Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

@NintendoWife I do think that they could link up the dungeons with the story and gameplay in an effective way. I feel that they could reward the player with a permanent upgrade that they maybe wouldn't necessarily need but would drastically improve exploration and combat. Sort of similar to the Champion powers in BOTW but to maybe a greater extent.

My desires:

A smaller map, with more variance around what you do in it and less empty space.
Way less survival mechanics, or at least less story focused stuff behind survival mechanics. If you want to keep the survival stuff in there, just put optional challenges behind it instead.
Have an actual story/set of characters, don’t make that an optional side mission.
Rebalance the weapon degradation system.
If you’re going to do hidden level caps, just make them available to the player so they can just plot their own informed paths, depending on how hard or easy they want their journey to be.

That is one thing I wish that the base game would have done differently, making the map smaller with more stuff to do in that smaller space. However, now that this map is already here, I don't think they would reduce the size of it. Instead, I believe that they would add more variance to things on the map while maintaining the same size. We have sort of seen this to some extent with the addition of enemy camps on Taluses and other things, so I think this is a likely scenario.

Well it’s an especially odd one, as people kept calling it the “best open world game ever made” or “an evolution of the open world”. But it’s as empty and repetitive as some of the worst of the genre? I dunno whether it’s just because of the Zelda brand or just because people don’t have a lot of open world options on Switch, but like some of the hyperbole around the game is just crazy. It is because of that I don’t see them making many changes to how BOTW’s world works, which is a shame, as most of my criticisms with that game are directly linked to the world design.

(And that isn’t to say the world wasn’t beautiful at times and fun to explore at others - and a technical marvel at almost all times, but I can only go through the same open field with the same enemy camp in it so many times before I’m just fed up and end up fast travelling everywhere instead. One of the best things you can say about an open world game is you could fast travel, but you’d rather travel through the world in real time instead and I just didn’t feel that way about BOTW.)

@Pizzamorg Agreed. While I did enjoy exploring the world, I did feel like at times it tended to be rather empty. They tried to make up for this with the Koroks but I don't think that was a great solution. My hope is that with a few more years of development time, the team has been able to really expand on the world and made it more enjoyable to just traverse through instead of players resorting to fast-traveling everywhere.

I think it's an "evolution of the open-world genre" in the sense that you can, at any point, go anywhere that you want to. If I remember correctly, many open-world games prior to this one locked areas behind progression gates, and BOTW has practically none of these. I think the quality of the world itself is kind of a different story altogether, as it's the mechanics that make the world always traversable that people refer to when talking about the new things this game introduced. Not to say that there wasn't a game that did the "go-anywhere, do anything" thing first, I'm pretty sure that was Skyrim or something similar.

I do agree with you though that the world does tend to get repetitive once you start to see the same enemy camps and the same grassy fields. But like I already mentioned, I would be very surprised if there wasn't anything new added to really change up the world traversal. I don't think they can deliver us practically the same map with some new enemy bases and types and just call it a day. There is the addition of the floating islands, but I still think that a big talking point with this game will be how the original world has been modified, and I think that will be an interesting concept to see played out.

@StarPoint I can’t see them including time travel, since they’d have to build two versions of the same map.

@Pizzamorg Thing is, they aren’t making the map any smaller. They probably are going to expand it slightly and flesh it out more, but they won’t make it smaller and compromise the reason BotW existed. Story won’t be any bigger to keep it non-linear as well.

@StarPoint Agreed. Them reusing the map gives them more time to flesh out the world, add new enemies, new puzzles, more things to do, etc.

People have to remember that the dev team was focused on making the game for two consoles at the time, as well as the physics engine which not many open world games used to that extent. BotW was effectively a proof of concept due to that.

With BotW2 however, since the physic’s engine is completely finished, and so is the map, they have the ability to do what they couldn’t with the originals. Things like up the enemy variety, make better dungeons, include more to pad out the world, and more.

This is potentially the main reason why I'm so excited for this game. I've mentioned it before in previous threads, but the fact that this game is being developed exclusively for the Switch with the main physics and world already finished means that they can - like you said - focus on adding and expanding on the game.

