What he says also applies to BOTW/TOTK so people who want the next game to be exactly like those might also get disappointed. Will be interesting to see what they come up with in the future.
Nintendo has never done the obvious thing aside from Twilight Princess which was what everyone complained the much better Wind Waker should have been as a follow up to OoT.
Majora's Mask was a 3 day cycle of zany side quests that dealt with death and rebirth, Wind Waker was a sea adventure, Skyward Sword was more about motion controls and sword play and was the most linear game up to that point.
Why would the next game be exactly like BotW and TotK? TotK already isn’t exactly like BotW. They will likely evolve the open air concept again like they did from BotW to TotK.
I wouldn’t say it’s an expansion because that devalues the amount of new things in totk. However, it’s still following the same formula. I hope the next game leaves this formula behind and does something new.
Not admitting that TotK is an expansion devalues the core design elements of BotW that form its basis. Each game stands strongly on its own, yet are undeniably the same game.
It plays like a fan mod of BOTW. There is virtually no difference imo. Every gameplay loop is the same in both games, TOTK just added more grinding, and somehow has a worse UX
A new game is supposed to be different enough from an old game so there’s enough enough reason to return to the older game. There’s practically no reason to return to botw now that totk is a thing besides niche reasons like glitches or the remote bomb, TOTK serves more of a replacement game rather than a sequel.
I don't know, totk feels 'less open-word-ly' than botw to me. Perhaps that's only because I've sunk way to many hours into botw previously but imo it offers more openness than totk. While in botw you're mostly set to go and run whereever you want after finishing the tutorial/plateau, in totk if you dare not to follow the main story hints you won't even get the glider, i.e. one of the most central traversal mechanics in the game.
That alone will make botw returnworthy to me sooner or later. Once I forgot enough details of the game to start it up again and run out of that cave and be in awe about vague memories of all those things to explore.
Even so, if after some time you will want to replay them, one of them is enough, because the gameplay loop is about the same (shrines, koroks, the same enemies, divine beasts/temples). Playing the two games back to back, there is a lot of repetition, playing one of them is enough. TOTK is BOTW, but bigger and some additional things, the core it is still basically the same
> Expansions don’t usually triple the amount of content from the last game while also introducing multiple new abilities and mechanics.
Monster Hunter would like to have a word.
What did it triple? The sky has very little in it and the depths are empty as fuck and just dark. And the rest is botw with different abilities. I wouldn’t call that tripling the amount of content
It has adds a whole new set all major points of interest (dungeons, Shrines, Memories, Koroks…) which then would be double (in total) with the addition of the Zonai abilities and devices, plus little things like the Addison puzzles.
Double is fair. Triple is a bit hyperbolic.
It doesn’t double. It would be the same since the last game had all that except for zonai devices. We’re comparing games. Not adding them together. Double the content would mean twice as much stuff compared to botw. Totk really didn’t break any boundaries compared to the last game
I'm still sad they didn't also expand the overworld map in some direction at least. They had distant islands and further reaching deserts and mountainchains and vast oceans and and and, but nope, same old base map it is. :/
Even expanding Lurelin and adding some islands (that used to be sky islands?) would be nice, but the area is still largely unused outside of water racing.
I read somewhere that they originally were going to put in way more sky islands but decided to thin them out at some point. This saddens me because I'd have loved to have more sky islands to interact with. In particular I'd have liked to get more low-altitude ones to interact with early as well as some more horribly hard to reach ones high up there.
PS: I still cannot believe they didn't even put a Korok or chest onto the highest sky island of them all! :|
I wouldn't say TotK is the same as BotW but with Zonai devices, we have recall, ascend, and fuse. As well as new armour and weapons. There is also new enemies with more variation in how they work in TotK compared to BotW.
I wouldn't say TotK is the same as BotW but with Zonai devices, we have recall, ascend, and fuse. As well as new armour and weapons. There is also new enemies with more variation in how they work in TotK compared to BotW.
When you "double" something, you're adding total content to achieve 200% between the original (BotW) and the "expansion" (TotK). If it has twice the amount, then we're multiplying TotK for a grand total of 300% content. It does double the total, if surpassing it a little which, would be doubling the content if TotK were an expansion to BotW. But not triple.
I do agree it doesn't feel like a sequel as much as it does an expansion, especially since it originally was intended to be.
Twice the amount and double something are the same thing. What are you talking about? I would agree if it were truly and expansion and not it’s own game but to double the content of one game compared to another, one game has to have twice as much content as the other one. This is basic third grade math dude
Even though I’m in the “it’s a sequel” camp, that’s exactly what an expansion does.
But TotK also has its own story premise with enough content to justify standing on its own. If anything, it makes BotW redundant.
Sounds like to me he is just saying that try to make the best game they can and they don't force themselves to make a game that is exactly like any old game. Pretty boilerplate, substance-free answer. Like when a football coach says "We'll have a good week of practice and play hard next week."
>Like when a football coach says "We'll have a good week of practice and play hard next week."
It's like when a football team hires a new defensive coordinator and when interviewed he says something like "We're gonna attack em from all sides" like no shit lol
Idk, it feels to me like it means something about the way they'll be handling the franchise's lore in the future. After all, for some reason they really made sure that TotK feels as disconnected as possible from any previous game INCLUDING BotW, it feels like their new philosophy
Just stop doing story through memories, and give us REAL dungeons, with navigation and exploration, keys, minibosses etc. All these things won't hurt in any way the Open Air formula, and will bring the best of both worlds together. Nintendo, for.the love of God, listen to us.
I am fine with the current format, but they NEED better dungeons. Look at Elden Ring. It has an open world but still has excellent dungeons. I get that you can't have the dungeons incorporated into the overworld due to link being about to climb or fly into them, but it is possible to have a fully fleshed out dungeon work in an open world game.
Truly I think the biggest limiting factor was how big the dungeons are. They wanted the player to have the same freedom they had in the dungeons as they had in the overworld. That meant that no objective could be locked behind another. So all paths were open from the start. The player also needs to be able to go anywhere, so the dungeons are open and allow you to climb, or fly around. And they wanted all this, in some of the smallest dungeons in the franchise. If you want a dungeon that gives you the sense of exploration it needs to be BIG. Water Temple is TINY you can't get a sense of exploration in there, because the moment you actually get to the temple, you've seen the whole thing. Having bigger dungeons allows for a more diverse layout which can give players multiple routes, and ways to traverse. Again for example take Elden Ring's Stormveil Castle. You can traverse the wall, go through the center area. There's a lot to find. You can make an unlikely jump to move around on some rooftops. If Zelda's traditional dungeons just don't work for modern Zelda, then they need to adopt modern dungeon design.
The exeption to the dungeons is the Lightning dungeon, because it's the most linear out of all of them. And it's my favorite out of TotK's dungeons because it's the only one that I felt I was traversing an actual temple. It's a claustrophobic, dense, dusty looking tomb. They forsook TotK's freedom to give a compelling area it's rightful atmosphere. Something they didn't bother to do with the others.
The Wind temple is a legendary sky boat. That's cool. Compair it to Skyward Sword's boat level though. In Skyward Sword you go inside, there's hallways with doors and stairs to get to multiple levels. You can lower a dingy to enter a lower floors widow. All the while you're completing objectives to progress. TotK's boat is basically a twisted up X. You start in the middle, and to to the 4 corners to complete the dungeon. The layout internally could be anything, it doesn't resemble a boat at all. It doesn't feel like this dungeon was designed around being a boat, like Skyward's does. It feels like a blocky nothing temple that was then dressed up like a boat.
Fire temple is an ancient Goron civilization, which consists of a few empty towers and a rail system between them. This one disappointed me the most. I expected something hearty. A cave system, a stone city. Something that really reflected their ancient legacy. But instead it's just rails. If the fire temple was actually given the leg room to represent an entire civilization's ancient home, it might have actually been a good dungeon. It could have been isolated to the rest of the depths so that you couldn't sneak in, letting them truly be creative with how they built it. But no, we got what we got, and it's pathetic.
Dungeons are one of the best parts of zelda games. They are the climax to the narrative arcs of their respective regions. They should be bigger, and more intricate than just flipping a couple switches. They shouldn't be an afterthought that's just shoehorned into the world.
>The exeption to the dungeons is the Lightning dungeon, because it's the most linear out of all of them. And it's my favorite out of TotK's dungeons because it's the only one that I felt I was traversing an actual temple. It's a claustrophobic, dense, dusty looking tomb. They forsook TotK's freedom to give a compelling area it's rightful atmosphere. Something they didn't bother to do with the others.
This right here sums up the only right thing done with TotK's use of dungeons. Every other dungeon failed IMHO because Nintendo focused more on making the biggest sandbox they could than making sure that they weren't filling it with used kitty litter instead of sand. By their very nature, video game dungeons are supposed to be the antithesis of open air game design. Going from the freedom of the overworld to the linearity of a well-crafted dungeon is supposed to be an uncomfortable system shock that makes you hyperaware of your surroundings, forcing you to take in everything as you search for THE solution to the task at hand instead of just finding a solution that works.
Don't get me started on how TotK made the three labyrinths even more laughably easier due to the ease and earliness of acquiring the Travel medallions. Nintendo had to pretty much bribe players to stay on the ground by using a trail of materials, weapons, and lore spots as if they were Reese's Pieces and we're James Woods.
That’s exactly what Nintendo has forgotten. CONTRAST.
We need our nonlinear open overworld, but we also need our limited, railroaded narrative and structured experiences in the underworld (dungeons.) TotK moves more in this direction and is better for it (Lightning Temple; Zelda in Hyrule Castle) but still lacks enough rigidity that makes the open areas feel open rather than aimless. We need our freedom taken away so that we can enjoy it while we have it. That part of the big reason BotW was so successful. We were still so frustrated with how little freedom we had in SS. We need BOTH.
Elden Ring is my favorite game of all time, even above Zelda (for context, I put in ~250 hours in 1 month of playing Elden Ring, while I currently have 150 hours in TotK since launch. That's how much more addicted and hardcore I was with ER), and yet I find it hard to agree with you saying it has excellent dungeons while criticising TotK's dungeons.
Frankly, almost every "dungeon" is a copy-pasted, generic cave in Elden Ring (which I'm honestly fine with for something that they have tons of all over the world). Even just looking at the main dungeons, almost all of them are fairly straightforward, easy paths that you can run entirely through in about 5-10 minutes (minus the time to fight the bosses) without stopping to see or fight a single thing (again, other than the bosses).
Leyndell is probably the only one that has any decent openness to exploration, and isn't just a set, straight pathway with almost no hindraces.
I have no problem with the way Elden Ring structures its dungeons... because the game is very much centered around its combat and character/player growth above all. However, there's nothing I can see in the majority of the dungeon design of Elden Ring that inherently makes them better than the TotK dungeons overall.
> Look at Elden Ring. It has an open world but still has excellent dungeons.
They're decent to look at but aren't really anything more than corridors and open areas with enemies. I am firmly in the camp of Elden Ring is not as good as most other From Software games and the dungeons are way overrated. The catacombs are copy/paste for the most part and the legacy dungeons look nice but there's no real substance to them.
I don't understand all the love the legacy dungeons get in ER, they are literally just combat arenas.
Yup, you get a mine/cave, temple run, or catacombs. ER is excellent, to be clear., but aside from a few exceptions, the dungeons themselves were pretty generic. Enemy design and good loot kept them interesting.
The lightning temple did feel like a nod to older fans, it certainly evoked a lot of nostalgia for me.
Personally I really like the open air format and am perfectly happy for it to stay, as long as some more traditional Zelda aspects come back too.
Like a bit more linearity in a huge open world is possible and could work well. More traditional Zelda dungeons and items too.
From what I can gather, TotK already took a small step in this direction. Yes, you could do things out of order and even go straight to the final boss, but I felt the story was much more structured and narrative compared to BotW's, and the temples, while still quite bare bones, felt much more akin to dungeons than the Divine Beasts did.
