Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Do you think we'll maybe get another trailer for this with the NX reveal? Whenever that is. I'm guessing they'll want people to associate the 2, given how much attention this game got.

Probably. That's what I'm looking forward most though; game trailers. The knowledge that there are several unannounced Nintendo titles ready to be shown. At least, I hope they are.

I need this game to revive my love of open-world games.

I played The Witcher 3 earlier in the year and it's completely killed the open-world genre for me. Killed it on account of being so much better than everything else on the market.

Zelda should be a good pallet cleanser though because it's a slightly different type of game so it won't be in direct competition.

@Dezzy Yup, I hope they took some notes from The Witcher, as it set the bar pretty high in terms of open world games. I hope Nintendo realises that it takes a lot more that having a huge world and a lot of items. If they can improve on the minor issues that I had with The Witcher, than it's all fine, but it can easily go the completely opposite way.

I was sick of open world games after I played far cry, and then even more sick of them after xenoblade x. I decided to avoid them since then. But I'll make an exception for Zelda, of course.

It takes having all of your land in one contiguous expanse, for one. Seriously guys, we need to agree on this — that it's Bad Mojo to split up your open world into separate loads or "regions" like Wild Hunt or Inquisition. Heck, even bucks-for-brains Blizzard learned their lesson way back in 2010 with WoW: Cataclysm scattering the five leveling zones across the world.

Regardless, Breath's already finished that aspect of good open world design. Now they just have to come up with a use for all the items, Skyward Sword.

@Haru17: I swear, wasn't only a couple months ago that you were competely against the idea of open-world? Or am I remembering it incorrectly?

Oh here, I found it. Post #5858:

I guess it was less about "open world" itself and more about the trend and its effect on the industry, but still, you certainly seem more excited about it. I don't blame you, though. It's hard not to get excited about Zelda, and they seem to be getting it right so far.

@Haru17 And I applaud Zelda for having a vast seamless world. On the other hand, I can't really criticise The Witcher either. It's impossible to base your game on this and keep it completely open world: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/witcher/images/5/58/World..., while also trying to stick to the story as much as possible. Walking from Novigrad to Kaer Morhen would literally take hours. CD Projekt Red choose realistic proportions over a seamless world, I can't blame them for that. Besides, most of the game takes place in two regions, so it doesn't break the immersion too much. I guess I don't mind a scattered world, as long as it makes sense in the context of the game.

@Nicolai Ah, yes. That post <3 With Zelda I'm nervous, so I'm oscillating between hyped and terrified. Mostly for the story, though.

With Witcher, Xenoblade, and all the other series that have "gone open world," I'm completely against it. I think they're just poorly designed games (and you can walk aaaaaaaaalllll the way over here if you want to countermand me on that point).

With Elder Scrolls, the open world works. Those games make themselves about the open world, the level design — the environment — so they work. However, plenty of games have "gone open world" without adopting the obviously beneficial design choices Elder Scrolls has, like the contiguous land mass, ability to change the time of day wherever, and plethora of dungeons and indoor environments.

All of these other games have minimaps — I hate minimaps. If you're an open world, you should focus on that world. Don't have players running through featureless grass, staring at their minimap to get to the next objective, avoiding enemies because of the oppressive amounts of damage they deal.

That map doesn't even really match the game map!

@Dezzy Posted the wrong link I think, that image is too small lol, here's a better version: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/witcher/images/5/58/World... Near the coast are two large ships, those two cities are Novigrad and Oxenfurt. In the upper right corner you can see the entire map that also included the Nilfgaardian empire, the Skellige Isles are barely visible anymore.

Here's another one, it's more zoomed in, but shows you the size of Velen in The Witcher 3:
http://i.imgur.com/0Bd2Q8o.jpg

As you can see it's only a fraction of the total world in The Witcher. Even if you add Skellige, Kaer Morhen, White Ochard and Toussaint, you're still only playing in a fraction of the world. A game were all of this is playable, is impossible. The game would have to be more than a couple of hundred times bigger than the current map size.

Yeah I get the point about the size. What I was suggesting was that given that the game map doesn't really follow that too closely (there's a lot more water on the game map and the land is differently shaped), would it have been so bad for them to just relocate Kaer Morhen to the edge of the map for Velen?

And there's no reason for the separate White Orchard and Skellige maps at all.

@Dezzy The game map is just more detailed I think. They could've moved everything together, but that would make the world seem a lot smaller than it should be (and it would probably less detailed too).

Since we can't talk in the Switch thread, let's talk about Zelda. So, a new boss appeared in the trailer, right?

@MarcelRguez It's a TP situation, the games look the same. That's pretty much what I suggested when they announced the NX version earlier this year. Can't judge the draw distance, doesn't look 60fps either. It's no surprise either, I doubt the system is that much more powerful than the Wii U.

Guyz, the zelda series has been foreshadowing the Nintendo Switch for ages.

On a more serious note, BotW looked awesome from what I could tell on NX, so I will most likely be getting it that way. The ability to take it anywhere trumps any performance drops, if any.

Horseback combat, I'm down!

Legend says you can open a closed door by hitting your Nintendo Switch with a big hammer.

@Meowpheel: I'm gonna try hitting my Switch with a bomb, cuz the bomb's delay buys me a little time.

Good plan. That's true.

Let's stock up on Galaxy Note 7s.