Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Producer Calls Open World ‘the New Format to Proceed From’

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom builds upon the groundbreaking open world design of 2017’s Breath of the Wild, and the creative leads behind the sequel have seemingly confirmed that the Zelda team will stick with this formula for future entries.

In an interview with Game Informer, Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma and Tears of the Kingdom director Hidemaro Fujibayashi discussed the future of the Zelda franchise, saying the open world format — or “open air” as Nintendo liked to call it in 2017 — is here to stay.

“With Ocarina of Time, I think it’s correct to say that it did kind of create a format for a number of titles in the franchise that came after it,” Aonuma said.