I never mentioned puzzles, did I? It should be easy to infer that I was talking about Hyrule Castle, so that's what dungeon means. Not shrines and divine beasts that are stuffed with puzzles, but rather a maze with barely any puzzles.

Hyrule Castle was a real highlight in Breath of the Wild, and Hyrule Castle was huge. Additional dungeons don't need to be that big. Hyrule Castle is what gives Breath of the Wild its purpose as players explore the world and prepare to face the danger of Hyrule Castle. Dungeons would certainly be more interesting than divine beasts, because the beasts could be quite tedious due to a sheer endless running back and forth with almost no enemies in the way.

This 100%, for far too long in Zelda games the focal aspects have been things that take players out of the game's world what the series needs now is to focus on scenarios where things are executed in the open world like the example I gave earlier.

A Zelda game with out any dungeons but maintaining shrines is a good possibility under such examples where you replace dungeons with fleshed out open scenarios in the open world, picture instead of a dungeon you come to a region and you're drawn into a SOTC like quest instead of a dungeon then you go to another region and you run into a party of Bokoblins in a similar manner to the TP trailer out in the field and you have to deal with their antics in order to stop their raids on regions villages etc...

Dungeons have their place in the series but their significance to it should be further scaled back for more inventive progression scenarios for the games to really diversify how the adventure plays out.

The shrines are fine because they are short. The divine beasts, however, are the low point of BotW. They are huge elaborate puzzles and those are really the main reason why people stop playing a Zelda game; for Ocarina of Time the Water Temple in particular is often cited as a problem, and the Water Temple is a convoluted elaborate puzzle.

I know someone in person who bought a player's guide for Ocarina of Time and still couldn't get past the Water Temple.

Except classic puzzles are already in BOTW with out large dungeons, you know why big dungeons were dropped? Because they were tediously long segments that if a particular dungeon wasn't enjoyable you had to grind through it and the same would happen in an open world game if a player wanted to play through the story this is why they were cut down to simple concepts and shrines were added for puzzle solving as it made things more streamline and stuck to the concept of being easier to jump in and out of them when the player wants, this worked for the better.

If anything the next game should focus on making the world more intricate so the world itself is more interesting with out the need for dungeons like you see in some other games thus opening up the series to more options of approach for the adventure's structure for example I'd rather a scenario you go to a village and hear about something terrorising the area prompting you to track it down based on clues and what not SOTC style. As you close in on its domain the area of the world it's in things become more hazardous until you come to an area an realise the creature is afflicted by the same dark influence you need to deal with initiating a boss fight in the open world similar to the likes of the secret boss in the mountains in BOTW.

Such a scenario to me is more engaging than go to point a enter and clear dungeon, Zelda is missing such scenarios like these despite them being in other games because some people are fixated on dungeons being a pivotal part of the games when in fact they should be scaling back on them even more and implement more inventive scenarios like the example to give the games and their worlds a far more varied system of progression that makes the world in the games even more involving on top of the sandbox elements.

Look what I got my hands on lately all complete and in near perfect condition.

You Zelda fans can be jealous now.