The r/Nintendo subreddit recently launched a thread asking Legend of Zelda fans what kind of dungeons the multi-game series should include in the series’ next installment, tentatively scheduled for release on the Wii U and/or the “NX”.
The responses are bursting with creativity. Here are just a few of my favorites.
A creepy dungeon where all the enemies are already dead and the puzzles are already solved. There would be a chest where Link would usually get the item to complete the dungeon, but it has already been taken. Every now and then Link would hear some footsteps in the distance or an eerie laugh. The dungeon would end with a slain boss lying there and all the loot taken. This isn’t really much of a traditional Zelda dungeon, but would be placed for story driven purposes.
I love this idea so much. It’s a perfect way to use a player’s expectations of a Zelda game to actually push them further into the game. Another Reddit commenter immediately ran with this idea and thought of something just as cool:
A “reconstructing” dungeon is a pretty good idea, actually. I’m thinking of a dungeon where all the puzzles are already solved and you need to “solve” them by setting them back up. Chests would need to be closed up and hidden, if possible. Torches blown out, and enemies set to trigger if a trap switch is pressed, etc.
The reason to do this could be to set Hyrule Castle’s defenses early on so that the castle (hopefully) isn’t taken over.
When it inevitably does get taken over, it would be a late game dungeon because it turns out those puzzles are actually a lot harder to solve than un-solve. There could even be a reward for how well you reconstruct the puzzles at first, if they’re not set up right they would be destroyed, allowing for more enjoying gameplay.
One commenter got downright mythological:
This is a very unconventional idea, but I think it’d be cool to have a non-linear maze like dungeon, where the boss is roaming around throughout the maze. You need to find the dungeon item first (which can be attained in a few different ways) in order to beat him, so if you encounter him while exploring the dungeon before that you basically need to turn and run away or you will get wrecked. Then, once you get the dungeon item you have to go track the boss down. Perhaps the boss fight would involve luring him to some part of the maze where you can trap him via the environment and then attack with the item.
Sound puzzles scare me, but this sounds too amazing:
Another idea I had along a similar vein would be this small village and you have to help the local holy person. Basically they live next to this mountainside and at the top of the mountain there is a shrine with some kind of pipe organ or something. A holy instrument, since they are nothing new in the Zelda universe.
So Link walks into this shrine and the dude points through a small window above the keys of the organ and says “see there? that’s the problem right there.” And then they open a door nearby and you go into the guts of this giant pipe organ which fills the whole mountain.
The dungeon would be full of pitch-oriented puzzles and have fights that are somewhat rhythm based. Because it’s awesome when your attacks sync up to a cool soundtrack. Maybe Link gets some kind of “tuning fork” item that lets him tap into resonant frequencies or something to clear paths and obstructions.
I just want a machine-type dungeon.
There’s even some ideas for the final dungeon:
I want a version of Ganon’s Tower where you play/alternate between Link and Zelda to take him down. As two Triforce bearers, they don’t focus enough on how they embody Wisdom and Courage to take down Power. They did a little bit of it in Spirit Tracks with Spirit Zelda, but to have a playable, physical, capable Zelda with her magic to weaken Ganon’s enchantments that allow Link to progress through his fortress would be sublime. Just from a story telling perspective, it’s a shallow experience that all she ever does is shoot light arrows in the last fight.
Okay, I have to stop before I just copy-paste the whole thread. Take a look, though. There are more than enough solid ideas in there to make an entirely new Legend of Zelda game.
So maybe we don’t need a new Zelda game as much as we need a “Legend of Zelda Maker”?
