Taken from the Investors Q&A:

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When will you announce more information about the new Legend of Zelda game for Wii U? Will it be before E3 next year?

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Miyamoto:  Although this Annual General Meeting of Shareholders is a special opportunity, I am afraid I cannot give you any information other than what has been officially announced. At this point, there are a few titles under development in “The Legend of Zelda” series, so please look forward to their completion.  “Hyrule Warriors,” a tie-up with another company’s “Dynasty Warriors” series that we have shown at E3, is more or less an action game in which you cut down enemies, and it received very positive reviews at E3 for enabling players to choose from a variety of characters and for offering exhilarating action.  In addition, we have already announced that we are now developing the next title for the orthodox “The Legend of Zelda” series for Wii U, and that it will be an “open world,” as announced at E3. I prefer not to use the generally used term “open world” when developing software, but we used this term in order to make it easier for consumers to understand. This term means that there is a large world in which players can do numerous things daily. In the traditional “The Legend of Zelda” series, the player would play one dungeon at a time. For example, if there are eight dungeons, at the fourth dungeon, some players may think, “I’m already halfway through the game,” while other players may think, “I still have half of the game to play.” We are trying to gradually break down such mechanism and develop a game style in which you can enjoy “The Legend of Zelda” freely in a vast world, whenever you find the time to do so.  At the halfway point to achieving this goal, we released “The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds” for Nintendo 3DS last year. We created the games in the traditional “The Legend of Zelda” series in steps that players could easily understand and follow; the player would obtain a new item in each dungeon, use the item to clear that dungeon and be able to enjoy applying the items in different ways after acquiring about eight items. However, in “The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds,” we broke that down and let the player rent different items from the beginning, so the player could use different combinations of items. In this way, we are gradually changing the structure of “The Legend of Zelda” series, and we are preparing to newly evolve the series for Wii U. In addition to that, we have ideas for Nintendo 3DS which we have not announced yet, so I hope you will look forward to them.

So, look at this:

 In addition, we have already announced that we are now developing the next title for the orthodox “The Legend of Zelda” series for Wii U, and that it will be an “open world,” as announced at E3. I prefer not to use the generally used term “open world” when developing software, but we used this term in order to make it easier for consumers to understand. This term means that there is a large world in which players can do numerous things daily. In the traditional “The Legend of Zelda” series, the player would play one dungeon at a time. For example, if there are eight dungeons, at the fourth dungeon, some players may think, “I’m already halfway through the game,” while other players may think, “I still have half of the game to play.” We are trying to gradually break down such mechanism and develop a game style in which you can enjoy “The Legend of Zelda” freely in a vast world, whenever you find the time to do so.

In other words, looks like you can find dungeons around the world but that doesn't mean anything in regards of the progress of the game, as in past Zelda games. For example, Zelda NES. You can rush trought the first 5 dungeons and it doesn't mean you have completed half of the game as you haven't explored to find heart containers, the with tunic or a new sword.

I believe this confirms dungeons with no order. Hopefully dungeons are more like Zelda NES and Zelda II, which requires skills and more life energy, more than solving puzzles. Maybe some will have great difficult as Great Palace (Zelda II) or level 8-9 (Zelda NES).

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Now onto Zelda 3DS:

(...)we are gradually changing the structure of “The Legend of Zelda” series, and we are preparing to newly evolve the series for Wii U. In addition to that, we have ideas for Nintendo 3DS which we have not announced yet, so I hope you will look forward to them.

My take is a similar game to Link's Awakening. A direct sequel to A Link Between World reusing assets.

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Source: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/stock/meeting/140627qa/index.html

I prefer open Zelda!

Mhmm thats pretty good news! I always wondered what it would be like to have a Zelda Nes be a 3d one! I hope there will be plenty of secrets to find

I'm pretty excited to play this game for the fourth time and still find secrets. Yeah, excited.

I prefer Zelda.

I love how the poll at this moment is 100% for open, lol.

I am so pumped for this game. I think it's really going back to Zelda roots. Open world, explore, find dungeons, sounds perfect. Especially with how pretty it looks.

I think they have Majora's Mask 3D in production right now for 3DS actually. A second new Zelda for 3DS would be nice to see though.

Extremely linear game to open-world game is gradually changing the series? What?

OP: I would prefer them to make two different kinds of Zelda games, linear and Open-World. They would alternate between the two. That would be the best way of pleasing everyone, IMO.

Fuck the 3DS, If they don't release Zelda U before their next 3DS game I'm going to be really cross.

Also, the picture in your OP is a great example of the textures and lighting in Zelda U if you look at the rock and how the flame blast is affecting it. Zelda U is not cell shading, but has elements of cell shading in Link, the Horse and the farmers in the field. But I'm going off topic here. It's just so pretty...

Open world Zelda with linear areas.


Like you can do what you want but then you trigger some kind of event that makes you follow a linear path until that event is over.


Open world only is problematic because there is nothing driving you forward. "hey here you are do whatever you want we dont care". Open world gets boring when you have no narration etc. Also being able to explore everything from the start removes some of the exploration aspect and the sense of wonder when some awesome place appears that is connected to the story.

In skyrim e.g I have no connection to any place in the world because everything is just there. In Zelda however every place has its own story and has a relation to the player. You get rewarded with a new places for doing something. 

I want a mix of open world and linear.