The Legend of Zelda | Aonuma Outlines Three Core Styles of Zelda Games

Series producer confirms open-air, Ocarina-style, and top-down approaches all remain valid paths forward.

In a wide-ranging interview timed with the launch of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on Nintendo Switch 2, series producer Eiji Aonuma offered a clear framework for how Nintendo views the franchise’s future design options.

Speaking to Polygon, Aonuma stated that The Legend of Zelda currently operates across three distinct but equally valid styles of game.

The first is the open-air approach, characterised by a higher degree of freedom. This is the style exemplified by Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, where players largely dictate the pace and direction of their adventure.

The second is the more structured, narrative-driven style associated with Ocarina of Time. These games place greater emphasis on a controlled narrative pace and the progressive growth of the player through items, abilities and story beats.

The third is the classic top-down perspective of the 2D Zelda titles. Aonuma pointed to this style as another fully legitimate path that continues to deliver its own strengths and charms.

Importantly, Aonuma stressed that all three approaches share the same foundational DNA. Regardless of camera angle or degree of openness, every Zelda game ultimately returns to the cycle of exploration and discovery. The developer’s job, he said, is simply to figure out how to make each version of that cycle as enjoyable as possible for players.

The comments arrive at a significant moment. With the Ocarina of Time remake now released and performing strongly, and with Echoes of Wisdom having recently demonstrated the continued commercial and critical viability of top-down design, Aonuma’s remarks appear to signal that Nintendo is not locking the series into a single direction.

Instead, the producer’s framing suggests the company is comfortable maintaining multiple parallel tracks. Open-air games can continue to push the boundaries of freedom and systemic interaction. More linear, character-growth focused 3D adventures in the Ocarina mould remain on the table. And 2D-style titles can keep appearing without being treated as secondary or experimental.

This multi-style philosophy is consistent with comments Aonuma has made in previous years about wanting to preserve a separate top-down line alongside the 3D games. The latest interview simply makes the three-way split more explicit than before.

What’s most important for me is that although you have several different kinds of styles for Zelda games… You can have the open-air style of games where you have a higher degree of freedom. You can have games that are a bit more like Ocarina, where the focus is on a different kind of narrative pace and the growth of the player. Or you can have the top-down view like the 2D Zelda games. And each one has its own strengths and its own charms, but they all come back to that cycle of exploration and discovery. And the goal for us as developers is, every time we are approaching one of these, we have to think about, ‘Okay, how are we going to make this a fun, enjoyable experience for the player?

For fans, the clearest takeaway is reassurance. The success of the open-air games has not erased other forms of Zelda. Nintendo appears determined to keep all three styles active as it looks toward the next decade of the series.

The full interview also covers the development of the Ocarina of Time remake, the involvement of younger staff, and the thinking behind its distinctive art direction. Aonuma’s remarks on the three styles, however, stand out as the clearest public statement yet of how the producer currently categorises the franchise.

The Legend of Zelda | Aonuma Highlights Benefits of Long-Term Staff Retention

Source: Polygon