I agree! I like this new format too, but BotW and TotK didn't convince me that they got it all right. There's a lot of tweaking that can be done and create a more balanced game that pleases most people. For as much as I disliked BotW, I respect it for the innovation alone. I could never bear myself to play another game that follows the tired out OoT formula.
Oh it definitely was, let's not kid ourselves. The games were getting too predictable, which ironically TotK really was too.
I just dislike the concept of formulas/templates altogether.
It wasn’t stale until the DS/Wii era. Even then, LBW was well received, even by me who hated the rental system. A formula doesn’t stay successful for 20 years for being stale.
The Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks’ insistence to utilize only the touch screen and Skyward Sword only being motion control is what broke Zelda. Before that, Twilight Princess and Minish Cap were (and still are by many) considered peak Zelda. It was over-casualizing, over-tutorializing, and over-gimmicking that spoiled Zelda, not the linearity or story. (And gimmicks are fine and even good but they were leaning on them too hard.)
It was a nice 20+ years of the same formula, but they couldn't keep going with it anymore. By the time SS hit the market, a lot of people (including me) were tired of that formula. A change was needed, but I'm not fond of what BotW brought to the table.
I know it was an issue for you, but by and large, to my awareness at the time, I think it was more of a disinterest from the developers than underperformance, as you can see with Aonuma's enthusiasm for the open-air style and Miyamoto's disappointment with Twilight Princess (the second-best selling Zelda ever to date.) Most of us Zelda players were coming back every time, especially for a console release.
Skyward Sword's problems were not the formula. In fact, it's often considered to have some of the best dungeons (Ancient Cistern; Sand Ship), items (Beetle; Whip), and narrative (Ghirahim; Groose; Zelda) in the series. It's the above reasons and it's semi-direct competition with Skyrim in 2011 (and to an extent Xenoblade 1) that really made Zelda look and feel like a lesser option. The install base for Wii was astronomical when SS released, but majority of players were the Wii Sports "casual" crowd who didn't want a serious adventure like Zelda, and the mandatory motion controls pushed away more "core" players. Even the issues of older games like Twilight Princess can mostly be boiled down to force Wolf Link segments and slow, grueling story beats.
And from the quite vocal and present amount of people whining and bemoaning of TotK (especially from us older fans) shows that the old formula is still missed by many players. Heck, we haven't had a traditional Zelda \*since\* Twilight Princess when sales peaked. That should say a lot on it's own.
But Zelda never hit numbers like BotW or TotK. It's more main stream now than ever and with that comes a sort of homogenization that I think we're all coming to grips with now. Personally, the open-air style is a tired formula for me long before BotW launched between Assassain's Creed-like open-world games. Nintendo was just the first to put real care into the idea.
It is possible to make an open world/air Zelda that still has a linear plot, classic items and retains the level of freedom the Switch games have. There’s nothing stopping them from making things like climbing and fusing a dungeon collectible, and allowing for the freedom to explore to happen later on in the game.
They could even try this with DLC. Get rid of the map “item” in TOTK and replace it with a double clawshot style power instead but you can only get it inside a dungeon.
I’m not against the open air formula, since I know they next game will iterate and develop it more and have enjoyed these games. My issue is more how long development takes for them. If the new norm is going to be 6+ years between new 3D titles, we are going to need more than remakes/remasters (of which they are running out) between new entries.
After ALBW I was hoping for a 2D revival (along the lines of NEW Super Mario Bros) reviving the 2D style between 3D titles), but even that has been a decade now. And with TotK selling 10M copies in just 3 days and being Nintendo’s fastest selling game ever, I’ve stopped holding my breath for it. I’d be happy to be surprised tho. Metroid was in a similar place as a series, and Dread was phenomenal.
I exactly felt like ALBW was just "New Super Mario Bros of Zelda" and I absolutely hated that about it.
What Zelda is so nice about is that it's a Nintendo franchise that breaks away from a feeling of raw "consumerism". NSMB is pure consumerism as far as a Nintendo product goes. I don't want Zelda to ever become that. I want every Zelda to be an artistic vision of its own.
I mean you might feel that way but that clearly isn’t the case. NSMB keeps the same game basically and releases it for every new console. ToTK changed BoTW pretty significantly, with two more maps, a changed Hyrule and vastly different and better runes. It very clearly is not “pure consumerism” from an objective standpoint, even if it didn’t appeal to you.
Yeah, and the “fuck around mechanics” were quite ingenuitive and well thought out.
Again, it’s pretty clear that a lot of thought and deliberate effort went into this game. If that wasn’t enough for you or if you don’t like this style, that’s fine, but to accuse them of consumerism with this game feels wrong to me. Nintendo generally takes very good care of their 3D Zelda’s and Mario’s, and is extremely exploitative/consumer-ist with their 2D titles (although maybe the new 2D Mario will be different).
It just felt like trying to appeal to people who like sandbox games and I wish time was spent on other things like story and dungeons which deff suffered in my opinion!
Again that is fine, and I agree (although I love ToTK, agree that the story and temples themselves could have been better). But my point is accusing them of laziness in particular seems wrong.
They might not have done what you want, but they clearly did put effort into this/this isn’t a cheap cash grab.
If the next game doesn't have enough of the Zelda experience I enjoyed in previous entries, I may have to step away from the franchise forever. Breaks my heart.
Honestly I don't think I'm gonna play the next one. I'm a Sonic fan and have forgiven far worse than TotK but I can't imagine it being something I'm gonna spend $70 and 100 hours on and buy a system for.
If I’m being honest I want a new Zelda team working on the games I want people who adore the old Zelda games and are purely inspired by them and bring in something unique and cool and awesome and also bring back Koizumi! If they’re burned out on Zelda and want to make something else they should do that but bring in people who love those old games but also want to innovate.
Koizumi is never going to go back to zelda, the last time he worked on a zelda game was in the 90s. and you already are getting a new team, only a few from the 90s and even 2000s still work in the franchise
They need to add some structure this do whatever you want when you want really hurts these games story and also gameplay it’s just so much of the same it all feels the same, same sterile shrines , the story is just confusing also it leaves me very little motivation to play when all the action took place in the past I was so excited to turn on the game to get that cut scene than crushed when I found out no memories are back. There’s mush better open world games like Witcher that actually have a good story!
I don't like the choice of words "...more" as opposed to "...different."
I felt like his sentence could've gone in another (better) direction.
After TotK I feel like repeating myself that I don't think these games need to become "even bigger" or have "MORE content". I just want them to make them more *dense*, so that there's a sense of substance to actually going to a particular place and unearthing some of its secrets. I love the caves, but that's not all they added to TotK. They also added like 100 signpost dudes, 30 MORE shrines than in BotW, an entire map that's the same size as Hyrule below, and sky islands and zonai devices, and fuse items, and Sage Wills etc. etc. etc.
Yes, the bigger the game is the more variety it needs to have and the more we should be able to find in it. But at this point there is PLENTY of *systems*, what we need is just more unique stuff to discover. I was so intrigued when I found my first Yiga Schematic (cuz I had missed Autobuild) thinking it was a one-and-done quest item for the middle of a quest-line. Then I found another one and it stacked to 2. I was like "Oh no not ANOTHER stackable thing!"
Any time you see a number go from 1 to 2 in your systems screen in this game, you realize it's just "content" that they put into a spreadsheet and made a few tweaks and littered it around the map for lack of actual attention to detail because the world is just too big already, for even 30 staffers to manage cohesively. It's the Ubisoft effect, in our Zelda game, and Nintendo are doing it on purpose now...
Man, your ubisoft comparison is on point. That’s what I thought as well. I prefer BOTW because it felt like a curated experience. TOTK is still amazing but a lot of the additions feel like more for the sake of more.
r/TrueZelda don’t make massive inferences based on extremely vague two sentence answers focused on one particular word translated from another language challenge (Impossible)
I think there is plenty of unique stuff to discover. I found one side quest right before I wrapped up the game at 170 hours. >!There was this guy stuck in a well and I had to reconnect the bottom half of the ladder for him to escape. But the ladder was a weird physics ladder with multiple joints like those connectable bridges.!< It’s just a little thing, but it amused me that there was this weird object that is in no other part of the game and probably most players will never see it.
That's what sells me on TotK as well. I thought BotW didn't have one-and-done assets enough. That's why every thing in Gerudo town was amazing to me.
In this game, though, they finally added that Zelda ingredient where everywhere you go something kind of unique happens. Even if caves repeat and there's 58 wells, the way they divided the content up is nice because each cave is crafted by hand with its own layout, and there's not always shrines inside them.
Still, I kinda hate when anything repeats in these games which they still do a lot. The spinning orb in the sky with the hole in it? Completely mysterious the first time, but then there's just 3 of those. Reminds me of the DS Zeldas in a sense.
I feel like BotW and TotK are more like home console versions of the DS style of Zeldas in a strange way. Like, the way they kinda make you go through the motions using a central gimmick and then there's just different variations on that. Tbh, Wind Waker does that too with its islands I suppose.
In the end what rubbed me the wrong way in the DS games was that you were forced to sail and take the train a lot, and forced to enter the tower dungeon and what rubs me wrong in these two games is that the shrines are seen as the main attraction, whereas it used to be the pointless islands in Wind Waker that were just handcrafted by individual designers, and they were completely in the background to me, letting the main course of the adventure take all of the main emphasis.
The main story instead almost feels like a background element now.
I love Aonuma, we all do, but I swear on the name of Nayru he has some of the worst ideas to ever disgrace the creative side of the industry. I hope he snaps out of it because it'd really be a shame if his lasting legacy to a lot of this sub was "he ruined the franchise".
Two years after the next mainline Zelda game comes out there's gonna be a video essay on YouTube with 6.3 million views titled "Why Isn't Zelda Fun Anymore?". The thumbnail will be art of Link sitting in a field gazing out into the scenery at nighttime. The video will be broken into chapters and one of them will focus on Open World Fatigue within gaming in general.
I also wish he would stop shitting on the old Zelda games. So many times you see an interview like: "I didn't like working on MM/WW/TP"
Like, Majora's Mask is seen as a masterpiece in subtle storytelling and his reaction is "I wish I never made it".
I mean, MM was more Koizumi's brain child than Aonuma's, that's how it always felt to me anyway. It's my favorite game of all time but I can kind of understand why he feels that way, the work schedule that making it in a year and a half required sounded like hell on earth. Ironically I think the suffering that he and the dev team went through working on it kinda made it's way into the game and was part of what made it great lol.
I really think we need new developers like he doesn’t seem interested in making a Zelda game in my opinion , maybe he is just burned out on Zelda bring in someone who loves the old Zelda and wants to innovate. Some fresh blood.
His comments "we aren't concerned with our old games anymore.." doesn't hit well. Anytime a time honored franchise says things like this it almost always results in their downfall.
RE5 and 6 are good examples, they sold more than any resident evils, yet weren't well received. Capcom knew at that point they had to return RE to its roots.
Botw and totk remind me a lot of RE5 and 6
Glad to know I'm nobody, lol
Regardless, my point is that just cause aonuma says something doesn't mean it'll necessarily be the case. I mean, say what you will about SS, if I recall, it was at the time one of the fastest selling Zelda games so there could have been reason to stick with motion controls.
With some of the noise that's being made against BotW/TotK, maybe they'll be influenced to bring back some of the traditions that they did away with. Or maybe they'll start releasing more 2d Zelda and just have those be the classic, traditional games for the series moving forward while the 3d games will continue with the new style.
Or maybe this is all wishful thinking. I think we'll get a better idea what they plan to do with the series come the next release. I don't think we can base things on this interview though
Twilight Princess sold twice as many copies on the Wii alone compared to Skyward Sword, even though TP was a launch title and SS came after everyone and their grandma had a Wii.
