing them as intended.

The passive nature of storytelling in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom leads to a disconnected feeling with the players. There are moments in Breath of the Wild’s story that hit, there are emotional cutscenes with Zelda bursting into tears, or Link heroically saving Zelda from danger, however, we are not experiencing these stories in an active role, we’re merely watching these stories as a passive player.

Another shortcoming of the storytelling in recent games is acknowledgement of the story by other NPCs or the game world itself. For example, in Ocarina of Time you start as child Link, once you collect the three medallions you then unlock the time-travel capability of the Temple of Time through the Master Sword and you experience the changes in game world as a player. Link’s reaction to Rauru telling him to “look at himself”, and Link first realising he’s grown up is a memorable story moment, or when you step out of the Temple of Time and see the changes to Hyrule and Ganon’s influence over the world. In Breath of the Wild you experience the story and for the majority of the time the world stays the same.

Eiji Aonuma, Legend of Zelda Producer, has said the team prioritises story. He’s a little more of what he said with interviews shortly before Echoes of Wisdom released:

“I’ve never really made a game where you think of the story first and then go into gameplay. First when you think of the gameplay, what you’re trying to think of after that is how you can get players to understand that gameplay. The story becomes used as a vessel because it has a beginning and end, and the player moves through it. I think it would actually be kind of difficult to do the reverse and start with the story, then try to match the gameplay mechanics to that.”

Breath of the Wild’s focus was on the open-world, and the priority was nailing that experience. Traditional Zelda staples like dungeons, key items and linear story were out, and open-world exploration and non-linear storytelling were in.

The key question for me is can open-world Zelda games have a good story? I don’t see why not. In my opinion CD Projekt Red are the masters of this craft with The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, plus Rockstar with Red Dead Redemption 2. I think it can be done, but I hope Nintendo had a long look at their memories system and allows us to return to a more active role when it comes to experiencing the story for ourselves, rather than watching memories in the past.

Community spotlight

@vianabdullah2837

I think that Breath of the Wild’s narrative worked for the type of game they were trying to make. But Tears of the Kingdom sticked to that format too rigidly even though it needed to be told in a particular order.

Being an open world is great but obviously every area shouldn’t be accessible from the start. Places like the Spirit Temple and final boss should be saved until you progress in the main quest.

A way to have the open world while still getting a sense of progression would be an evolving overworld. Like the seasons changing to reveal new areas previously inaccessible, towns and hamlets growing over the course of the game, new structures appearing from the ground, etc.

@vitormoraes8320

Story should always be on the backseat gameplay is king. But I agree that having it unfold as you play instead of just remembering pieces of it integrates us better with the events.

@hands_0n543

I completely disagree but i think that’s because the phrasing is wrong.
I loved the story of TOTK, the way it was presented was the issue. The “memory” system sucks a LOT and it’s really holding the story back. That and the fact that the ancient champions practically have the same lines of dialogue is what needs to change. I think the concept was almost perfect what we need is a better way of translating that concept to the audience

@ShadowWizard224

You know how the last two Zelda games have stories that take place in the past? Well what if we had a Zelda game where the story takes place in the future?

Instead of Link having the power to see things from the past he can have the power to see things in the future before they happen and he learns about this new ability and trait as the game goes on. Ultimately having the present moment meet up with the future by the end of the game. Just like in Tears of the Kingdom how the past catches up with the present moment by the end. Link can also altar the past by changing the future which means certain things in the past would change according to your actions and how you handle the future. Maybe Zelda sends herself off into the future to help a certain civilization which can directly help the land of Hyrule and its citizens in the present moment. And that knowledge of being in the future and learning about different languages, cultures, and technologies would have a direct impact on helping Hyrule thrive and succeed in the present by using those future tools to their advantage. Time traveling is an interesting concept and I wish they focus more on that but with better execution with more fleshed out characters that actually matter.

