It’s been more than two years since Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess ushered in the Wii and gave the GameCube its viking funeral. Since then, we’ve gotten a Zelda adventure on the DS (2007′s scratch-tastic Phantom Hourglass), but nothing new for the console. It’s about time Nintendo announced the next entry in the franchise, but what should fans expect? Safe money is on more of the same. After all, as relatively prettied up as Twilight Princess was, the story structure—with its dual worlds, item collection, and dungeon progression—was anything but new. I love the Zelda series, and any new game will be mine on day one, but as a long-time fan it’s frustrating to see how much room there is to expand the formula and how little interest there seems to be in doing it.

That’s why I’m going to make a radical proposal, one that would allow Miyamoto’s crew to keep the classic puzzles and exploration that make the series great but would also shake things the heck up: I think the next Zelda game should be set… in space.

A little backstory: around Christmas I played through Portal. Great game. GREAT game. And more than a little Zelda-esque, with its environmental item-specific puzzles. The Portal gun, with its mindbending point-to-point travel capabilities, is the freshest gameplay idea in a long time. How great would it be in a Zelda game? “But,” you say, “Zelda is set in a world of swords, arrows, and boomerangs. How would you explain something so technologically advanced?” Simple, you set the new game in a technologically advance society. “But wait,” you scream, “that doesn’t make any sense! You’d have to get rid of Link! You can’t do that!”

You wouldn’t have to get rid of Link if you introduced time travel. But I’m not talking about boy-Link-to-adult-Link time travel. I’m talking eon-spanning world-changing super time travel. I’m talking about time travel ala classic Super Nintendo RPG Chrono Trigger.

I’d never played Chrono Trigger before picking up the DS version a few weeks ago. I dig it. And I get the fuss. Not only is the battle system way fun, the story is a geek dream. Not only is there all the sword ‘n’ sorcery fantasy stuff, there’s also sci-fi staples like time travel, a dystopian future, and robots. It worked for Square, why couldn’t it work for Zelda?

Maybe Link is zapped into the future by a wizard early in the game, and spends the rest of the game exploring a sci-fi landscape of mechanized cities and space ships. Too scary? You want your classic Zelda dungeons? No problem. The fire dungeon could be an industrial scrap metal reclamation plant, with conveyor belts, cranes, and hotter ‘n heck furnaces. The ice dungeon could be an abandoned base on a dead world. The water dungeon could be swimming around in the vacuum of space. The possibilities are endless.

The best part about this plan is that, as much as diehard fans want to complain about anyone messing with what they know and love, do you really think they’d say no to killer robots and time travel? The outer space thing worked wonders for Mario. It could do the same for Link. Heck, Nintendo could throw in a secret Metroid level. Tell me that wouldn’t melt even the most stubborn fanboy heart.

Do I think Nintendo is willing to throw caution the wind and reinvent a cash cow franchise? Not really. In fact, I expect the next Zelda to aim for a more casual market. But there’s room to expand the series without losing the spirit that makes it great. Nintendo has taken it on the chin lately from hardcore gamers who feel neglected and are getting tired of retreads and Wii-makes. The next Zelda is the perfect chance to bring the disillusioned back into the fold. All they have to do is aim high, even if they don’t aim for the stars.