Nintendo hasn’t shown anything official about the next mainline Legend of Zelda yet, but a new rumor is giving fans a potential idea of what the series could do after Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
The argument is that Nintendo may build on the established open-air structure, maintaining its emphasis on exploration and player creativity, while introducing cross-dimensional puzzle-solving as a defining new mechanic.
Will the Next Game Still Follow the BOTW and TOTK Formula?
Shpeshal Nick claimed on the XboxEra podcast that the upcoming game could be built on an improved BOTW and TOTK engine, reworked for higher-end hardware.
According to the rumor, Nintendo isn’t interested in delivering a straight “BOTW 3,” instead building on the familiar foundation of creative freedom and open-ended design while adding a new layer that changes puzzle interaction from moment to moment.
How Would Cross-Dimensional Puzzle-Solving Actually Work?
The standout detail is the idea that players would gain abilities that let them jump between dimensions, create tears or rifts in reality, and manipulate objects, enemies, or environmental states across different versions of the same space.
In practical terms, the leak’s examples paint puzzles where what happens in one dimension directly influences outcomes in another, such as leading a charging bull in one realm so it crashes into a trigger that activates something elsewhere, or changing the state of a room (like adding water) so an object rises in one dimension and that movement causes a corresponding object to float or shift in a separate dimension.
Why Would This Be a Natural Evolution of Modern Zelda?
If that’s even close to accurate, it would take the “player choice” puzzle identity of BOTW and TOTK and push it further, because the challenge wouldn’t just be figuring out how to use physics and tools in one space, but learning how the game’s realities interact and then exploiting those links creatively.
It also fits the broader expectation that Nintendo wants to shake things up again after spending so long with the BOTW/TOTK era version of Hyrule; even the more grounded talk around the rumor suggests Nintendo has likely done everything it can with that specific map and story version, meaning the next entry could change setting and structure while still inheriting the modern approach to exploration and systems.
The community is treating the leak cautiously, with many questioning whether anyone could realistically have early insider knowledge about a mainline Zelda project and dismissing it as speculative guesswork.
Still, the skepticism itself highlights how believable the concept feels, given the series’ long history of reworking familiar locations through alternate states.
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