I really enjoy the new games but I had concerns with the company’s direction back when A Link Between Worlds came out. They were so excited to break the linear formula and that started the “destruction” of the metroidvania aspect of Zelda. For me, that is a core aspect of the IP.
I loved BotW enough to buy it twice, but it definitely lost a lot of the Zelda “feel” so it only deepened my concerns. I will admit that TotK feels more like a proper Zelda title than BotW. But I still miss the item gating puzzle style progression.
Anyways, I just hope their takeaway is not hyper focused on open world sandboxes forever.