The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is one of this year’s biggest games. Released in May, it was well-received by critics, with a 96% Metacritic rating, and fans alike, selling over 10 million copies within its first three days.
With these numbers, the game became one of the best-selling Nintendo Switch titles ever.
Given Tears of the Kingdom’s incredible success, one would expect Nintendo to start working on a sequel as priority. But, that isn’t the case.
In a recent interview Tears of the Kingdom’s producer, Eiji Aonuma, and director, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, revealed they don’t have plans for a sequel.
Back in September, Aonuma and Fujibayashi revealed Nintendo has no plans to release a Tears of the Kingdom DLC. Aonuma explained they’d done all they wanted in the game. During their latest GI interview, Aonuma was asked if the decision to not make a Tears of the Kingdom DLC also extends to a direct sequel.
Aonuma responded, “Well that would be a sequel to a sequel, which is getting a little bit wild when you think about it! But as I’ve mentioned previously, with Tears of the Kingdom, we were seeking to build on top of the world we created with Breath of the Wild and really exhaust the possibilities of what we could put into that world.”
Aonuma went on to refer to Tears of the Kingdom as an apotheosis and the final form of the current iteration of The Legend of Zelda.
“I don’t think that we’ll be making a direct sequel to a world such as that that we’ve created,” he concluded.
Apart from its stellar reviews and impressive sales numbers, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has proven to be quite popular in award circuits. It was nominated for six awards at The Game Awards 2023, including Game of the Year and Best Action/Adventure Game among others. Unfortunately, it could only muster one win – in the Best Action/Adventure Game.
The success of Tears of the Kingdom also sparked rumors that two Hollywood studios, Illumination and Universal, are looking to adapt the franchise for the big screen. While many fans will be on board with such a project, Illumination’s CEO Chris Meledandri was quick to dismiss it as false.
But if that project were to ever materialize, there is already a candidate to portray Link, the game’s protagonist. Last month, popular rapper Machine Gun Kelly expressed his interest in playing the character in a movie adaptation, but it’s unlikely that anyone ever took it seriously.
