By Lyle IzzilloOctober 1, 2017
We’ve all seen just how far Nintendo can push the envelope with creativity when it comes to the Legend of Zelda series. Everything from the most linear of stories and paths, to the vast open worlds, combined with excellent gameplay mechanics all around have taken us all on unforgettable adventures. But I can’t help but think that there’s one direction that the series hasn’t quite taken yet and that is of the MMO genre. Realistically I don’t ever truly see it coming to fruition, but I’m an idealist so let me dream.
The Zelda Universe is vast with gorgeous scenic locations and colorful yet complex characters that I believe could tell even deeper stories than we see on the surface. Picture this; the land of Hyrule but MMO style. It’s all about the legend that you create. You don’t necessarily have to be the green clad hero, but say you could pick your character from an array of races; ones we all know and love, such as Gorons, Hylians, Zora, Ruto, Gerudo, Deku, Sheikah, etc etc. Each of the races could have different sub-classes, mages and magicians, with their power being based from the elemental abilities from the goddesses. I.E. the Gorons could have powers given from Din, so on and so forth. You could also have different physically capable warriors of varying weapon specialties as well as class abilities.
As for locations, we would want to look deeper into the lore of the different areas. Of course this would need to be a game like Hyrule Warriors where canon is kind of thrown to the wind whilst being as accurate as possible. But backstories could be written where we learn why certain monsters had originated in certain areas; why they’d created factions of their own, feuds with different areas, so on and so forth. You could essentially have all-out war break out. What went into how the temples/areas were designed? Could we get together with other friends of other races/tribes and raid temple bosses?
Since this would be an RPG we would boast about with armor and weaponry that would be unique to the races and classes, utilized to level up your character to unlock more advanced abilities and techniques. I’d like to think we could have elemental strengths and weaknesses, like Zoras or water being strong against Gorons or fire for example. We could also somehow have a hero system that could tie into a faction system; like Sheik could be summoned as a super ability every once and awhile to help you in battle if you were to be a Sheikah. Special items found all throughout the series could be used for different aids and attributes, like Majora’s mask could allow for certain perks.
So many things to take into account when thinking about something as large as an MMO. Will we ever see Zelda turned into more of an MMO/RPG? Probably not. But it certainly doesn’t mean we can’t come up with these crazy ideas. What do you think?
