Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Just look at Skyrim. It's the most structurally similar open world: huge, and all in one continuous landmass. Both of it's DLC were pretty excellent, the first of which added structures to underpopulated areas of the vanilla map, which worked fine. The distinction is that those DLCs were focused around main questlines as well as a bunch of side quests, dungeons, and new items and spells. I'm not sure what a quest or a dungeon looks like in Breath, so I've no idea how that would work.

I think it would be good to have some depth to the Breath map: Not only in shrines that may as well be in another dimension for how much they connect to the world, but also in smaller dungeons that have some kind of narrative or mechanical stakes. It could actually be really cool to add in some new enemies and items to play with complete with new types of physics.

This plus dlc seems like a full generation game - played over the entire generations' lifespan.

Zelda is a great game. It's also usually a masterpiece. In fact it's likely they will create a similar one after this the way they did with majora's mask. I hope they do.

@Haru17 I haven't played Skyrim Mr Haru, so thanks for the answer I am so excited for the game, even if the finished article has less of a Don't Starve vibe to it because of the added storyline.

I cannot express how profoundly it perturbs me that people are doing frame rate analysis' of the new Zelda. Get these merchants out of the fire temple, thank you!

By my snarky estimation...

Confirmed Returning Items
-Deku Leaf - Flight (the glider is hype)
-Deku Leaf - Wind (mark my words, it's trojan horse Fus Roh Dah)
-Fire, Ice, & Bomb Arrows (YAS)
-Light Arrows (they're blue now)
-Bombs (they're blue now)
-Telescope / Hawkeye (must I say it?)
-Horse Whistle (now a dog whistle)
-Power Bracelets / Gold Gauntlets (well, power over giant rocks at least)
-Hammer (it's a weapon now)
-Fire Rod (arson incarnate)
-Ice Rod (it's blue now—wait... clever girl)
-Deku Stick (nerfed, now a tree branch)
-Frozen Leaf Snowboard (I hope we get a sick crystal leaf shield)
-Powder Keg (now just your average, run-of-the-mill explosive barrel)
-Sail (people just leave their boats lyin' around!)

Items Likely to Return
-Fishing Rod (Fishing. Rod.)
-Bombchu (I can see that blue-glowing trail already)
-Beetle (because I hate Nintendo and they hate me)
-Ocarina or Harp (must I explain?)
-Ball & Chain (this is the way the world ends)
-Whip (it'll disarm people, or something)
-Gust Jar (spoilers: it's blue)
-Iron Boots (unda da sea)
-Zora Armor / Scale (down here all the fish is happy)
-Din's Fire (Can. You. Imagine. https://gfycat.com/SharpFlamboyantImperatorangel)
-Picto Box (Photo. Mode.)
-Skyward Strike (the ready-to-throw animation sure raises your sword suspiciously...)

Items Unlikely to Return
-Hookshot (if it could hook into trees again it'd be pretty cool, otherwise it's useless)
-Grappling Hook (same reason)
-Slingshot (do you honestly even...?)
-Boomerang (as much as I'd like to see Link tossing the Sheikah Slate like an absolute idiot...)
-Bottles (Link already gathers and cooks without the need for them)
-Spinner (RIP)
-Dominion Rod (I mean, I guess there are robots...)
-Pegasus Boots (this would honestly be pretty hilarious)
-Lens of Truth (please no)
-Lantern (something meant to contain fire? not gonna cut it)
-Bug Net (back in Twilight Princess Link had hands, HANDS!)
-Deku Nuts (eh, maybe)
-Masks (RIP)
-Keys (where we're going, we don't need doors)

@Haru17 You're still limited by your stamina, Hookshot provides an option to reach even higher points you cannot reach with climbing alone.

Hey, didn't they say you could increase your Stamina in the game, besides eating stuff? I'm not sure if they said that, but I have a vague memory of it.

@-Red- There wasn't a concrete answer; just like we don't know if heart pieces will make a return. It could be that all the upgrades are just temporary and ''food-based''.

Well you either just create a new environment like the Witcher 3 or Dark Souls or you create a locked door of some kind in the map. The DLC then unlocks the door (and adds something behind it) and you get the impression that it was always part of the world.
OR you do it in the form of a vehicle of some kind. So a massive ship appears in the sea. Or an airship in the sky.

