Daily Debate: Will Echoes of Wisdom be an Open World Game or a More Linear Experience?
Posted on July 06 2024 by Sean Gadus
June 18th 2024 was a huge day for Zelda fans. Not only did Nintendo release A Link to the Past & Four Swords on Nintendo Switch Online, the company also announced The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. This new game will feature Zelda as the protagonist, and it has an art style similar to Link’s Awakening (2019). Echoes of Wisdom will be released on September 26, 2024, so Zelda fans will have a new game to play before the end of 2024! Two of the biggest questions about Echoes of Wisdom are how the player will progress in the game and what the game world will be like. Currently, fans and journalists know very little about the structure of the game.
With this in mind, do you think Echoes of Wisdom will be an open world game or will it be a more linear experience?
The Zelda series is in an interesting place in terms of world design and structure. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are tremendously popular, and these two games have popularized open world design in the Zelda series. In the trailer for Echoes of Wisdom, Eiji Aonuma discussed the desire to break some of conventions seen in previous top-down Zelda games, which could hint that they are creating a more non-linear, open-ended experience. That being said, I think there is a good chance that the game sits in the middle ground between being an open world game and a strict linear experience. Echoes of Wisdom could taken an approach similar to A Link Between Worlds, a game that gave the player a lot of freedom in how to the tackle the various dungeons, while also having a distinct opening, middle, and end.
What do you think? Will Echoes of Wisdom be an open world game or will it be a more linear experience? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Sean Gadus is a Senior Editor at Zelda Dungeon. His first Zelda game was Ocarina of Time, and he loves all of the 3D Zelda games from 1998-2011. He is currently replaying the narrative ghost story Oxenfree, and taking his first stab at playing Dark Souls. He wants to help build a kinder, more compassionate world. You can check out his other written work at The-Artifice.com.