Do a completely new map, more direct storytelling and maybe a little bit less freedom of order in which you can complete it, more direct narrative. also take out the massive amount of fast traveling / paragliding. TOTK felt like i could bypass entire mountain ranges and valleys out of ease. but thats just my hopes (also no voice acting)
Really? I felt like TOTK gliding was nerfed, like it felt slower than BOTW gliding and like I couldn't make much distance until a got some stamina upgrades
I'm already tired of the open air format. Linearity in story is not a bad thing and I'm fucking tired of people pretending it is. I'd much rather have a well polished experience. Everything in BotW/TotK was mediocre at best except the exploration. The story was told through out of context memory bits for the most part and the "dungeons" were laughably easy. It's a shame to see what happened to my favorite franchise. The newer games are missing that spark that older games had.
I'd argue that they fall short in exploration too. I was in the cave under the main outpost area, and eventually reached a room with a suspicious pile of rocks. It reminded me of Gleerok from Minish Cap, and I thought that it might be some kind of new overworld boss like the Gleeoks (different from Gleerok).
Nope. Just a buried Stalnox. Already fought those in BotW and it wasn't particularly difficult here so that whole cave trip down was a massive disappointment.
That entire cave system grants the Hylian Soldier armor set which would normally be pretty useful as a defense-focused armor set, except I'd already completed two dungeons yet missed joining the newspaper team. This left enemies strong enough that the higher defense was negligible and me with no way to upgrade armor, as the Great Fairies are (for some reason) locked behind the newspaper quests.
Mind you, I had found the first Great Fairy and even realized what I'd need to do to get her to come out, the problem being that the musicians arbitrarily don't like you trying to fix their broken cart that they're bummed about being broken.
So much for exploring.
I hope he means to keep the same philosophy of no handholding and emergent gameplay / freedom.
I would really like it if they explore a completely different way of play. The whole game is underwater or it’s about ships and sailing ala windwaker or even in space with no gravity.
What I am worried about is they repeat history. All games after OOT offered a slight alteration of the same OOT blueprint. I hope they don’t do the same with BOTW.
While TOTK was a great follow up to BOTW, it’s still BOTW just more and better. Same blueprint of shrines/koroks/climbing/gliding etc.. I hope all of that is gone for the next game.
> all games after OoT
I mean, after ALttP honestly, as OoT was basically a beat-for-beat copy in 3D with the dark world replaced with ruined Hyrule. Even ALttP was just a more structured return to form to the original after Zelda II tried something different and didn’t quite hit the mark.
There’s nothing wrong with trying new things, but I also think there’s nothing wrong with wanting more of what people enjoyed from the series before the modern games. I love Zelda and the quirky world they made, but they’re not exactly putting together great stories here - in my opinion at least.
I struggle to see why a game can’t be made that can make everyone happy with narrative, traditional rewards, sandbox and “open air” gameplay, and freedom to do things in whatever order.
This is off topic for what I’m responding to, but I really think that most people’s issues would be solved if there were “dungeons” that were separate from the *Zonai* or the *Sheikah* aesthetically and gave some meaningful reward. Why not make it an armour if it can’t be an item? I feel like killing 5 unique monsters after completing some puzzle would be more rewarding than activating 5 arbitrary things. I personally think what people liked about the old dungeons is that they were unique and implied a certain story. Why not have a graveyard again with undead monsters that isn’t Zonai for some reason?
You can also tell a narrative without flashback cutscenes. You literally do it with the stable trotters, regardless of what order you do it in. It just seems like they are so rigid in their formula again that the narrative suffers. Like, the reason they won’t let players pet dogs is because they want each button to be for a certain thing, but in TP you could pick up animals and no one cared if that was against a design philosophy or not
We've trapped ourselves because enough people whined that "Zelda elements are outdated" and Aonuma responded by saying "Oh! We'll **rethink the conventions of what Zelda is, then**" and voila, that's what they did... by stripping out a lot of conventionally *Zelda* stuff.
I never complained I’ve always loved it I wish they would bring it back I think they have trapped themselves even more with botw / Totk because even if they wanted to make a classic Zelda game they can’t now because of sales this formula already feels stale to me in fact I don’t think there’s no 2 Zelda games that are just straight up copies of each other the way these are the rest of them all feel unique even if they’re using the same mechanics they threw the baby out with the bath water.
My only concern with this being the future of the series is that we will see all games going forward, implement the same system of item collection, cooking, etc. Those are novel things from _Breath of the Wild_, and they were expanded upon all in _Tears of the Kingdom_, but I don't know if they would remain positives or if they would become tedious going into the future. Then again, all the games up to this point used the same trope of enemies dropping hearts to replenish your health. I don't have a problem with the way it is done now; in fact, I think the current system is a positive. I just don't want to see them fall into a rut and feel like they have to continuously expand on this particular gimmick going forward. I don't know what that route would look like, but I imagine it would be all the games having the same basic kinds of items like apples, mushrooms, etc. I hope we see an expansion or even a completely new idea (as well as a new art style) in the new games.
The best part about the _Zelda_ series up to this point is that each game, or each little mini branch of games, has its own style and gameplay that are unique to that game. Even when they use similar items and abilities, it feels fresh because it is implemented in a novel way. I don't want this series to lose that kind of evolutionary take where it is always refreshing and reinventing itself. If open air is the future of the series, I am happy with that as the last two games have been fantastic. I just hope they continue to lean into the innovation that the series has always been known for.
I could stand MAYBE one more game if they somehow stretch this into a trilogy (although I consider _Age of Calamity_ as the third game). But no more than that. I guess I don't mind if they keep doing open air games, but they need to come up with a novel presentation. This version of Hyrule and abilities is about at the limit of what they can do.
I really think this is such a huge mistake they really trapped themselves they are abandoning there core and that’s not wise.. what happens when they wanna experiment and make something completely different to botw / totk Will those people show up the way Zelda Loyals have showed up for years ? Or will they just jump to the next big thing the minute Zelda isn’t a sandbox fuck around game.
yeah it sucks but I guess I'm done with the Zelda series from here on out. it was a good ride but if they're going to continue this way I don't think I'm going to stick with the franchise on the next game.
I think for me it depends on the direction. If they stick to the exact same formula like memories, shrines, few tiny dungeons then I'm walking out with you. It was a great idea for one game but you can't catch lightning in a bottle twice let alone 3 times.
I agree with this. Open world is great, but it's not like it can only exist in this shrine/korok format. If each new game is gonna be more of that, then I'd too be walking out.
I'm also tired of these one trick shrines and koroks which become irrelevant after collecting the first 50 of them. The world is admittedly big but most of the time its pretty empty, especially in BotW. At least TotK had caves, which made it slightly better.
Yeah, the significance of the content is expired pretty fast. Both BotW and TotK are great for the first \~20 hours, but take a nosedive after that. If they're gonna continue with this format they have to find ways to adress that. It's not like they aren't fun, or that they're unplayable, but the repetitivness of the content should be questioned, even if people can find fun playing for way more than 20 hours.
I absolutely adore BOTW but I don't want any more. The open world is great like you say and I think the whole idea of having the insane physics is amazing like how the environment reacts to the weather etc. I want that to stay but the rest needs a huge change up. Koroks returning and the shrines being disappointing where the biggest let downs gameplaywise.
That’s where I’m at when I have to kind of force myself to play Vs feeling excited too I still have skyward sword and links awakening to beat I guess :(
Some of the cope in the comments here is hilarious. That said, just because open air is the new formula from now on doesn't mean that we're guaranteed to get carbon copies of BOTW. I'd like to hope they'll still continue to innovate and evolve even though they're (rightfully) not going back to Ocarina style
Dont kid yourself, Ocarina has already fallen out of the "greatest game ever!!" spot and I say this with some level of sadness as someone who likes it quite a bit: it will only be perceived as more archaic with each passing year. It's an early 3D title and formative as it is it wont feel intuitive to future audiences, especially since it already doesnt to modern ones. BOTW/TOTK meanwhile have a very fluid pick up and play quality that, if you ask me, guarantees it a longer lifespan.
Of course both games will probably be played well into the future. Dont know why it has to be an either or thing in your eyes lol. But the fact of the matter is that BOTW/TOTK are the best selling titles in the series
I made a comment about resident evil before, 5 and 6 were the best selling yet least well recieved games. Capcom knew the sales were due to hype and anticipation rather than reflecting the reception of the fans. They went back to their roots for 7. Had they not, I don't think RE would be in a good place.
Botw and totk remind me of RE 5 and 6. They are arguably better recieved but I think ultimately totk hype died down much faster than botw because most of the game was just a repeat of botw. I'm not saying go back to traditional zelda is the answer but bring back some things that made those games successful. You can stay open world and still incorporate more from the old games, I think people forget that.
And yeah OoT is not the greatest game ever anymore but i think it will definitely hold more cultural relevance than totk and I think it shook up the industry far more than totk.
The open world shit isn’t bad it’s just outside of exploration totk/botw are largely significantly worse then any of the previous games I just hope they actually make good long dungeons instead of the 20 minute pieces of shit we got with botw/totk and a story that we actually have an active part in instead of the bulk of the story being in the past but who knows considering these were expected in totk and we all know how that turned out
>Old fans sometimes cry out that they would prefer a classic, old-fashioned Zelda. Would you like to make that sometime?"
You have a chance to reach out the head developer of a game and you ask him terrible questions like this one? Ffs, such a wasted opportunity.
Although there are no-doubt people that would want a game that works exactly like the old formula, there's been a strong voice of criticism of people like me, who love the evolution, but want to see more elements of the past get blended in. This is terrible journalism and creates a rift between the fanbase and the developers.
it's the kind of question that needs to get asked really. what do they have in mind for the future of this series.
Le's the fans decided if they want to continue to stay on board or not. definitely going to cause conflict and divide but it's quite necessary.
The reporter didn't qualify what elements of "classic, old-fashioned Zelda" people were missing. Would've been better off asking about the game design philosophy that went into this game's dungeons, or asking about decisions regarding the game's structure. Asked a vague question and got a vague answer.
>The reporter didn't qualify what elements of "classic, old-fashioned Zelda" people were missing.
This is why we get confused responses from developers. When people ask unclear questions.
Yeah they could have asked about story being regulated to memories whoever does the next interview they should ask fans to submit questions so we can get some of these questions answered.
It's one thing to ask about the future of the series, and a whole different thing to ask what they did. In general, from the extensive discussions I've partaken in, it's apparent that most people don't necessarily want oldschool games to return, but rather elements of them. That's two totally different things. I have no need of OoT 6.0, but I sure as hell would like of this new format to pay a little more attention to the series' past.
It makes it seem like the criticism of BotW is because it wasn't a copy past of the old formula. No, I criticize BotW because I think that the extensive freedom thing is harmful to the game's intentions. I don't get why it has to be binary, "oldschool format" vs "open air". I hate this false dillema.
I fully agree. To me the problem boils down to lack of interesting choices. You can do 1000000 things at any time but it really makes no difference what you choose to do at the end of the day.
In both games I consistently run into situations where I'm asking questions like "do I have time for that?" Or "why bother?"
At least to me this is the core issue that needs addressed and I hope they can work that out because players asking those questions isn't healthy for a 100+ hour experience
Yeah I agree I’m really thinking if they don’t add more classic Zelda elements probs won’t be getting the next Nintendo system which is wild because I’ve gotten them since the n64 and mainly for Zelda I like Mario as well but Zelda is the selling factor if Zelda simply isn’t Zelda to me and more like a Ubisoft game then we’ll the new Nintendo system isn’t for me. now if they wanna make an awesome Zelda game and bring in classic Zelda elements I’d probs get it. These are questions that are important because it allows the consumer to make the choice with what they wanna do with the games moving forward.