The horse battles with the Guardians look pretty sweet. Seems like they're pretty common, more like a mini-boss than an actual boss. They remind me of the Big Octos from Wind Waker, that were spread throughout the ocean.

I don't think this has been posted yet. Making a catapult through some creative use of items (from a "Breath of the Wild" demo in Paris).

@Haru17 I agree with most of your points, but a few aren't necessarily true.

I don't see an ocarina, harp or any musical instrument being in this game. It seems to me the Shika Slate is the closest analogue this game will have, and it will probably do all the things the musical instruments of past games did.

I think there is a chance the Hookshot could return (only a chance), and that this iteration will be able to attach to all surfaces Link can climb. There is no reason it would have to be limited to trees and tagets. I heard a number of demo players complain that climbing was too slow or uninteresting. In this way, a Hookshot could function sort of like the Fast Sail in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. Being able to almost instantly scale a cliffside would be very useful, even if you could already climb it slowly without the Hookshot. Also, Nintendo could easily design chasms that can't be traversed by Paraglider, climbing, runes, or physics (player made bridge, catapult, etc.), but could be reached by a Hookshot or similar item.

I also think there is a chance the boomerang could return. It doesn't have to be a rune either. It could occupy either the bow slot or the item slot.

I agree the Dominion Rod itself probably won't be in this game, but I could see a rune doing something similar to what the Dominion Rod does.

Again, the Lens of Truth itself is unlikely to appear, but I think this one could appear as a rune. There could easily be an "x-ray" rune of sorts, which is basically what the Lens of Truth is.

I think Deku nuts might be in the game too. With Deku sticks, Deku leaves, and the Koroks in the game, there could very well be Deku nuts (and a Deku tree) as well. The Deku nut might not be used to stun enemies but for cooking.

While definitely not a central mechanic, we don't know that masks won't be in the game. There are many possibilities. Maybe every non-Zelda amiibo gives the player a mask for instance.

We also don't know that there are no keys. We haven't seen any of the true dungeons or towns yet.

I basically agree with everything else though.

It will be interesting to see how Nintendo decides to handle downloadable content for this game if at all. Personally, I'd rather them go for a quick NX exclusive sequel, as they did with The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. I'd like to see a game similar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild developed from the start and exclusively for better hardware. And if they produce downloadable content for this game, it will be a long time before we see a new Zelda game.

And rupees can be found in the terrain:

That's pretty cool. With the Parasail that might actually be pretty useful. I just love having these sorts of possibilities in a Zelda world!

I had read about this, but hadn't seen it. I love that getting a rupee for the first time reveals a rupee counter. Makes me wonder what else could be in the game.

And you can also extend the sailing distance in the air, by placing fires at strategic positions and use the upwinds.

I wonder if there are other things to make a seesaw with. Assuming the physics behave as expected, if the platform can be situated higher above the ground than a chest, the seesaw would have greater motion and launch objects further away.

I really like what we've seen of the physics thus far. It's just so cool seeing Nintendo's design philosophy at work in a game like this. And it's all done in such cohesive legible systems rendered in beautiful art. This is pretty much the Zelda game I've wanted since I completed the Wind Waker 12 years ago.

It kind of retrospectively makes me wish the Wii was a more powerful console. At the time, motion was a cool input method and all, but not all games benefited at a fundamental mechanical level.

But Breath of the Wild has the sort of additions that change the whole structure of the game in a way that seems very interesting. I feel that over the years Nintendo could have contributed to video games at large if they had hardware thet let them participate in carving out what an open-world sandbox game could be.

I guess the flip side is that coming in late lets them stand out against those games because we take so much for granted now when we hear words like "open-world" or "sandbox."

You could maybe make a catapult at the top of a cliff, then use the Parasail to go to another cliff that's a close-by once you're done with the cliff you're already on, saving you time that would've been used getting to the other cliff...or just launch Link off the cliff, and send him plummeting...you could also do that.

Of course we don't. I just said it was 'unlikely.'

@Haru17 I’m sorry. I guess I should have elaborated more. What is your reason for saying keys are "unlikely," specifically. We haven't seen a dungeon yet, which is the only place we've used keys in most Zelda games up to now. The shrines are very dungeon-like, but they are meant to be a single (sometimes very large) room. I’m not saying the game will have keys, I just don’t see a specific indicator so far that the game won’t have keys anywhere.