‘Breath Of The Wild’ Concepts We Want In The Rumored ‘Legend Of Zelda’ Mobile Game

The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild undoubtedly will be influential to console games in the years to come, but the rumored Zelda mobile game should steal some ideas from it too. Here are five elements from the Switch classic that should migrate to Android and iOS.

1) Shrines & Dungeons: Making the rough assumption that The Legend Of Zelda on mobile will be some kind of puzzle game, the basic setup of shrines and dungeons is an easy place to start. Nintendo should take a look at Breath Of The Wild and think about what made its shrines so great. Make each puzzle different from the last, and make them short enough to finish in bite-size chunks.

Loops of doing the same thing over and over again are what can make some mobile games a bit of slog. Zelda should be unique by offering many different kinds of puzzles. Don’t make this another match-three game! Dungeons can be somewhat similar to shrines but used as a progression system with a “boss battle” at the end. New dungeons could expand the game post release.

2) Runes: The idea of giving players everything they need to solve puzzles from the start was a clear strength of Breath Of The Wild. With a few runes, any task could be solved in countless ways.

For a presumably free mobile game, maybe Zelda could gate certain runes behind a virtual currency in times of need. However, just like in Breath Of The Wild, there should be multiple ways to complete tasks with and without runes in various combinations. Give players access to cool abilities and allow for free and paid experimentation with them.

3) Freedom: One of the biggest reasons why gamers got so easily lost in Breath Of The Wild is the level of sheer freedom it offers. If you’re struggling with a shrine, for example, you can always head toward a Divine Beast, go tackle a tower or just explore the sights around you. There was no reason ever to stop playing, and you could return to challenges later.

As a small-scale mobile game Zelda can’t offer quite as many options, but you can still give players a sense of freedom by giving them several objectives or puzzles to handle at once. Mobile games often give you one problem to solve at a time, but Zelda has enough cache that it doesn’t have to force folks into a microtransaction situation as quickly as other apps. Freedom will keep players playing and spending money. Give us plenty to do!

4) That Art Style: Breath Of The Wild essentially cemented the Wind Waker art style as something that likely will characterize the visuals of the franchise for the foreseeable future. It’s simple enough to run on low-end hardware yet colorful and detailed enough to look great. For a mobile game that needs to run on a variety of old and new devices, there’s simply no better aesthetic.

5) A Feeling of Exploration: This will admittedly be hard to accomplish assuming the Zelda mobile game focuses primarily on puzzles, but it can be done. Even if Link’s not physically traveling from place to place like in Breath Of The Wild, make sure each level offers a feeling of progress. Bring new designs and strategies to levels in different areas. Maybe Zora puzzles focus on one Rune while Gorons focus on another.

Beyond style, the surprise of loot can offer a feel of exploration too. Reward players with surprising perks for completing tough challenges. Feature lots of possible items with different rarity levels. Maybe a certain item that can help solve a troublesome task is more common in a certain part of the “map.” Send players back to that region to grind for it while finding cool stuff along the way.

While still unannounced, the Legend Of Zelda mobile game is rumored to have a release date in the second half of 2017. The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild is available now on Switch and Wii U.

What would you like to see in the rumored Zelda mobile game? Is Breath Of The Wild good inspiration? Tell us in the comments section!