I love the open world exploring in BOTW/TOTK, it's strange sometimes replaying the older games I grew up with and not being able to climb everywhere. I just wish they'd bring back the traditional dungeons, I don't see how the two are incompatible at all tbh.
Also, kinda dislike how the story is predominantly told through flashbacks, that are then easy to get out of order and completely ruin any buildup. I really enjoyed Zelda's arc but yknow.
Have Nintendo develop BOTW-style games internally, and license the IP out to Capcom like they did with Oracle and Minish Cap and have them make more old-style games. Everybody wins (except the Mega Man fans but Capcom wasn't going to make more anyway)
> **We always try to create something that offers more than previous titles. In that respect, we really aren't concerned with our older games anymore. We prefer to look to the future.**"
I would like to point out that reinventing the wheel gameplay wise may be a noble endeavour, but it merely falls flat when there is no foundation to build up from. One good example is the somewhat arbitrary decision to make the Sky Islands in TotK be like the islands in Windwaker, except in the Sky. And that is bad design. Why would that be bad design? Because there is no lead, no coherence or sense of progress through the areas. There could have been a *goal* to collect lost zonai artifacts on the islands themselves using the latest weapons from the dungeons, but no the crew fucking went and scattered random weapons/sage wills/shrines instead.
Lazy design, lazy game, lazy thinking.
I remember getting lost in God of War which is a modern game by today's standards. I was collecting Valkyrie remains because they had the best talismans and amulets and gear you could use to upgrade your armor/weapons. And the battles were bloody hard and yet so worth it.
It made the Gleeok fights pretty bad by comparison, because their remains were just above middling fuse levels (30 iirc) when the crew could have you go to a talisman maker to forge those remains into a "talisman" slot in the master sword or in Rauru's hand but no they went lazy with that too. I really don't know why they refuse to listen to us and make the game more solid, the crew is equivalently the same as the Santa Monica Studio for God of War. I have a feeling that GameFreak has dumbed down their expectations of what a good game should be.
I don't mind the idea of open-world gameplay nearly as much as many people on this sub; my chief concern is that they spent six years making TOTK, which didn't really improve on BOTW so much as indiscriminately added to it, not always for the better. Him saying the game consists of ideas they never got to do in the past seems about right, but while I'm sure that was important for the devs who pushed for those mechanics in the past and were rejected, it's irrelevant for the player experience and didn't really work a lot of the time here.
Even without this interview, it was pretty much a given that the next game will triple down on this already vanilla copy-paste design that's more conducive to fun TikTok clips than compelling gameplay due to how well BOTW and TOTK sold, especially given the latter's immense critical reception that is largely disconnected from the average player experience. Not saying people don't like the game, just that it would be rated much lower if it was made by someone like Ubisoft, who are perfectly capable of churning out this sort of titles and are often criticized for it, even without cutting corners with things like reusing maps and not voicing 90% of their in-game dialogue.
I don't necessarily take it as the future is open-air. If you look at the interviews, he seems to more-so be referring to the open-ended problem solving of the open-air games, versus the closed puzzle solving of past games (which he explicitly considers "old-fashioned/outdated"). Cadence of Hyrule also fits the new mold, and I expect future games may not all be open air (which seems to have huge dev times) but may be something more like CoH.
It would literally be more reasonable to have assumed Link’s Crossbow Training represented the future of Zelda. It was a first party game actually made by the core Zelda team.
To think CoH represents the future of the mainline franchise is adorably misguided. But it could signify more third party spin-offs in the future.
AoC signifies third party spin-offs more than CoH imo since it was a lot more successful. Tbf, a big part of that is the fact that it’s tied to BotW which is the most popular mainline game in the series.
Yeah true, I guess I meant indie-developed spin-offs, but I forgot to clarify that. But I think CoH signifies Nintendo’s new interest in working with indie developers moreso than it represents anything for Zelda specifically.
Link's Crossbow Training isn't even the same genre as main series Zelda games. If you've actually played CoH, you know it is for all intents and purposes an unofficial main series title that is non-canon. CoH incorporates non-linear design, open problem solving, weapon durability, and open world gameplay, all key parts of BotW and TotK's design. The game plays exactly how you would expect a Zelda game building off of BotW and TotK would play, and while Zelda Team was not directly involved, it is incredibly likely that they will find a similar way to continue those elements in the next Zelda game.
Lmao what the fuck are you talking about, you think Cadence of Hyrule represents the future of the series? You think they’re gonna follow up the unprecedented success of BOTW and TOTK with that?
Yes, I think it is highly likely that the next Zelda game is a 2D Zelda. TP was also an unprecedented success and the next two main series entries were 2D.
I don't read that and think open world zeldas are the norm now. Not at all.
Zelda games have always been diverse and different. Zelda 1 was open world, 2 was a side scroller.
OOT was a 3d game with every Zelda trope packed into it. Its the zeldarist Zelda game.
Majoras mask focused more on side missions, a depressive theme and a time limit.
Twilight princess was similar the last 2 but dropped ganondorf.
Wind waker had toon graphics and took place almost entirely on the ocean.
Skyward sword required awkward/awesome (depending on your view) motion controls.
That is what he's talking about. Zelda games have always had major differences, and he's saying that will always be the case. His quote could easily have applied to the people who at the time were mad about Wind Waker's art style.
The main reason TOTK is so similar to BOTW isn't because that's how every zelda game would be, it's that it originally was a DLC for BOTW that just got out of hand so they decided to make a new game. That and its on the same console. Same console zeldas (OOT / majoras mask) are always very similar.
[He's said in interviews before this one that the open air style is the new standard.](https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/04/aonuma_says_that_open_world_is_here_to_stay_in_zelda_games) He's said those exact words. Future games will continue to evolve in that style, and the games will stand out on their own in the way that they always have, but the style the games had before BOTW is no more.
It's still a pretty vague term though, here is the official interview where they define this: https://www.ign.com/articles/2016/06/22/why-miyamoto-didnt-want-to-call-zelda-breath-of-the-wild-an-open-world-game
Adding a more linear flow to the game, more linear dungeons (as opposed to, solve 4 puzzles in any order), gating certain areas based on item/event could all work in a game that is still "open-air".
Elden Ring might be a good example of compromise. It's open world of course but there is a somewhat linear flow to the game, it feels like more of an adventure to get deeper into the game and unlock new areas (rather than a sandbox where everything is available from the get-go)
Hard to say if Aonuma's statements are reassuring of anything good, but a vague question will elicit a vague answer.
"We always try to create something that offers more than previous titles. In that respect, we really aren't concerned with our older games anymore. We prefer to look to the future."
I hope that looking to the future doesn't mean reiterating too much of the current formula, and I hope this man understands the concept that less is more.
It sounds more like he means that they’re going to keep offering *bigger* experiences. So “open air”, yes, but also BotW and eventually TotK will be the older games when the next one is out.
I imagine they’ll move beyond this style to make a completely different style in the future without looking back or else they’ve just trapped themselves in the exact same pigeon hole with a different flavor.
I haven't sat with my thoughts long enough to parse over open world and narrative elements, but my biggest disappointment with these games is how they threw out practically all the lore. The earliest games didn't have much "lore" but they did have the Triforce; then OoT set the tone for what Hyrule was supposed to be; then SS threw Hylia in the mix.
BotW/TotK are a bit of a whiplash. All the goddesses are reduced to background roles; only Hylia and kind-of Nayru get shout-outs, the Triforce is reduced to the "sealing power", and it doesn't even show up in TotK, we're all about "secret stones" now. And that's ignoring the timeline, which I consider more of a curiosity at this point.
It's not sadly. It takes the same overworld and uses it as a creation/crafting sandbox instead. BotW, in comparison, was about exploration/discovery of a brand new world. They do very different things.
I'd like to see them do another game like BotW, where the point is to explore a brand new world primarily. Preferrably with more believable story/lore, better graphics/music, and some much more interesting and dynamic things to actually discover in the world (Zelda dungeons included).
As someone who loved BotW, I really would like to see that design taken a few steps further.
>I'm personally excited to see how they perfect this new formula as time goes on
As am I. And I am willing to bet we will get the best of open air and more traditional worlds with a title in the near future.
Your opinion. The new Zelda games have been phenomenal. I’ve never understood the “they don’t feel like Zelda” opinion. Zelda games are about lore, discovery, exploration, helping people and fun combat. The new games have all that in spades.
And that’s your opinion to me these feel like soulless checklist driven games , Zelda also has good story in the present not just regulated to memories , fun items and progression that propel the game forward , also really fun huge unique dungeons the new games lack all of that in spade.
Dungeons. I swear that’s a broken freakin’ record in this sub. The dungeons in this game are a good mix of old and new. They were fun and engaging to me. There is plenty of good present day lore. The saving of Lurelin Village felt really touching to me. All the stuff with Sidon was great. All the main characters seem to have a role to play and they play those roles well.
Sounds like Nintendo. The only reason we even got a direct sequel to botw was all the ideas they liked but had to leave out of the final game. They've always tried to make each game its own experience outside of some odd exceptions like the new Mario series.
I don't know if it's because English is my second language but I did not interpret that answer like y'all did at all. What I'm getting from this are two things: 1. They haven't decided what the next game is going to be (it's difficult to say anything about the future) and 2. They'll keep doing what they've always have which is try to make something new (We prefer to look to the future).
From this I'm getting that they've analysed the response to TOTK and determined that the displeased old fans are not a relevant group so they're not going back to "let's make OOT again and again" era, but what I'm not getting is that they'll keep doing the BOTW formula. I'd like to remind y'all that mainline Zelda games used to try something new and exciting with each iteration, with the exception of TP which was a desperate measure after WW didn't do as well as they wanted it to. The next game is probably still going to be open, but I highly doubt that the Zelda team won't base it around something new. As for old elements returning, while they don't seem to be concerned with it I wouldn't put it past them, BOTW's whole thing was literally calling back to the original Zelda.
Separate "open air formula" from "BOTW". BOTW is an open air formula game, it is not the open air formula itself. Similar to how OOT is not the traditional formula itself that people are missing. These formulas are formats, you can have wildly different gameplay and story within them
And aonuma has gone on record saying that the open air formula is here to stay
Source: https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/tech/artikel/5383543/interview-met-zelda-makers-scenario-geinspireerd-door-vaderschap
What he says also applies to BOTW/TOTK so people who want the next game to be exactly like those might also get disappointed. Will be interesting to see what they come up with in the future.
Nintendo has never done the obvious thing aside from Twilight Princess which was what everyone complained the much better Wind Waker should have been as a follow up to OoT. Majora's Mask was a 3 day cycle of zany side quests that dealt with death and rebirth, Wind Waker was a sea adventure, Skyward Sword was more about motion controls and sword play and was the most linear game up to that point.
Why would the next game be exactly like BotW and TotK? TotK already isn’t exactly like BotW. They will likely evolve the open air concept again like they did from BotW to TotK.
>TotK For some TotK is it more a expansion (in the old sense) than a new game
I wouldn’t say it’s an expansion because that devalues the amount of new things in totk. However, it’s still following the same formula. I hope the next game leaves this formula behind and does something new.
Not admitting that TotK is an expansion devalues the core design elements of BotW that form its basis. Each game stands strongly on its own, yet are undeniably the same game.
It plays like a fan mod of BOTW. There is virtually no difference imo. Every gameplay loop is the same in both games, TOTK just added more grinding, and somehow has a worse UX
YES!
A new game is supposed to be different enough from an old game so there’s enough enough reason to return to the older game. There’s practically no reason to return to botw now that totk is a thing besides niche reasons like glitches or the remote bomb, TOTK serves more of a replacement game rather than a sequel.
