The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild broke new ground for the Zelda series with its beautiful cell-shaded graphics, massive open world, and new exploration mechanics. Still, it was set in the series’ familiar medieval-esque fantasy world and told another story about defeating Ganondorf. However, concept art reveals that Nintendo toyed with the idea of giving the game a science-fiction storyline.
A Sci-Fi Breath of the Wild?
According to The Gamer, a 2017 conference at GDC revealed concept art that showed various sci-fi elements in Hyrule. There’s a picture of Link staring up at a giant alien mothership. Another picture shows Link in a laboratory, examining an alien creature. A picture titled “Link in Metroid” showed Link in a spacesuit with a Metroid hovering near his shoulder. While some of these pictures might have just been the concept artists having fun, they open up intriguing possibilities for the future of the series.
Why Not Take Hyrule into the Future?
Both Breath of the Wild and its sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, were incredibly massive games. It seems like the next Zelda game will have to go in a bold new direction in order to follow such impressive games. The Zelda timeline spans hundreds, if not thousands, of years as Link and Zelda get reincarnated over and over again, and yet the world’s technology changes very little. What if the next mainline game gave us a futuristic Hyrule? The Switch 2’s more powerful specs could give us a breathtaking sci-fi world that mixes futuristic technology with the magic and creatures from the Hyrule we know and love.
Conclusion
A sci-fi Zelda game would also give the series an opportunity to explore how science and magic can coexist. It could give Link a whole new arsenal of tools, like laser weapons or holographic maps. A sci-fi Hyrule could also give the series a more urban feel, since Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom largely focused on exploring the natural world. It worked for the Final Fantasy series to have technology advance out of its initial medieval time period, so it could definitely work for Zelda as well.
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