The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomlearned a lot fromThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildwhich is an understatement. After all, the sequel was literally built on the bones of the first game that came out seven years prior. That’s not to say the sequel didn’t add plenty of new stuff on top of building upon the old.
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That was a bit of a pun because one of the newest features was the ability to build things inThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It was fun to experiment with building in this game, but it’s not necessarily a feature that needs to return in whatever Nintendo cooks up next. These other things should get included or at least considered though.
8AI Partners
This series has experimented with multiplayer many times before. Fans can get together with friends for co-op sessions inHyrule Warriors, for example. The mainline games have not featured co-op though, but it seems likeTears of the Kingdomcame close to this idea with its companions.
Eventually, players will gain the ability to summon ghostly allies to their side in battle. There are five characters in total and they will act on their own free will. If Nintendo doesn’t want to put co-op in a main game then they should at least keep the AI partner idea around.
7The Open World
Breath of the Wild, like the Switch console it launched on, changed Nintendo forever. It will be hard to imagine them boxing themselves in to create a non-open sequel that isn’t justaZeldaspinoff. That doesn’t mean Nintendo has to make as big of a world as eitherBreath of the WildorTears of the Kingdomagain.
It just means that they should stick with the freedom concept of non-linearity. What they also shouldn’t do is reuse the assets for a third direct sequel in this version of Hyrule. At that point, it’s safe to assume fans would revolt.
6Travel Medallions
Travel Medallions were introduced in the DLC forBreath of the Wild. They return inTears of the Kingdomand give players more usage with them. Normally, players can only fast-travel between shrines, towers, and certain other highlights in the game.
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The Travel Medallions allow players to drop one down as a warp point anywhere in the world for unlimited fast travel. They even work outside of the area where the finalbattle with Ganoncommences. They are that useful, so the sequel should have these items too and maybe even the idea could be upgraded.
5Random Encounters With Ninjas
The Yiga Clan is like this game’sversion of Team Rocketfrom thePokemonseries. No one should take them seriously even if there are characters in the organization that are pretty tough. They played a bigger role inBreath of the Wildbut were delegated to just side quest duty inTears of the Kingdom.
Certain side quests could lead to Yiga Clan members revealing themselves at the end for a twist. These assassins can also appear in the field for surprise attacks. These random encounters add a pep to exploring, so some form of this idea should return.
4Cooking
Money, via Rupees in theZeldaseries, is a hard commodity to come by in action-adventure games or RPGs. Having to spend hard-earned Rupees on healing items always felt like a rip-off in the games before Breath of the Wild. With the cooking mechanic introduced in that game, players no longer had to worry about buying pre-made potions for healing.
They could make healing items out of anything from mushrooms to apples to fish. Thecooking is something thatTears of the Kingdomimproved upon and a sequel could also tweak things a bit.
3Picking Up Enemy Weapons
Not everything Nintendo did forBreath of the WildandTears of the Kingdomwas great. The weapon durability system, for example, was one big pain in the neck. They tried to fix it withweapon fusion inTears of the Kingdomwhich was admittedly fun to experiment with. However, things still broke easily.
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The nextZeldagame should have Unbreakable gear, but players should still be able to pick up enemy weapons. These weapons could be more powerful but break just as easily. That seems like a happy medium fans could be happy with.
2Clothing Options
Traditionally, Link was always given a green tunic and hat at the start of every adventure. The reasons for this changed, butThe Legend of Zelda: The Minish Capsolidified why the hat was a thing at least.Breath of the WildandTears of the Kingdomwere great in that they allowed players to dress Link up in a variety of costumes with corresponding stats and other bonuses.
The only disappointment with the clothing options inTears of the Kingdomwas that it was almost all of the same stuff fromBreath of the Wild. It seemed a bit lazy on Nintendo’s part. The sequel should up the ante on clothing options and colors.
1Voice Acting
Breath of the Wildwas technically not the first game to include voice acting in this series. There were three games for the Philips CD-i that had all of the characters talk. Even Link chatted away just like he did in the cartoon.
Link should probably stay silent, but the sequel should continue the trend fromBreath of the WildandTears of the Kingdom. The sequel should also include more voice acting and cutscenes because what is present in both of those games is not much. They are still presented as mostly text-based games and Nintendo needs to catch up to the modern era.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomwas released on July 01, 2025, and is available on Switch.
