Breath of the Wild Number of dungeons speculation after latest trailer/story details.

[the8thark]

4 Main dungeons doesn't seem like a lot. But almost every game has a set of 3 dungeons, followed by another set of dungeons.

Majora's Mask says hello.

 

[Amy Lu Minati]

We've seen all but the elephant guardian. Most speculate that we'll have to take them down from the inside (dungeon section) and then fight them as a boss.

This would make more sense the other way around, take them down as a boss from the outside and then go in and kill the pilot (or big boss). We can see one of these "divine beasts" deactivated in the story trailer, but we already know that they start out activated by looking at Death Mountain and the Sky... It seems kind of weird to fight your way into something that is already active, just to go in and then come out and fight it again. :/ Other than that, I think these guys are our dungeons as well. Maybe there will be a way to unlock a secret dungeon though! (Spirit Orbs and Deku seeds anybody?)

 

[DeactivatedUser2]

The American box art revealed the existence of at least 5 pillars, my guess is there are 6 total.

 

[ZeldaOOT]

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The American box art revealed the existence of at least 5 pillars, my guess is there are 6 total.

By the looking at that picture, there seems to be more than 5. Right now I see at least 6ish. Don't forget we can't see behind the castle and clouds are getting in the way in the pic.

I'm not sure how many total provinces there are in the game, an earlier trailer revealed the in-game map of just the Great Plateau with several blacked out areas and by looking at it appears to be at least 10-12 different areas (not necessarily provinces).

Aside from Hyrule, the provinces I see labeled from the golden map are Eldin, Lanayru, Faron, Hebra, Necluda, and Altun from what I can see so far.

 

[Zemini]

Majora's Mask says hello.

Honestly, that is why MM is my least favorite of the 3D Zelda's. I have never gone back to it. I still have some PTSD from all the frustrations that game gave me.

I'm not sure how many total provinces there are in the game, an earlier trailer revealed the in-game map of just the Great Plateau with several blacked out areas and by looking at it appears to be at least 10-12 different areas (not necessarily provinces).

Aside from Hyrule, the provinces I see labeled from the golden map are Eldin, Lanayru, Faron, Hebra, Necluda, and Altun from what I can see so far.

I would love to see a detailed world map.

 

[Tetra's Wink]

Majora's Mask says hello.

But the MM world isn't very big. So it's understandable that is has 4 dungeons.

BOTW is enormous. I really hope there's more than 4 dungeons on it. I don't like the idea of 100 shrines. I'd rather they'd put more effort into making more fully fledged dungeons, but we'll see...

I absolutely love the idea of the 4 giant beasts being dungeons, that is ingenious. But I also want some temples as well.

 

[ZeldaOOT]

Based on an interview with Nintendo, it looks like there will be less larger dungeons. I would imagine since there are 6 provinces (Eldin, Lanayru, Faron, Hebra, Necluda, and Altun) on the map besides Hyrule, all of those areas will have significant meaning to the story. 6 dungeons would be less dungeons than usual. I hope it's not less than that.

There are fewer big dungeons in the new game, and an emphasis on Link having many smaller shrines to explore, spread around the map. Is that a design choice that goes back to the beginning of the project? Or is that a change you made when the decision was taken to make the game for two platforms, to reflect the battery life of the Switch when it's undocked? So the player can finish a shrine in a single handheld sitting?

It wasn't necessarily an original design point. At first, we were planning to include more large, labyrinth-style dungeons, the sort of things you'd expect in a Zelda title. But the reason we decided to include the smaller shrines—which isn't to say there aren't some larger dungeons in Breath of the Wild—was to strike a balance, between this extremely large (over)world that you're exploring, and these goals and objectives to explore within that. So by dotting these shrines around—a larger number of them, but with each smaller in size than the older-style dungeons—it helped bring up balance, and break up the huge world into smaller, explorable chunks.

 

[the8thark]

Another decent two videos about the story. Actually it's quite a well done video.

 

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of fewer larger dungeons overall.

On one hand, it sucks not to have any larger, more elaborate dungeons, but on the other hand the listed number of mini-dungeons is huge. That's not even taking into account the massive world and how so many of the problem solving elements from dungeons have migrated over and become part of the overworld. Perhaps having fewer dungeons might be a worthwhile sacrifice, especially if they go back to the idea they talked about being in Skyward Sword (even though it wasn't) where dungeons were a seamless transition from the overworld itself.

 

[Azure Sage]

@The Hero of Legend posted this in our Zelda Discord chat:

"120 Sheikah Shrines
900 Korok Seed Puzzles
76 Side Quests"

So yeah, there's a LOT of content beyond just the dungeons. Even if there's only 4 main dungeons, there's an enormous amount of other content filling in the gaps.

 

[HeroOfTermina]

It wasn't necessarily an original design point. At first, we were planning to include more large, labyrinth-style dungeons, the sort of things you'd expect in a Zelda title. But the reason we decided to include the smaller shrines—which isn't to say there aren't some larger dungeons in Breath of the Wild—was to strike a balance, between this extremely large (over)world that you're exploring, and these goals and objectives to explore within that. So by dotting these shrines around—a larger number of them, but with each smaller in size than the older-style dungeons—it helped bring up balance, and break up the huge world into smaller, explorable chunks.

This basically confirms that their are not a lot of large dungeons.

 

[FrozenDragon]

I'm willing to believe there are either 5 dungeons - due to the 4 guardian beasts, thus one dungeon per beast, plus Hyrule Castle - or 7 - due to the 7 regions we have so far from the map on the Master Edition (if I recall correctly) that are Central Hyrule, Eldin, Lanayru, Faron, Hebra, Altum and Necluda, one dungeon per region, with Hyrule Castle being the Central Hyrule dungeon.

Thoughts? Would personally prefer the latter, myself.

More unlikely, maybe ELEVEN dungeons, one per Guardian Beast AND region. Would love that :3

 

[Qrowin]

There's almost certainly going to be only 4 dungeons (not including Hyrule Castle). The back of the weathered map showed the 4 great guardians (Bird, Gecko, Elephant, Camel), so we know there's probably only 4 of them. it was also stated that they chose to shy away from the zelda tradition of having the player enter large, time consuming dungeons. They want most of the gameplay to take place in the overworld. Hence, they have shorter shrines instead of larger dungeons. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the giant mechs weren't particularly long either. The game focuses on mini shrines (120) and tons of side content for this reason. The overworld is the par that is designed to be interesting to explore with puzzles and challenges. If there were more dungeons, the overworld would be smaller, and since the game was designed around its overworld going for fewer dungeons makes sense.

 

[Zemini]

I hope the shrines are varied and have multiple themes and/or incorporated biomes. Otherwise those 120 shrines might get tedious.

 

[Azure Sage]

I hope the shrines are varied and have multiple themes and/or incorporated biomes. Otherwise those 120 shrines might get tedious.

If the footage we've seen is anything to go by, they will.