The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a massive hit for Nintendo and is easily the most popular game in this franchise. While there are fans who probably prefer Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker, there’s no doubt that this game has brought a ton of success to Nintendo.
But has that success gotten into Nintendo’s head? After the announcement of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment for Switch 2, it feels like Zelda: Breath of the Wild is being milked dry. We can’t blame the company for using a popular IP, but it feels like we’ve seen this setting one too many times.
It started innocently enough with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, which promised to show us the events that took place before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Fans were genuinely curious about what happened in those years before Link took a deep sleep, and making that a Warriors game was smart.
Nintendo ended up blue balling fans by going for alternate universe crap, but it was still a good game.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild got an official sequel in Tears of the Kingdom, which was another big hit for Nintendo. While the game did reuse Hyrule from Breath of the Wild, there were also new areas in the sky and underground to explore. The new fusion ability also led to creative puzzles and people breaking this game for fun, so it served a purpose.
But now we have Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, which feels unnecessary. Fans who took part in a specific Tears of the Kingdom side quest already know what’s going to happen here. It’s cool that Nintendo is promoting this period with a game that features new characters, but given the predictable storyline, we’re unsure if this game has the right to exist.
They could also do alternate reality stuff again, but no one wants that after The Legend of Zelda: Age of Calamity.
Now that Zelda: Breath of the Wild has a sequel and two spin-offs, we think this should be it. Unless they make a third sequel, which will be hard to top, Nintendo has seemingly milked this franchise dry. This is similar to how Atlus milked Persona 4 and 5, even if their spin-off games were excellent.
That’s not to say Breath of the Wild can’t inspire future Zelda games. We saw how Echoes of Wisdom was able to take the game-breaking elements from Tears of the Kingdom and combine them with classic Zelda gameplay. But this corner of the Zelda universe can end, so we can get something new from Link this time around.