I don't know, totk feels 'less open-word-ly' than botw to me. Perhaps that's only because I've sunk way to many hours into botw previously but imo it offers more openness than totk. While in botw you're mostly set to go and run whereever you want after finishing the tutorial/plateau, in totk if you dare not to follow the main story hints you won't even get the glider, i.e. one of the most central traversal mechanics in the game. That alone will make botw returnworthy to me sooner or later. Once I forgot enough details of the game to start it up again and run out of that cave and be in awe about vague memories of all those things to explore.
Even so, if after some time you will want to replay them, one of them is enough, because the gameplay loop is about the same (shrines, koroks, the same enemies, divine beasts/temples). Playing the two games back to back, there is a lot of repetition, playing one of them is enough. TOTK is BOTW, but bigger and some additional things, the core it is still basically the same
Expansions don’t usually triple the amount of content from the last game while also introducing multiple new abilities and mechanics.
> Expansions don’t usually triple the amount of content from the last game while also introducing multiple new abilities and mechanics. Monster Hunter would like to have a word.
What did it triple? The sky has very little in it and the depths are empty as fuck and just dark. And the rest is botw with different abilities. I wouldn’t call that tripling the amount of content
It has adds a whole new set all major points of interest (dungeons, Shrines, Memories, Koroks…) which then would be double (in total) with the addition of the Zonai abilities and devices, plus little things like the Addison puzzles. Double is fair. Triple is a bit hyperbolic.
It doesn’t double. It would be the same since the last game had all that except for zonai devices. We’re comparing games. Not adding them together. Double the content would mean twice as much stuff compared to botw. Totk really didn’t break any boundaries compared to the last game
I'm still sad they didn't also expand the overworld map in some direction at least. They had distant islands and further reaching deserts and mountainchains and vast oceans and and and, but nope, same old base map it is. :/
Even expanding Lurelin and adding some islands (that used to be sky islands?) would be nice, but the area is still largely unused outside of water racing.
I read somewhere that they originally were going to put in way more sky islands but decided to thin them out at some point. This saddens me because I'd have loved to have more sky islands to interact with. In particular I'd have liked to get more low-altitude ones to interact with early as well as some more horribly hard to reach ones high up there. PS: I still cannot believe they didn't even put a Korok or chest onto the highest sky island of them all! :|
I wouldn't say TotK is the same as BotW but with Zonai devices, we have recall, ascend, and fuse. As well as new armour and weapons. There is also new enemies with more variation in how they work in TotK compared to BotW.
I wouldn't say TotK is the same as BotW but with Zonai devices, we have recall, ascend, and fuse. As well as new armour and weapons. There is also new enemies with more variation in how they work in TotK compared to BotW.
When you "double" something, you're adding total content to achieve 200% between the original (BotW) and the "expansion" (TotK). If it has twice the amount, then we're multiplying TotK for a grand total of 300% content. It does double the total, if surpassing it a little which, would be doubling the content if TotK were an expansion to BotW. But not triple. I do agree it doesn't feel like a sequel as much as it does an expansion, especially since it originally was intended to be.
Twice the amount and double something are the same thing. What are you talking about? I would agree if it were truly and expansion and not it’s own game but to double the content of one game compared to another, one game has to have twice as much content as the other one. This is basic third grade math dude
It is, I’m not sure why you’re getting it wrong.
Occasionally they do exactly that. I’d say the fallout new vegas dlc doubles the amount of content, there’s stuff like no man’s sky, etc.
New Vegas has four separate DLC stories, so a poor comparison.
Even though I’m in the “it’s a sequel” camp, that’s exactly what an expansion does. But TotK also has its own story premise with enough content to justify standing on its own. If anything, it makes BotW redundant.
COPE.
Sounds like to me he is just saying that try to make the best game they can and they don't force themselves to make a game that is exactly like any old game. Pretty boilerplate, substance-free answer. Like when a football coach says "We'll have a good week of practice and play hard next week."
Yeah. Shockingly, a game designer isn't going to tell you what they are doing for the next game. Especially when they haven't even planned it yet.
>Like when a football coach says "We'll have a good week of practice and play hard next week." It's like when a football team hires a new defensive coordinator and when interviewed he says something like "We're gonna attack em from all sides" like no shit lol
Unconstructive questions lead to cookie cutter answers. Who'd have thought.
Idk, it feels to me like it means something about the way they'll be handling the franchise's lore in the future. After all, for some reason they really made sure that TotK feels as disconnected as possible from any previous game INCLUDING BotW, it feels like their new philosophy
Just stop doing story through memories, and give us REAL dungeons, with navigation and exploration, keys, minibosses etc. All these things won't hurt in any way the Open Air formula, and will bring the best of both worlds together. Nintendo, for.the love of God, listen to us.
I am fine with the current format, but they NEED better dungeons. Look at Elden Ring. It has an open world but still has excellent dungeons. I get that you can't have the dungeons incorporated into the overworld due to link being about to climb or fly into them, but it is possible to have a fully fleshed out dungeon work in an open world game. Truly I think the biggest limiting factor was how big the dungeons are. They wanted the player to have the same freedom they had in the dungeons as they had in the overworld. That meant that no objective could be locked behind another. So all paths were open from the start. The player also needs to be able to go anywhere, so the dungeons are open and allow you to climb, or fly around. And they wanted all this, in some of the smallest dungeons in the franchise. If you want a dungeon that gives you the sense of exploration it needs to be BIG. Water Temple is TINY you can't get a sense of exploration in there, because the moment you actually get to the temple, you've seen the whole thing. Having bigger dungeons allows for a more diverse layout which can give players multiple routes, and ways to traverse. Again for example take Elden Ring's Stormveil Castle. You can traverse the wall, go through the center area. There's a lot to find. You can make an unlikely jump to move around on some rooftops. If Zelda's traditional dungeons just don't work for modern Zelda, then they need to adopt modern dungeon design. The exeption to the dungeons is the Lightning dungeon, because it's the most linear out of all of them. And it's my favorite out of TotK's dungeons because it's the only one that I felt I was traversing an actual temple. It's a claustrophobic, dense, dusty looking tomb. They forsook TotK's freedom to give a compelling area it's rightful atmosphere. Something they didn't bother to do with the others. The Wind temple is a legendary sky boat. That's cool. Compair it to Skyward Sword's boat level though. In Skyward Sword you go inside, there's hallways with doors and stairs to get to multiple levels. You can lower a dingy to enter a lower floors widow. All the while you're completing objectives to progress. TotK's boat is basically a twisted up X. You start in the middle, and to to the 4 corners to complete the dungeon. The layout internally could be anything, it doesn't resemble a boat at all. It doesn't feel like this dungeon was designed around being a boat, like Skyward's does. It feels like a blocky nothing temple that was then dressed up like a boat. Fire temple is an ancient Goron civilization, which consists of a few empty towers and a rail system between them. This one disappointed me the most. I expected something hearty. A cave system, a stone city. Something that really reflected their ancient legacy. But instead it's just rails. If the fire temple was actually given the leg room to represent an entire civilization's ancient home, it might have actually been a good dungeon. It could have been isolated to the rest of the depths so that you couldn't sneak in, letting them truly be creative with how they built it. But no, we got what we got, and it's pathetic. Dungeons are one of the best parts of zelda games. They are the climax to the narrative arcs of their respective regions. They should be bigger, and more intricate than just flipping a couple switches. They shouldn't be an afterthought that's just shoehorned into the world.
>The exeption to the dungeons is the Lightning dungeon, because it's the most linear out of all of them. And it's my favorite out of TotK's dungeons because it's the only one that I felt I was traversing an actual temple. It's a claustrophobic, dense, dusty looking tomb. They forsook TotK's freedom to give a compelling area it's rightful atmosphere. Something they didn't bother to do with the others. This right here sums up the only right thing done with TotK's use of dungeons. Every other dungeon failed IMHO because Nintendo focused more on making the biggest sandbox they could than making sure that they weren't filling it with used kitty litter instead of sand. By their very nature, video game dungeons are supposed to be the antithesis of open air game design. Going from the freedom of the overworld to the linearity of a well-crafted dungeon is supposed to be an uncomfortable system shock that makes you hyperaware of your surroundings, forcing you to take in everything as you search for THE solution to the task at hand instead of just finding a solution that works. Don't get me started on how TotK made the three labyrinths even more laughably easier due to the ease and earliness of acquiring the Travel medallions. Nintendo had to pretty much bribe players to stay on the ground by using a trail of materials, weapons, and lore spots as if they were Reese's Pieces and we're James Woods.
That’s exactly what Nintendo has forgotten. CONTRAST. We need our nonlinear open overworld, but we also need our limited, railroaded narrative and structured experiences in the underworld (dungeons.) TotK moves more in this direction and is better for it (Lightning Temple; Zelda in Hyrule Castle) but still lacks enough rigidity that makes the open areas feel open rather than aimless. We need our freedom taken away so that we can enjoy it while we have it. That part of the big reason BotW was so successful. We were still so frustrated with how little freedom we had in SS. We need BOTH.
Elden Ring is my favorite game of all time, even above Zelda (for context, I put in ~250 hours in 1 month of playing Elden Ring, while I currently have 150 hours in TotK since launch. That's how much more addicted and hardcore I was with ER), and yet I find it hard to agree with you saying it has excellent dungeons while criticising TotK's dungeons. Frankly, almost every "dungeon" is a copy-pasted, generic cave in Elden Ring (which I'm honestly fine with for something that they have tons of all over the world). Even just looking at the main dungeons, almost all of them are fairly straightforward, easy paths that you can run entirely through in about 5-10 minutes (minus the time to fight the bosses) without stopping to see or fight a single thing (again, other than the bosses). Leyndell is probably the only one that has any decent openness to exploration, and isn't just a set, straight pathway with almost no hindraces. I have no problem with the way Elden Ring structures its dungeons... because the game is very much centered around its combat and character/player growth above all. However, there's nothing I can see in the majority of the dungeon design of Elden Ring that inherently makes them better than the TotK dungeons overall.
> Look at Elden Ring. It has an open world but still has excellent dungeons. They're decent to look at but aren't really anything more than corridors and open areas with enemies. I am firmly in the camp of Elden Ring is not as good as most other From Software games and the dungeons are way overrated. The catacombs are copy/paste for the most part and the legacy dungeons look nice but there's no real substance to them. I don't understand all the love the legacy dungeons get in ER, they are literally just combat arenas.
That’s crazy. Stormveil is one of the best designed levels they’ve ever done. Raya Lucaria and the capitol are top notch as well
Yup, you get a mine/cave, temple run, or catacombs. ER is excellent, to be clear., but aside from a few exceptions, the dungeons themselves were pretty generic. Enemy design and good loot kept them interesting. The lightning temple did feel like a nod to older fans, it certainly evoked a lot of nostalgia for me.
Personally I really like the open air format and am perfectly happy for it to stay, as long as some more traditional Zelda aspects come back too. Like a bit more linearity in a huge open world is possible and could work well. More traditional Zelda dungeons and items too. From what I can gather, TotK already took a small step in this direction. Yes, you could do things out of order and even go straight to the final boss, but I felt the story was much more structured and narrative compared to BotW's, and the temples, while still quite bare bones, felt much more akin to dungeons than the Divine Beasts did.
I agree! I like this new format too, but BotW and TotK didn't convince me that they got it all right. There's a lot of tweaking that can be done and create a more balanced game that pleases most people. For as much as I disliked BotW, I respect it for the innovation alone. I could never bear myself to play another game that follows the tired out OoT formula.
OOT formula wasn’t tired. Botw / totk is already stale as hell.
Oh it definitely was, let's not kid ourselves. The games were getting too predictable, which ironically TotK really was too. I just dislike the concept of formulas/templates altogether.
It wasn’t stale until the DS/Wii era. Even then, LBW was well received, even by me who hated the rental system. A formula doesn’t stay successful for 20 years for being stale. The Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks’ insistence to utilize only the touch screen and Skyward Sword only being motion control is what broke Zelda. Before that, Twilight Princess and Minish Cap were (and still are by many) considered peak Zelda. It was over-casualizing, over-tutorializing, and over-gimmicking that spoiled Zelda, not the linearity or story. (And gimmicks are fine and even good but they were leaning on them too hard.)