@VoidofLight I actually think this game IS gonna be story heavy, the very first trailers they released were just showing that mysterious cavern with old-man-ganon and the weird malice thing
We've already seen the sky and skyward sword happened to get a rerelease so I think I could see some lore tie ins with that game

What I really came to say though
There is heavy speculation that Zelda will be playable, and you know what, I'm very much so inclined to agree
Botw made such an impact with it's crazy open world and botw 2 needs somn fresh to make just as big of a splash and with Zelda falling, a tag team swapping kind of situation would make perfect sense, all the official screenshots on the website of the floor area and the first views of them do NOT have Link in them either, COINCIDENCE I THINK NOT!

@FroZtedFlakerZz I doubt you'll switch to Zelda, given Link's abilities to traverse the world are greatly expanded, and they wouldn't just sacrifice those new abilities to make you play as her, as it'd be going a massive step backwards. The hand allows Link to legitimately pass through ceilings to get into locked buildings and such through caverns, at least according to the patents. Zelda also fell a considerable amount down a large pit in the earth. It'll be amazing if she even survives.

Also, I doubt this game will have a major focus on story, given it's kind of hard to keep a world open and have a huge focus on the story at the same time.

My theory has been that Zelda will be underground as essentially a replacement for shrines. I don't have any specific ideas on how or why beyond that, I just feel if she is playable, that seems like how they'd do it.

@kkslider5552000 I mean, given the patents, it seems like Link will both be above and below ground, so I doubt we'll switch to her at all. Unless, Zelda somehow gets her arm replaced, and is able to use the same abilities as Link.

Plenty of open world games have manage to do it in the past but it's Zelda. When those games were just go find the Mcguffins in this order people applauded them for having the best "stories" but with BOTW having a reasonable for Nintendo attempt at character arcs people moaned it wasn't a story. Lol

@jump To be fair, no other open world game had the exact goal to be 100% open with a story being told within a non-linear order like the original.

@VoidofLight So what though? Pulp Fiction isn't less of a film because it's not shown in order, Slaughterhouse-Five isn't less of a book because it's not read in order and BOTW isn't less of a game because it's not played in order.

@StarPoint It sounds like you want them to make Breath of the Metropolis, not Breath of the Wild 2. What I LOVED about the first game was how authentic the world seemed because everything was spread out - it felt like a real landscape that had been digitised that I was exploring, not some contrived collection of waypoints stuffed into a generic map.

Nintendo gave us the Wild and I will be ever grateful for that. It wouldn't feel like true exploration if you could expect to come across something requiring fighting or solving every 100m. It wouldn't feel natural or wild to me.

Having said that though, they've not announced the title of this game yet, and while it's a sequel, they may lessen the 'wild' element this time and drop the word. It's gonna be hard to delight us in two successive games with the same environment, so there's a good chance it'll be different.

i have R-Type I and II for my Jap PC-Engine. Not bragging! But what i like is how when you complete the first game you get a code, and that code can be entered at R-Type II and you start with your score and weapons.

I understand why starting BOTW2 with your hearts, stamina bar, weapons, etc etc from BOTW1 would break the game, but would love it if there was a master mode, or equivalent, that you could enter from the start of the game. You'd have your BOTW1 inventory, but monsters would all be stronger, etc.

hey ho. It'll never happen, but for continuity, it'd be great.

With Nintendo seeming to be strangely worried the BOTW sequel title will give away the game, what are less subtle BOTW titles? .....And let me be very clear, I have NO insider information!

The Legend of Zelda: Sword Breaker 2
The Legend of Zelda: We Totally Kill Ganon For Good This Time. Trust Me!
The Legend of Zelda: Gourmet Meat = $$$$$
The Legend of Zelda: You Can Totally Beat Your Horse, But Not Chickens

Did I use all the good ones?

Edit:
The Legend of Zelda: Here's Your F**KING DUNGEONS

@WoomyNNYes
The legend of Zelda: the breath just got wilder