Breath of the Wild 2 should include a Zelda Dungeon Maker
Let the players create!
The Legend of Zelda series has an active modding community. While these players love tinkering and added new things to the most popular Zelda games, Nintendo has yet to give these avid fans any kind of satisfying official alternative.
The series' 35th anniversary is this year, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 is on the horizon. As such, now is the time for a Zelda Dungeon Maker that's in the vein of Super Mario Maker, possibly as a part of that aforementioned sequel.
The smaller but passionate Zelda modding scene continues to impress in both 2D and 3D. Most recently, an ambitious fan has remade parts of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword in the engine of Breath of the Wild. It's a very impressive feat and shows that the Zelda fanbase is full of people who want to create things in the world of The Legend of Zelda.
You can see the mod in action for yourself below:
Part of what made Super Mario Maker such a great move for Nintendo is that the Mario Bros. series already had an avid ROM hack and modding community. Those games still do, but now some creators can make what they want to and share it with others in an official Nintendo game. Nintendo should capitalize on the same thing with the Zelda series.
While it's unlikely that a "Zelda Maker" would allow for as much of an overhaul as that Skyward Sword BOTW mod, there's still a clear opportunity for Nintendo to capitalize on this and let fans make their own 2D or 3D Zelda content in a level, dungeon, or even game creator. The Super Mario Maker games have already laid the groundwork for this, especially in Nintendo sticks to 2D Zelda.
Nintendo, at the very least, could let players lay out dungeons, placing the enemies and puzzles that players must complete inside them. If Nintendo were to include this as part of Breath of the Wild 2, then they could even make a Shrine creator where players can create shorter, more intense challenges.
Nintendo could also let players tinker with creating an overworld. That can get quite complicated though, especially in 3D, so a Zelda Maker that focuses on dungeon or shrine and lets players share them online is a good start. Like Super Mario Maker 2, it could be expanded over time with updates.
Nintendo flirted with including a feature like this in 2019's The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening remake that came out. That said, the dungeon maker in that game was extremely limited as it only allowed players to create dungeons with pre-constructed rooms and they couldn't be shared online.
The dungeon maker in Link's Awakening was a smart but underbaked idea.
As a result, it didn't have much in the way of longevity. Now that Nintendo has tested the waters with that feature in Link's Awakening, it's time for them to fully commit to a Zelda Maker. It would also be a fantastic way to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the franchise alongside Breath of the Wild 2.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 is in development for Nintendo Switch.