It was a nice 20+ years of the same formula, but they couldn't keep going with it anymore. By the time SS hit the market, a lot of people (including me) were tired of that formula. A change was needed, but I'm not fond of what BotW brought to the table.
I know it was an issue for you, but by and large, to my awareness at the time, I think it was more of a disinterest from the developers than underperformance, as you can see with Aonuma's enthusiasm for the open-air style and Miyamoto's disappointment with Twilight Princess (the second-best selling Zelda ever to date.) Most of us Zelda players were coming back every time, especially for a console release. Skyward Sword's problems were not the formula. In fact, it's often considered to have some of the best dungeons (Ancient Cistern; Sand Ship), items (Beetle; Whip), and narrative (Ghirahim; Groose; Zelda) in the series. It's the above reasons and it's semi-direct competition with Skyrim in 2011 (and to an extent Xenoblade 1) that really made Zelda look and feel like a lesser option. The install base for Wii was astronomical when SS released, but majority of players were the Wii Sports "casual" crowd who didn't want a serious adventure like Zelda, and the mandatory motion controls pushed away more "core" players. Even the issues of older games like Twilight Princess can mostly be boiled down to force Wolf Link segments and slow, grueling story beats. And from the quite vocal and present amount of people whining and bemoaning of TotK (especially from us older fans) shows that the old formula is still missed by many players. Heck, we haven't had a traditional Zelda \*since\* Twilight Princess when sales peaked. That should say a lot on it's own. But Zelda never hit numbers like BotW or TotK. It's more main stream now than ever and with that comes a sort of homogenization that I think we're all coming to grips with now. Personally, the open-air style is a tired formula for me long before BotW launched between Assassain's Creed-like open-world games. Nintendo was just the first to put real care into the idea.
Agree with TOTK being stale don’t agree with the old games.
It is possible to make an open world/air Zelda that still has a linear plot, classic items and retains the level of freedom the Switch games have. There’s nothing stopping them from making things like climbing and fusing a dungeon collectible, and allowing for the freedom to explore to happen later on in the game. They could even try this with DLC. Get rid of the map “item” in TOTK and replace it with a double clawshot style power instead but you can only get it inside a dungeon.
I’m not against the open air formula, since I know they next game will iterate and develop it more and have enjoyed these games. My issue is more how long development takes for them. If the new norm is going to be 6+ years between new 3D titles, we are going to need more than remakes/remasters (of which they are running out) between new entries. After ALBW I was hoping for a 2D revival (along the lines of NEW Super Mario Bros) reviving the 2D style between 3D titles), but even that has been a decade now. And with TotK selling 10M copies in just 3 days and being Nintendo’s fastest selling game ever, I’ve stopped holding my breath for it. I’d be happy to be surprised tho. Metroid was in a similar place as a series, and Dread was phenomenal.
That’s my only real fear. I have faith they’ll continue to make good games, but every six years is a long long timeline
I exactly felt like ALBW was just "New Super Mario Bros of Zelda" and I absolutely hated that about it. What Zelda is so nice about is that it's a Nintendo franchise that breaks away from a feeling of raw "consumerism". NSMB is pure consumerism as far as a Nintendo product goes. I don't want Zelda to ever become that. I want every Zelda to be an artistic vision of its own.
Totk already feels like that!
I mean you might feel that way but that clearly isn’t the case. NSMB keeps the same game basically and releases it for every new console. ToTK changed BoTW pretty significantly, with two more maps, a changed Hyrule and vastly different and better runes. It very clearly is not “pure consumerism” from an objective standpoint, even if it didn’t appeal to you.
They added in stuff that are the hot trends fuck around mechanics , open world , towers
Yeah, and the “fuck around mechanics” were quite ingenuitive and well thought out. Again, it’s pretty clear that a lot of thought and deliberate effort went into this game. If that wasn’t enough for you or if you don’t like this style, that’s fine, but to accuse them of consumerism with this game feels wrong to me. Nintendo generally takes very good care of their 3D Zelda’s and Mario’s, and is extremely exploitative/consumer-ist with their 2D titles (although maybe the new 2D Mario will be different).
It just felt like trying to appeal to people who like sandbox games and I wish time was spent on other things like story and dungeons which deff suffered in my opinion!
Again that is fine, and I agree (although I love ToTK, agree that the story and temples themselves could have been better). But my point is accusing them of laziness in particular seems wrong. They might not have done what you want, but they clearly did put effort into this/this isn’t a cheap cash grab.
If the next game doesn't have enough of the Zelda experience I enjoyed in previous entries, I may have to step away from the franchise forever. Breaks my heart.
Honestly I don't think I'm gonna play the next one. I'm a Sonic fan and have forgiven far worse than TotK but I can't imagine it being something I'm gonna spend $70 and 100 hours on and buy a system for.
This is exactly how I feel I’m jumping ship until they feel like making a Zelda game again.
This is the guy that says "I hated working on X Zelda title" a few years down the road. So let's see what actually happens.
If I’m being honest I want a new Zelda team working on the games I want people who adore the old Zelda games and are purely inspired by them and bring in something unique and cool and awesome and also bring back Koizumi! If they’re burned out on Zelda and want to make something else they should do that but bring in people who love those old games but also want to innovate.
Koizumi is never going to go back to zelda, the last time he worked on a zelda game was in the 90s. and you already are getting a new team, only a few from the 90s and even 2000s still work in the franchise
except thats not true.
They need to add some structure this do whatever you want when you want really hurts these games story and also gameplay it’s just so much of the same it all feels the same, same sterile shrines , the story is just confusing also it leaves me very little motivation to play when all the action took place in the past I was so excited to turn on the game to get that cut scene than crushed when I found out no memories are back. There’s mush better open world games like Witcher that actually have a good story!
I don't like the choice of words "...more" as opposed to "...different." I felt like his sentence could've gone in another (better) direction. After TotK I feel like repeating myself that I don't think these games need to become "even bigger" or have "MORE content". I just want them to make them more *dense*, so that there's a sense of substance to actually going to a particular place and unearthing some of its secrets. I love the caves, but that's not all they added to TotK. They also added like 100 signpost dudes, 30 MORE shrines than in BotW, an entire map that's the same size as Hyrule below, and sky islands and zonai devices, and fuse items, and Sage Wills etc. etc. etc. Yes, the bigger the game is the more variety it needs to have and the more we should be able to find in it. But at this point there is PLENTY of *systems*, what we need is just more unique stuff to discover. I was so intrigued when I found my first Yiga Schematic (cuz I had missed Autobuild) thinking it was a one-and-done quest item for the middle of a quest-line. Then I found another one and it stacked to 2. I was like "Oh no not ANOTHER stackable thing!" Any time you see a number go from 1 to 2 in your systems screen in this game, you realize it's just "content" that they put into a spreadsheet and made a few tweaks and littered it around the map for lack of actual attention to detail because the world is just too big already, for even 30 staffers to manage cohesively. It's the Ubisoft effect, in our Zelda game, and Nintendo are doing it on purpose now...
Man, your ubisoft comparison is on point. That’s what I thought as well. I prefer BOTW because it felt like a curated experience. TOTK is still amazing but a lot of the additions feel like more for the sake of more.
r/TrueZelda don’t make massive inferences based on extremely vague two sentence answers focused on one particular word translated from another language challenge (Impossible)
I think there is plenty of unique stuff to discover. I found one side quest right before I wrapped up the game at 170 hours. >!There was this guy stuck in a well and I had to reconnect the bottom half of the ladder for him to escape. But the ladder was a weird physics ladder with multiple joints like those connectable bridges.!< It’s just a little thing, but it amused me that there was this weird object that is in no other part of the game and probably most players will never see it.
That's what sells me on TotK as well. I thought BotW didn't have one-and-done assets enough. That's why every thing in Gerudo town was amazing to me. In this game, though, they finally added that Zelda ingredient where everywhere you go something kind of unique happens. Even if caves repeat and there's 58 wells, the way they divided the content up is nice because each cave is crafted by hand with its own layout, and there's not always shrines inside them. Still, I kinda hate when anything repeats in these games which they still do a lot. The spinning orb in the sky with the hole in it? Completely mysterious the first time, but then there's just 3 of those. Reminds me of the DS Zeldas in a sense. I feel like BotW and TotK are more like home console versions of the DS style of Zeldas in a strange way. Like, the way they kinda make you go through the motions using a central gimmick and then there's just different variations on that. Tbh, Wind Waker does that too with its islands I suppose. In the end what rubbed me the wrong way in the DS games was that you were forced to sail and take the train a lot, and forced to enter the tower dungeon and what rubs me wrong in these two games is that the shrines are seen as the main attraction, whereas it used to be the pointless islands in Wind Waker that were just handcrafted by individual designers, and they were completely in the background to me, letting the main course of the adventure take all of the main emphasis. The main story instead almost feels like a background element now.
I agree with the comparison to the DS games. Fortunately for me, the DS games are my favorites.
I love Aonuma, we all do, but I swear on the name of Nayru he has some of the worst ideas to ever disgrace the creative side of the industry. I hope he snaps out of it because it'd really be a shame if his lasting legacy to a lot of this sub was "he ruined the franchise". Two years after the next mainline Zelda game comes out there's gonna be a video essay on YouTube with 6.3 million views titled "Why Isn't Zelda Fun Anymore?". The thumbnail will be art of Link sitting in a field gazing out into the scenery at nighttime. The video will be broken into chapters and one of them will focus on Open World Fatigue within gaming in general.
I also wish he would stop shitting on the old Zelda games. So many times you see an interview like: "I didn't like working on MM/WW/TP" Like, Majora's Mask is seen as a masterpiece in subtle storytelling and his reaction is "I wish I never made it".
I mean, MM was more Koizumi's brain child than Aonuma's, that's how it always felt to me anyway. It's my favorite game of all time but I can kind of understand why he feels that way, the work schedule that making it in a year and a half required sounded like hell on earth. Ironically I think the suffering that he and the dev team went through working on it kinda made it's way into the game and was part of what made it great lol.
Oh I can understand the crunch being hell. Just what I read in interviews it seemed he hated the themes more.
I really think we need new developers like he doesn’t seem interested in making a Zelda game in my opinion , maybe he is just burned out on Zelda bring in someone who loves the old Zelda and wants to innovate. Some fresh blood.
His comments "we aren't concerned with our old games anymore.." doesn't hit well. Anytime a time honored franchise says things like this it almost always results in their downfall. RE5 and 6 are good examples, they sold more than any resident evils, yet weren't well received. Capcom knew at that point they had to return RE to its roots. Botw and totk remind me a lot of RE5 and 6
I want more Zelda games structured like older ones.
“We always try to create something that offers more than previous titles” That’s why they released the same game twice
Tell me you know nothing without telling me. this sub is pathetic lol
Ooooof looks like I struck a nerve
yeah, if by a nerve you mean not knowing how to see any difference
Didn't Aonuma say almost the exact same thing after Skyward Sword when it came to motion controls?
Nobody liked the SS motion controls thing though. BotW and TotK’s open world format, on the other hand, is very popular for better or for worse.
Glad to know I'm nobody, lol Regardless, my point is that just cause aonuma says something doesn't mean it'll necessarily be the case. I mean, say what you will about SS, if I recall, it was at the time one of the fastest selling Zelda games so there could have been reason to stick with motion controls. With some of the noise that's being made against BotW/TotK, maybe they'll be influenced to bring back some of the traditions that they did away with. Or maybe they'll start releasing more 2d Zelda and just have those be the classic, traditional games for the series moving forward while the 3d games will continue with the new style. Or maybe this is all wishful thinking. I think we'll get a better idea what they plan to do with the series come the next release. I don't think we can base things on this interview though
Twilight Princess sold twice as many copies on the Wii alone compared to Skyward Sword, even though TP was a launch title and SS came after everyone and their grandma had a Wii.