This reminds me of the movie “Arrival” when the aliens are thousands of years into the future but go back in time to visit Earth in order to teach them their language which will help them win a war in the future so that their race can survive and live on. Zelda already sacrificed herself by going to the past so maybe now she can sacrifice herself by going to the future and learn about new technologies or even new languages or codes that can help Link fight his battle back in the present. Link would also have the ability to see into the future during certain moments and see what Zelda is doing as well as other things that are happening in the future which are directly caused by events from the past.

Overall, the story would be about The King telling Zelda that we don’t have a chance defeating a new race of enemies because these enemies came from the future and have superior technology and language. And in order for us to have a fighting chance Zelda must go into the future and learn how to defeat this new race of enemies by learning how their language, codes, and technology works. Zelda would make a sacrifice by going into the future to figure out a way to help Link win the battle that is taking place in the present moment. The story would also introduce a new main villain as well and Zelda going into the future would work simultaneously to the new race of enemies which are going into the past to defeat Hyrule.

@dustybees6308

Hot take. Breath of the wild’s story was actually incredible if you watch every cutscene and read every journal entry and diary.

Though how it was relayed to link is the problem. Seeing all the cutscenes out of order is a major issue in my opinion. This is my issue with Tears of the kingdom as well. You see Zelda’s story out of order even if you move clockwise through the map like the game eludes to.

Even if you play oot out of order you can still get the same effect. You can absolutely do Fire temple before forest. Or save fire till after water and spirt and it changes nothing except Navi constantly prompting you that the ring around death mountain looks bad.

The same as they did with a link between worlds. Every temple in lorule could be beaten in any order and every temple beaten gave you a bit more story without consequence of which temple you beat.

@simondelisle9310

I prefer the story of BOTW than TOTK. While not perfect, BOTW made me feel stuff, I cried like 4 times and it’s not something I do often in games. The idea of Link and Zelda just losing everything, seeing Zelda cry because she couldn’t save her kingdom was really heartbreaking. The thing is, all of that takes place 100 years ago so you don’t feel connected to that story since you didn’t experience it, it’s not your Link that lived this, it’s the Link from 100 year ago. I feel like the story of those games weren’t the problem, it was that it took place in the past, meaning that in the present, nothing really happens until you go fight the final boss.

@JDvM98

If you ask me, both stories from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are good in their own way. The main problem I had at first with Breath of the Wild’s story was that everything already happened in the past, but I have to say that eventually it worked for that game. All memories that you can find are just glimpses of the past with little structure that tie them together. If you find them out of order, you don’t necessarily spoil the story for yourself.

Tears of the Kingdom’s story is pretty good on the surface, but the storytelling is far from perfect. The memory system from Breath of the Wild got carried over here in the form of the Dragon Tears quest, which doesn’t work well with the more linear and more current story Tears of the Kingdom tries to tell. You can spoil the story for yourself if you find the memories out of order. Another problem I have with this is that if you find a memory that gives an important piece of the story, the only person who knows this is Link and therefore the player. No matter what you do in the game from that point on, everything stays the same. All this is why I think Breath of the Wild has the better storytelling.

For the future I would like to see a more current story and storytelling like other main games in the Zelda franchise and what Tears of the Kingdom tried to do. If they bring back the memory system, they should make it in the way you can find one at a time or have it as details of the story that are not that meaningful but still a joy to watch. Otherwise I would recommend them to get rid of the whole concept completely.

@MartKart8

I felt like with the Story of Zelda Ocarina of Time, I was experiencing gameplay while being part of a story, being destined to leave Koriki Forest learning what happened from the Great Deku Tree, and visiting Hyrule castle and and meeting Zelda, while the other 2 games, I’m only really learning things from memories, in a random order, like I learned Sonia was killed by Ganondorf earlier, before knowing what happened, and I’m not really apart of that story. I didn’t really like how could go straight to the end of the game, I’m not a speed runner.

Let me know in the comments what you think of the story in Zelda games and how we could make it better.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *