(Animations created by Shar on YouTube)

So I recently found these videos depicting Breath of the Wild characters (mostly Link and Zelda) as citizens in a modern Japanese City-like setting. These reminded me of some conversions I used to get into with friends in the past where I suggested the idea of Zelda game but set in a modern time, complete with cars, cell phones, convivence technology, and gigantic cities full of multi-level buildings and skyscrapers. I was told they liked the idea, but it was always followed with the fear that it might take away from the games core motifs.

I understand that the Legend of Zelda is a fantasy series largely set in areas with minimal technology. Zelda has almost always been about rural landscapes and a focus on magic, with only bits and pieces of more advanced technology (I'm looking at you Breath of the Wild and Skyward Sword...you and your medieval robots. ) But I still wonder if this kind of idea could work for a Zelda game, and I want to get your guys' thoughts on the matter. If you would like to join the conversation, please feel free to leave a comment below.

7560631
I dunno much about the game myself, but I think it may not?

That is, unless magic, evil and swordfight is actually accepted in the modern world.

7560631
You mean like the final fantasy games?

7560631
I think there WOULD be a potential in a 10-minutes-in-the-future setting. Basically modern but with tech getting a bit more advanced. And it would still be able to make sense and fit in the lore?

Why?

Because, according to the original vision, the Triforce was supposed to be three computer chips! The Legend of Zelda was supposed to take part in an after-the-end setting, where magic and gods and all-powerful artifacts had their root in technology long gone. You can see this old concept still influencing the games.

In Breath of the Wild the Sheikah Tablet is basically an iPad and the special abilities it gives you are basically installed like apps. The towers are scanning the territory around, the place that heals Link is basically a cryostasis chamber, and so on.

In Skyward Sword, Fi who is the spirit that resides within the blade that became the Master Sword is an AI. She calculates probabilities, scans your surroundings, and meddles with data, pulling a Terminator 2 and slowly becoming more human.

So yes, a game in a modern setting could work. It could very much show the birth of what would be the Triforce, or maybe the research leading into it. We could see the three goddesses, possibly as researchers or creators of this new technology, the God of Evil as one who seeks to use it for their own purposes, and how this would all lead into a cataclysmic scenario where it would end the world. The original versions of the monster could appear as genetic testings, a safeguarding bunker of all this knowledge using a blue eye as its emblem, and so on.

It COULD work. However, that would quite kill a lot of the mystery and conjecture that makes LoZ so much fun, so I don't see it ever happening. I'm sure the creators pretty much like the ambiguity of whether everything is just forgotten technology or if the gods and magic of the setting are actually real and just live side by side with technologic remains—or if the tech we see is actually more magic that is simply ordered in the way we understand technology.

Don't forget, Spirit Tracks invented the train. They could just make Magitek like in Final Fantasy 6 and 7. Make it so that even the technology is powered by magic. Or they could study the triforce and see how it actually works. There is potential.

Or you could just go the Xenoblade route and say that all that technology existed BEFORE the magic.

I'd be surprised if they didn't. The whole series revolves around the same Hero/Princess/Villain trio shtick recurring as time goes on.
The only way I see that NOT happening is if Nintendo suddenly decides to break that plot device somehow. They could take away the Triforce pieces, a gerudo descendant could try freeing Ganondorf from his cycle, the goddesses could reconsider their choice of "chosen hero", a big quest could take place to end the cycle, or Link could refuse to continue being the go-to trouble-shooter.

Monotony tends to be the make-or-break focus of appeal for long-going franchises. People keep calling out Call of Duty for always "looking like the same game re-skinned", compared to various titles/series that shake up their formula with various new mechanics and subquests/minigames.