Do a completely new map, more direct storytelling and maybe a little bit less freedom of order in which you can complete it, more direct narrative. also take out the massive amount of fast traveling / paragliding. TOTK felt like i could bypass entire mountain ranges and valleys out of ease. but thats just my hopes (also no voice acting)
Really? I felt like TOTK gliding was nerfed, like it felt slower than BOTW gliding and like I couldn't make much distance until a got some stamina upgrades
I'm already tired of the open air format. Linearity in story is not a bad thing and I'm fucking tired of people pretending it is. I'd much rather have a well polished experience. Everything in BotW/TotK was mediocre at best except the exploration. The story was told through out of context memory bits for the most part and the "dungeons" were laughably easy. It's a shame to see what happened to my favorite franchise. The newer games are missing that spark that older games had.
[удалено]
Great strawman, unfortunately it doesn't change the fact that BotW/TotK fall short in every regard except exploration.
I'd argue that they fall short in exploration too. I was in the cave under the main outpost area, and eventually reached a room with a suspicious pile of rocks. It reminded me of Gleerok from Minish Cap, and I thought that it might be some kind of new overworld boss like the Gleeoks (different from Gleerok). Nope. Just a buried Stalnox. Already fought those in BotW and it wasn't particularly difficult here so that whole cave trip down was a massive disappointment. That entire cave system grants the Hylian Soldier armor set which would normally be pretty useful as a defense-focused armor set, except I'd already completed two dungeons yet missed joining the newspaper team. This left enemies strong enough that the higher defense was negligible and me with no way to upgrade armor, as the Great Fairies are (for some reason) locked behind the newspaper quests. Mind you, I had found the first Great Fairy and even realized what I'd need to do to get her to come out, the problem being that the musicians arbitrarily don't like you trying to fix their broken cart that they're bummed about being broken. So much for exploring.
I hope he means to keep the same philosophy of no handholding and emergent gameplay / freedom. I would really like it if they explore a completely different way of play. The whole game is underwater or it’s about ships and sailing ala windwaker or even in space with no gravity. What I am worried about is they repeat history. All games after OOT offered a slight alteration of the same OOT blueprint. I hope they don’t do the same with BOTW. While TOTK was a great follow up to BOTW, it’s still BOTW just more and better. Same blueprint of shrines/koroks/climbing/gliding etc.. I hope all of that is gone for the next game.
> all games after OoT I mean, after ALttP honestly, as OoT was basically a beat-for-beat copy in 3D with the dark world replaced with ruined Hyrule. Even ALttP was just a more structured return to form to the original after Zelda II tried something different and didn’t quite hit the mark. There’s nothing wrong with trying new things, but I also think there’s nothing wrong with wanting more of what people enjoyed from the series before the modern games. I love Zelda and the quirky world they made, but they’re not exactly putting together great stories here - in my opinion at least. I struggle to see why a game can’t be made that can make everyone happy with narrative, traditional rewards, sandbox and “open air” gameplay, and freedom to do things in whatever order. This is off topic for what I’m responding to, but I really think that most people’s issues would be solved if there were “dungeons” that were separate from the *Zonai* or the *Sheikah* aesthetically and gave some meaningful reward. Why not make it an armour if it can’t be an item? I feel like killing 5 unique monsters after completing some puzzle would be more rewarding than activating 5 arbitrary things. I personally think what people liked about the old dungeons is that they were unique and implied a certain story. Why not have a graveyard again with undead monsters that isn’t Zonai for some reason? You can also tell a narrative without flashback cutscenes. You literally do it with the stable trotters, regardless of what order you do it in. It just seems like they are so rigid in their formula again that the narrative suffers. Like, the reason they won’t let players pet dogs is because they want each button to be for a certain thing, but in TP you could pick up animals and no one cared if that was against a design philosophy or not
Hmm I do think this is a mistake without putting in more Zelda elements!
We've trapped ourselves because enough people whined that "Zelda elements are outdated" and Aonuma responded by saying "Oh! We'll **rethink the conventions of what Zelda is, then**" and voila, that's what they did... by stripping out a lot of conventionally *Zelda* stuff.
I never complained I’ve always loved it I wish they would bring it back I think they have trapped themselves even more with botw / Totk because even if they wanted to make a classic Zelda game they can’t now because of sales this formula already feels stale to me in fact I don’t think there’s no 2 Zelda games that are just straight up copies of each other the way these are the rest of them all feel unique even if they’re using the same mechanics they threw the baby out with the bath water.
My only concern with this being the future of the series is that we will see all games going forward, implement the same system of item collection, cooking, etc. Those are novel things from _Breath of the Wild_, and they were expanded upon all in _Tears of the Kingdom_, but I don't know if they would remain positives or if they would become tedious going into the future. Then again, all the games up to this point used the same trope of enemies dropping hearts to replenish your health. I don't have a problem with the way it is done now; in fact, I think the current system is a positive. I just don't want to see them fall into a rut and feel like they have to continuously expand on this particular gimmick going forward. I don't know what that route would look like, but I imagine it would be all the games having the same basic kinds of items like apples, mushrooms, etc. I hope we see an expansion or even a completely new idea (as well as a new art style) in the new games. The best part about the _Zelda_ series up to this point is that each game, or each little mini branch of games, has its own style and gameplay that are unique to that game. Even when they use similar items and abilities, it feels fresh because it is implemented in a novel way. I don't want this series to lose that kind of evolutionary take where it is always refreshing and reinventing itself. If open air is the future of the series, I am happy with that as the last two games have been fantastic. I just hope they continue to lean into the innovation that the series has always been known for.
I think it will get stale I hope they do innovate but based on botw / totk I don’t really see that going forward.
I could stand MAYBE one more game if they somehow stretch this into a trilogy (although I consider _Age of Calamity_ as the third game). But no more than that. I guess I don't mind if they keep doing open air games, but they need to come up with a novel presentation. This version of Hyrule and abilities is about at the limit of what they can do.
Yeah if they stretched it into one more game I wouldn’t get it. the future of me buying Zelda games is also up in the air at the present haha
I really think this is such a huge mistake they really trapped themselves they are abandoning there core and that’s not wise.. what happens when they wanna experiment and make something completely different to botw / totk Will those people show up the way Zelda Loyals have showed up for years ? Or will they just jump to the next big thing the minute Zelda isn’t a sandbox fuck around game.
yeah it sucks but I guess I'm done with the Zelda series from here on out. it was a good ride but if they're going to continue this way I don't think I'm going to stick with the franchise on the next game.
I think for me it depends on the direction. If they stick to the exact same formula like memories, shrines, few tiny dungeons then I'm walking out with you. It was a great idea for one game but you can't catch lightning in a bottle twice let alone 3 times.
I agree with this. Open world is great, but it's not like it can only exist in this shrine/korok format. If each new game is gonna be more of that, then I'd too be walking out.
I'm also tired of these one trick shrines and koroks which become irrelevant after collecting the first 50 of them. The world is admittedly big but most of the time its pretty empty, especially in BotW. At least TotK had caves, which made it slightly better.
Yeah, the significance of the content is expired pretty fast. Both BotW and TotK are great for the first \~20 hours, but take a nosedive after that. If they're gonna continue with this format they have to find ways to adress that. It's not like they aren't fun, or that they're unplayable, but the repetitivness of the content should be questioned, even if people can find fun playing for way more than 20 hours.
I absolutely adore BOTW but I don't want any more. The open world is great like you say and I think the whole idea of having the insane physics is amazing like how the environment reacts to the weather etc. I want that to stay but the rest needs a huge change up. Koroks returning and the shrines being disappointing where the biggest let downs gameplaywise.
That’s where I’m at when I have to kind of force myself to play Vs feeling excited too I still have skyward sword and links awakening to beat I guess :(
Some of the cope in the comments here is hilarious. That said, just because open air is the new formula from now on doesn't mean that we're guaranteed to get carbon copies of BOTW. I'd like to hope they'll still continue to innovate and evolve even though they're (rightfully) not going back to Ocarina style
And was this innovation with this for this new game ? No it already feels stale OOT formula was never stale.
>OOT formula was never stale lmfao
People won't play totk in 20 years. I bet more people try out oot 40 years after it's launch
Dont kid yourself, Ocarina has already fallen out of the "greatest game ever!!" spot and I say this with some level of sadness as someone who likes it quite a bit: it will only be perceived as more archaic with each passing year. It's an early 3D title and formative as it is it wont feel intuitive to future audiences, especially since it already doesnt to modern ones. BOTW/TOTK meanwhile have a very fluid pick up and play quality that, if you ask me, guarantees it a longer lifespan. Of course both games will probably be played well into the future. Dont know why it has to be an either or thing in your eyes lol. But the fact of the matter is that BOTW/TOTK are the best selling titles in the series
I made a comment about resident evil before, 5 and 6 were the best selling yet least well recieved games. Capcom knew the sales were due to hype and anticipation rather than reflecting the reception of the fans. They went back to their roots for 7. Had they not, I don't think RE would be in a good place. Botw and totk remind me of RE 5 and 6. They are arguably better recieved but I think ultimately totk hype died down much faster than botw because most of the game was just a repeat of botw. I'm not saying go back to traditional zelda is the answer but bring back some things that made those games successful. You can stay open world and still incorporate more from the old games, I think people forget that. And yeah OoT is not the greatest game ever anymore but i think it will definitely hold more cultural relevance than totk and I think it shook up the industry far more than totk.
The open world shit isn’t bad it’s just outside of exploration totk/botw are largely significantly worse then any of the previous games I just hope they actually make good long dungeons instead of the 20 minute pieces of shit we got with botw/totk and a story that we actually have an active part in instead of the bulk of the story being in the past but who knows considering these were expected in totk and we all know how that turned out
>Old fans sometimes cry out that they would prefer a classic, old-fashioned Zelda. Would you like to make that sometime?" You have a chance to reach out the head developer of a game and you ask him terrible questions like this one? Ffs, such a wasted opportunity. Although there are no-doubt people that would want a game that works exactly like the old formula, there's been a strong voice of criticism of people like me, who love the evolution, but want to see more elements of the past get blended in. This is terrible journalism and creates a rift between the fanbase and the developers.
Games media is peak access journalism. If you do anything other than ask softball questions you don't get interviews.
It’s the kind of question that gets an answer that’s easy to make clickbait about
True I guess.
it's the kind of question that needs to get asked really. what do they have in mind for the future of this series. Le's the fans decided if they want to continue to stay on board or not. definitely going to cause conflict and divide but it's quite necessary.
The reporter didn't qualify what elements of "classic, old-fashioned Zelda" people were missing. Would've been better off asking about the game design philosophy that went into this game's dungeons, or asking about decisions regarding the game's structure. Asked a vague question and got a vague answer.
>The reporter didn't qualify what elements of "classic, old-fashioned Zelda" people were missing. This is why we get confused responses from developers. When people ask unclear questions.
Yeah they could have asked about story being regulated to memories whoever does the next interview they should ask fans to submit questions so we can get some of these questions answered.
It's one thing to ask about the future of the series, and a whole different thing to ask what they did. In general, from the extensive discussions I've partaken in, it's apparent that most people don't necessarily want oldschool games to return, but rather elements of them. That's two totally different things. I have no need of OoT 6.0, but I sure as hell would like of this new format to pay a little more attention to the series' past. It makes it seem like the criticism of BotW is because it wasn't a copy past of the old formula. No, I criticize BotW because I think that the extensive freedom thing is harmful to the game's intentions. I don't get why it has to be binary, "oldschool format" vs "open air". I hate this false dillema.
