Von Online Games VIP Editorial
·
Former Nintendo marketing leads say Zelda’s player base was shrinking before Breath of the Wild, reframing the open-world shift as a response to declining relevance.
IGN reports that former Nintendo marketing leads Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang believe The Legend of Zelda was losing relevance before Breath of the Wild arrived. The pair, who each worked at Nintendo for more than a decade, described a shrinking player base and weak sales during a discussion on their podcast.
According to IGN’s report, Ellis and Yang rejected the idea that Breath of the Wild damaged Zelda by moving away from its traditional dungeon-focused structure. Their argument is that the 2017 game helped preserve the series by reaching beyond an audience that had been getting smaller with each release. That is a claim from former Nintendo staff members, not a newly announced Nintendo development plan.
The discussion centers on the continuing divide between old Zelda and new Zelda. Traditional entries generally emphasize a sequence of dungeons and a more directed adventure, while Breath of the Wild established a large open world built around exploration and player choice. IGN says the former marketing leads presented that change as a response to the series’ commercial and audience problems rather than a decision made while the older formula was still at its peak.
IGN attributes the assessment to Ellis and Yang’s podcast discussion. Ellis recalled attending focus groups where feedback indicated that the existing Zelda games were not attracting enough new players and that the fan base was declining. Yang agreed with that characterization, describing the audience as becoming smaller with successive releases.
Those remarks are important because they challenge a common interpretation of Zelda’s history. Some longtime players view the change to an open-world format as Nintendo taking a successful traditional structure away from them. As reported by IGN, Ellis and Yang instead argued that the series had already reached a difficult point before the change, making a new direction necessary from Nintendo’s perspective.
The source does not provide a complete sales table, identify the specific games behind every part of the decline, or explain how Nintendo measured the audience discussed in the focus groups. It also does not present a new statement from Nintendo itself. The evidence supplied here is therefore limited to the former employees’ recollections and the performance figures cited in IGN’s report.
That distinction matters. The comments offer insight into how two former marketing staff members understood the problem, but they do not independently prove that every Zelda release had the same sales trajectory or that all Nintendo teams agreed on the diagnosis. They do, however, provide a clear explanation for why the pair see Breath of the Wild as a rescue for the franchise rather than a break from a healthy formula.
IGN places the discussion against a run of releases that included Skyward Sword on Wii in 2011, A Link Between Worlds in 2013, and several high-definition and 3D re-releases before Breath of the Wild launched in 2017. The source does not say that these games were failures individually. Instead, it uses the period to establish the broader context for the former marketing leads’ comments about a dwindling audience.
That platform history helps explain why the formula debate is also a platform and audience debate. Skyward Sword was associated with Nintendo’s Wii generation, while A Link Between Worlds released during the Nintendo 3DS era. Before Breath of the Wild, Zelda had appeared across different Nintendo systems and in both new adventures and re-releases. The available source does not claim that a particular platform caused the series’ difficulties.
Breath of the Wild then gave the franchise a much larger commercial result. IGN reports that the game has sold 34.28 million copies on Switch. The article also reports that Tears of the Kingdom, the 2023 sequel, has sold 22.90 million copies so far. Those figures show the scale of the two Switch-era games, although they do not by themselves explain how much of the change came from the open-world design, the Switch platform, the Zelda brand, or the combination of those factors.
IGN also reports that the Ocarina of Time remake became the fastest-selling Switch 2 game so far. The source does not give a sales total for that remake in the supplied material. It does say that the result continues a positive sales trend for the series and that the remake is available exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2.
Player-focused analysis: The comments frame the old-versus-new Zelda argument as more than a disagreement about dungeon design. They suggest that Nintendo was balancing two goals: preserving the identity of a long-running series and making sure new players had a reason to enter it. If the former marketing leads’ account is accurate, the move toward a more open structure was intended to address reach and relevance as well as mechanical variety.
For players who prefer classic Zelda, the practical issue is not whether the older format has value. IGN’s report acknowledges continued demand for those games and points to the strong performance of the Ocarina of Time remake as evidence of that interest. The more useful question is how Nintendo might support that audience without returning the entire mainline series to a structure that former staff members say was attracting fewer people.
For players who prefer Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, the comments offer context for why the open-world direction has remained significant. The two games’ reported sales suggest that the approach reached a large audience on Switch. That does not confirm that every future Zelda game will follow the same design, but it explains why the formula change is being discussed as a major turning point rather than a temporary experiment.
The sales figures also make the next decision more consequential for different groups of fans. A traditional dungeon-focused game could serve players who miss the older structure, while another open-world game could continue the direction that brought Zelda to a much larger audience. That is analysis based on the reported history, not a confirmed description of Nintendo’s plans.
Players should also separate a remake’s performance from the direction of a new mainline adventure. A remake benefits from an established game, a known character and a familiar adventure, while a new entry must establish its own setting and mechanics. IGN’s report connects the Ocarina of Time remake’s reported launch performance to continued interest in Zelda, but it does not say that the remake determines what Nintendo will make next.
The supplied catalog includes several older Zelda experiences that illustrate the traditional formats discussed in the report. They are relevant for players who want to compare the series’ earlier structure with the open-world direction described by IGN.
These catalog entries cannot reproduce the design of the Ocarina of Time remake or the Switch open-world games, and the source does not claim that they are substitutes for either. Their value here is as playable reference points for the dungeon-led and directed style at the center of the current discussion.
What remains unknown about the next Zelda
IGN ends by asking what Nintendo will do with its inevitable next mainline Zelda game. The supplied report does not provide a title, release window, platform, gameplay details or development statement for that project. None of those details should be treated as confirmed.
The most immediate question for players is whether Nintendo will retain the open-world foundation, return to a more structured progression model, or combine elements from both approaches. The source gives no answer. It only establishes that the series’ direction has been shaped by a tension between the continuing demand for older Zelda games and the need to attract a broader audience.
Another question is how Nintendo will use remakes and re-releases alongside new adventures. IGN’s report presents the Ocarina of Time remake as evidence that classic Zelda still has commercial appeal, while the Switch sales figures for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom show the strength of the newer approach. The report does not explain whether Nintendo sees those audiences as separate, overlapping or part of one wider strategy.
For now, the confirmed story is about a past change and the reasons two former Nintendo marketing leads believe it happened. Their account supports the view that Breath of the Wild was designed to renew Zelda’s reach after a period of decline, but it does not reveal what comes next. Players will need to wait for Nintendo to confirm the next mainline game’s direction, platform and timing.