It’s both, but your theory doesn’t explain why breath of the wild was so good. I hadn’t played a Zelda game for 15 years before that, and it had no real relevance to those games, yet it was the best game I’ve ever played in terms of the world and story and gameplay (with the possible exception of the first deus ex).

Nintendo know what HBO does too, which is how to make exceptional content. That override absolutely every other value.

(I also suspect that part of the success is the mythical aspects of the Zelda games, and the reaching into the historical and religious past and traditions. Western companies seem to actively want to avoid this, but it’s extremely good for building content. Archetypes are archetypes for a reason, it’s evolutionary)

> I think it proves that nostalgia and brands matter more than anything.

No. That is a western view point of someone that did not play the core nintendo games. It feels like projecting what is happening on every streaming service out there, or on every AAA western studio.

People are not praising new Zeldas because they are new games with the Zelda title, BotW was a complete revolution, it did open world like no other game did before it. It combined really well a huge a amount of features and fun things that no other game was able to do so before. Games like these are very rare.

Saying that is nostaligia when these 2 zelda play like no other Zelda. Saying that's it's because of brand when i've seen so many friends and colleagues that never gave a shit about nintendo buying a switch or emulating it and praising the hell out of this game.