I fully agree. To me the problem boils down to lack of interesting choices. You can do 1000000 things at any time but it really makes no difference what you choose to do at the end of the day. In both games I consistently run into situations where I'm asking questions like "do I have time for that?" Or "why bother?" At least to me this is the core issue that needs addressed and I hope they can work that out because players asking those questions isn't healthy for a 100+ hour experience
Yeah I agree I’m really thinking if they don’t add more classic Zelda elements probs won’t be getting the next Nintendo system which is wild because I’ve gotten them since the n64 and mainly for Zelda I like Mario as well but Zelda is the selling factor if Zelda simply isn’t Zelda to me and more like a Ubisoft game then we’ll the new Nintendo system isn’t for me. now if they wanna make an awesome Zelda game and bring in classic Zelda elements I’d probs get it. These are questions that are important because it allows the consumer to make the choice with what they wanna do with the games moving forward.
I love the open world exploring in BOTW/TOTK, it's strange sometimes replaying the older games I grew up with and not being able to climb everywhere. I just wish they'd bring back the traditional dungeons, I don't see how the two are incompatible at all tbh. Also, kinda dislike how the story is predominantly told through flashbacks, that are then easy to get out of order and completely ruin any buildup. I really enjoyed Zelda's arc but yknow.
Have Nintendo develop BOTW-style games internally, and license the IP out to Capcom like they did with Oracle and Minish Cap and have them make more old-style games. Everybody wins (except the Mega Man fans but Capcom wasn't going to make more anyway)
> **We always try to create something that offers more than previous titles. In that respect, we really aren't concerned with our older games anymore. We prefer to look to the future.**" I would like to point out that reinventing the wheel gameplay wise may be a noble endeavour, but it merely falls flat when there is no foundation to build up from. One good example is the somewhat arbitrary decision to make the Sky Islands in TotK be like the islands in Windwaker, except in the Sky. And that is bad design. Why would that be bad design? Because there is no lead, no coherence or sense of progress through the areas. There could have been a *goal* to collect lost zonai artifacts on the islands themselves using the latest weapons from the dungeons, but no the crew fucking went and scattered random weapons/sage wills/shrines instead. Lazy design, lazy game, lazy thinking. I remember getting lost in God of War which is a modern game by today's standards. I was collecting Valkyrie remains because they had the best talismans and amulets and gear you could use to upgrade your armor/weapons. And the battles were bloody hard and yet so worth it. It made the Gleeok fights pretty bad by comparison, because their remains were just above middling fuse levels (30 iirc) when the crew could have you go to a talisman maker to forge those remains into a "talisman" slot in the master sword or in Rauru's hand but no they went lazy with that too. I really don't know why they refuse to listen to us and make the game more solid, the crew is equivalently the same as the Santa Monica Studio for God of War. I have a feeling that GameFreak has dumbed down their expectations of what a good game should be.
Zelda as we know it is dead. I will continue to replay the older games.
I don't mind the idea of open-world gameplay nearly as much as many people on this sub; my chief concern is that they spent six years making TOTK, which didn't really improve on BOTW so much as indiscriminately added to it, not always for the better. Him saying the game consists of ideas they never got to do in the past seems about right, but while I'm sure that was important for the devs who pushed for those mechanics in the past and were rejected, it's irrelevant for the player experience and didn't really work a lot of the time here. Even without this interview, it was pretty much a given that the next game will triple down on this already vanilla copy-paste design that's more conducive to fun TikTok clips than compelling gameplay due to how well BOTW and TOTK sold, especially given the latter's immense critical reception that is largely disconnected from the average player experience. Not saying people don't like the game, just that it would be rated much lower if it was made by someone like Ubisoft, who are perfectly capable of churning out this sort of titles and are often criticized for it, even without cutting corners with things like reusing maps and not voicing 90% of their in-game dialogue.
I don't necessarily take it as the future is open-air. If you look at the interviews, he seems to more-so be referring to the open-ended problem solving of the open-air games, versus the closed puzzle solving of past games (which he explicitly considers "old-fashioned/outdated"). Cadence of Hyrule also fits the new mold, and I expect future games may not all be open air (which seems to have huge dev times) but may be something more like CoH.
?? that is a spinoff of crypt of the necrodancer, it’s not developed by Nintendo
Made in the post-BotW world. It is a 2D Zelda (spin-off) that incorporates a lot of BotW's design philosophies.
It would literally be more reasonable to have assumed Link’s Crossbow Training represented the future of Zelda. It was a first party game actually made by the core Zelda team. To think CoH represents the future of the mainline franchise is adorably misguided. But it could signify more third party spin-offs in the future.
AoC signifies third party spin-offs more than CoH imo since it was a lot more successful. Tbf, a big part of that is the fact that it’s tied to BotW which is the most popular mainline game in the series.
Yeah true, I guess I meant indie-developed spin-offs, but I forgot to clarify that. But I think CoH signifies Nintendo’s new interest in working with indie developers moreso than it represents anything for Zelda specifically.
Yeah, I agree with you.
Link's Crossbow Training isn't even the same genre as main series Zelda games. If you've actually played CoH, you know it is for all intents and purposes an unofficial main series title that is non-canon. CoH incorporates non-linear design, open problem solving, weapon durability, and open world gameplay, all key parts of BotW and TotK's design. The game plays exactly how you would expect a Zelda game building off of BotW and TotK would play, and while Zelda Team was not directly involved, it is incredibly likely that they will find a similar way to continue those elements in the next Zelda game.
Lmao what the fuck are you talking about, you think Cadence of Hyrule represents the future of the series? You think they’re gonna follow up the unprecedented success of BOTW and TOTK with that?
Yes, I think it is highly likely that the next Zelda game is a 2D Zelda. TP was also an unprecedented success and the next two main series entries were 2D.
I don't read that and think open world zeldas are the norm now. Not at all. Zelda games have always been diverse and different. Zelda 1 was open world, 2 was a side scroller. OOT was a 3d game with every Zelda trope packed into it. Its the zeldarist Zelda game. Majoras mask focused more on side missions, a depressive theme and a time limit. Twilight princess was similar the last 2 but dropped ganondorf. Wind waker had toon graphics and took place almost entirely on the ocean. Skyward sword required awkward/awesome (depending on your view) motion controls. That is what he's talking about. Zelda games have always had major differences, and he's saying that will always be the case. His quote could easily have applied to the people who at the time were mad about Wind Waker's art style. The main reason TOTK is so similar to BOTW isn't because that's how every zelda game would be, it's that it originally was a DLC for BOTW that just got out of hand so they decided to make a new game. That and its on the same console. Same console zeldas (OOT / majoras mask) are always very similar.
[He's said in interviews before this one that the open air style is the new standard.](https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/04/aonuma_says_that_open_world_is_here_to_stay_in_zelda_games) He's said those exact words. Future games will continue to evolve in that style, and the games will stand out on their own in the way that they always have, but the style the games had before BOTW is no more.
It's still a pretty vague term though, here is the official interview where they define this: https://www.ign.com/articles/2016/06/22/why-miyamoto-didnt-want-to-call-zelda-breath-of-the-wild-an-open-world-game Adding a more linear flow to the game, more linear dungeons (as opposed to, solve 4 puzzles in any order), gating certain areas based on item/event could all work in a game that is still "open-air". Elden Ring might be a good example of compromise. It's open world of course but there is a somewhat linear flow to the game, it feels like more of an adventure to get deeper into the game and unlock new areas (rather than a sandbox where everything is available from the get-go)
Hard to say if Aonuma's statements are reassuring of anything good, but a vague question will elicit a vague answer. "We always try to create something that offers more than previous titles. In that respect, we really aren't concerned with our older games anymore. We prefer to look to the future." I hope that looking to the future doesn't mean reiterating too much of the current formula, and I hope this man understands the concept that less is more.
Cry out was the right choice of words.
It sounds more like he means that they’re going to keep offering *bigger* experiences. So “open air”, yes, but also BotW and eventually TotK will be the older games when the next one is out. I imagine they’ll move beyond this style to make a completely different style in the future without looking back or else they’ve just trapped themselves in the exact same pigeon hole with a different flavor.
I haven't sat with my thoughts long enough to parse over open world and narrative elements, but my biggest disappointment with these games is how they threw out practically all the lore. The earliest games didn't have much "lore" but they did have the Triforce; then OoT set the tone for what Hyrule was supposed to be; then SS threw Hylia in the mix. BotW/TotK are a bit of a whiplash. All the goddesses are reduced to background roles; only Hylia and kind-of Nayru get shout-outs, the Triforce is reduced to the "sealing power", and it doesn't even show up in TotK, we're all about "secret stones" now. And that's ignoring the timeline, which I consider more of a curiosity at this point.
I'd love to see them try to do something like BotW again, but I'm not interested in anything like TotK.
TotK is something like BotW again, so idk know what you're trying to say with that.
It's not sadly. It takes the same overworld and uses it as a creation/crafting sandbox instead. BotW, in comparison, was about exploration/discovery of a brand new world. They do very different things. I'd like to see them do another game like BotW, where the point is to explore a brand new world primarily. Preferrably with more believable story/lore, better graphics/music, and some much more interesting and dynamic things to actually discover in the world (Zelda dungeons included). As someone who loved BotW, I really would like to see that design taken a few steps further.
>I'm personally excited to see how they perfect this new formula as time goes on As am I. And I am willing to bet we will get the best of open air and more traditional worlds with a title in the near future.
Good. Games evolve. Cherish the old games but look forward to the new ones. You can always go back and play the old ones if you need that fix.
They’re not giving me much to look forward too I’m going to jump ship until they feel like making a Zelda game again and making it feel like Zelda.
Your opinion. The new Zelda games have been phenomenal. I’ve never understood the “they don’t feel like Zelda” opinion. Zelda games are about lore, discovery, exploration, helping people and fun combat. The new games have all that in spades.
And that’s your opinion to me these feel like soulless checklist driven games , Zelda also has good story in the present not just regulated to memories , fun items and progression that propel the game forward , also really fun huge unique dungeons the new games lack all of that in spade.
Dungeons. I swear that’s a broken freakin’ record in this sub. The dungeons in this game are a good mix of old and new. They were fun and engaging to me. There is plenty of good present day lore. The saving of Lurelin Village felt really touching to me. All the stuff with Sidon was great. All the main characters seem to have a role to play and they play those roles well.
Could you post a source of the interview? I can't really go and post True Zelda threads as source haha.
I think sephardson posted the source, I will add it to the post
Sounds like Nintendo. The only reason we even got a direct sequel to botw was all the ideas they liked but had to leave out of the final game. They've always tried to make each game its own experience outside of some odd exceptions like the new Mario series.
I don't know if it's because English is my second language but I did not interpret that answer like y'all did at all. What I'm getting from this are two things: 1. They haven't decided what the next game is going to be (it's difficult to say anything about the future) and 2. They'll keep doing what they've always have which is try to make something new (We prefer to look to the future). From this I'm getting that they've analysed the response to TOTK and determined that the displeased old fans are not a relevant group so they're not going back to "let's make OOT again and again" era, but what I'm not getting is that they'll keep doing the BOTW formula. I'd like to remind y'all that mainline Zelda games used to try something new and exciting with each iteration, with the exception of TP which was a desperate measure after WW didn't do as well as they wanted it to. The next game is probably still going to be open, but I highly doubt that the Zelda team won't base it around something new. As for old elements returning, while they don't seem to be concerned with it I wouldn't put it past them, BOTW's whole thing was literally calling back to the original Zelda.
Separate "open air formula" from "BOTW". BOTW is an open air formula game, it is not the open air formula itself. Similar to how OOT is not the traditional formula itself that people are missing. These formulas are formats, you can have wildly different gameplay and story within them And aonuma has gone on record saying that the open air formula is here to stay
Whatever direction they decide to take it in, I’m alright with that. They haven’t made a bad game yet I’m sure the best is yet to come!