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BotW2 linear and gated progression

A rumour popped up recently that BotW2 may very well be a linear and gated experience during the opening hours.

The rumour cited that a 'miasmic' Ganon would block off regions of the overworld and force more exploration of smaller areas at a time, kind of like how the Twilight in Twilight Princess sectioned off areas until later, making them inaccessible for a time.

Would you like this gating and linear approach to be taken with BotW2 considering the amount of freedom BotW gave players almost immediately?
 

Bowsette Plus-Ultra

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That sounds like an instant turn-off for me. Gated progression via items and artificial gate-keeping is the big thing that made other Zelda games lose their appeal to me. I like exploring and discovering things, not being given permission to visit things.
 

Sheikah_Witch

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I'd like some of it. Like, it was cool how you were 'forced' to explore the Great Plateau as a tutorial area in BotW. It worked wonders. This approach would make some areas of the game get more mysterious and appealing. The free-form nature of BotW kinda made you skip areas entirely, like the Gerudo province and Hebra. (no offense to snow!)

If the popular fan idea of Hyrule being shook by earthquakes as the castle rises turns out to be true, I imagine something like the northwest trench splitting open, causing Hebra and Tabantha to be inaccessible for a while, and maybe have Eldin Volcano crumble and making Akkala inaccessible from the start as well, and you'd need to solve puzzles in the underground with some special arm abilities or something to progress. Small, minor gates, but that still has a desired effect.
 
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I hope this is the case.

Yes, BotW was incredible because of its freedom in exploration but technically, Link already canonically discovered everything in Hyrule. Unless the developers could decide to extend the same map even further, I simply cannot see how the same mechanism works for the sequel as well.

Besides, restrictions in freedom also means that we could get more traditional items in dungeons? This wouldn't be bad either.
 
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I would like an overworld much like Dark Souls, where everything is connected, and you progress by exploring. :)

Yeah, but wasn't the map of Dark Souls like a very big dungeon as well, connecting all areas? I dunno how should this fit in BotW2 alongside the more traditional (?) dungeons.
 

TheGreatCthulhu

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Yeah, but wasn't the map of Dark Souls like a very big dungeon as well, connecting all areas? I dunno how should this fit in BotW2 alongside the more traditional (?) dungeons.
Each zone was seamlessly connected. You can play Dark Souls linearly, or as an open world, something I think might work in BotW 2, depending on how they design it.

Doing anything on the level of Dark Souls' overworld requires stellar level design. :)

If it came down to linearity vs. open world, I usually prefer open worlds, because I actually feel like I'm actively exploring the world and going on an adventure. :)
 
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I almost wonder if BOTW2 will be like skyward sword where you have the introductory learning area (such as the great plateau) and then areas become available as you progress the game. Like they're hidden or "closed off" for a portion of the game so that the player doesn't skip areas.
 

Bowsette Plus-Ultra

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I almost wonder if BOTW2 will be like skyward sword where you have the introductory learning area (such as the great plateau) and then areas become available as you progress the game. Like they're hidden or "closed off" for a portion of the game so that the player doesn't skip areas.

Let's hope not. Linearity to the extent that Skyward Sword used it would effectively kill any change Breath of the Wild brought to the series. There wouldn't be any exploration left. I know I harp on it a lot, but BotW is the best the series has ever been. The last thing I want in a game about questing around and saving the world is for the whole world to be locked off and for everything to be completed in a strict order while accompanied by a companion you aren't allowed to strangle.

At that point, you're not a hero. You're an errand boy.
 
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Each zone was seamlessly connected. You can play Dark Souls linearly, or as an open world, something I think might work in BotW 2, depending on how they design it.

Doing anything on the level of Dark Souls' overworld requires stellar level design. :)

If it came down to linearity vs. open world, I usually prefer open worlds, because I actually feel like I'm actively exploring the world and going on an adventure. :)

That's true but as I said, the maps in Dark Souls are like incredibly large dungeons themselves, finding many ways to connect the maps even further.
It is linear but also like an open-world - you can choose whenever you take the usual route or to use the shortcuts on a map.

Yep, that's the amazing thing about Dark Souls and honestly, if BotW2 has large dungeons comparable to the maps in Dark Souls individually, I'd definitely appreciate this.

Well, even if some provinces are not available at the beginning of the game, you can still explore a single province as much as you like.
I mean, at the beginning of BotW, you could only explore the Great Plateau as well and yet, you could literally spend 2 hours to explore the Great Plateau.
And in BotW2, the restrictions could be much larger - IE with each success you activate one more province you can explore - but at the end, you would have the same exploration like BotW, perhaps even better with new stuff.
 

Storm_Echo

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I think mild gating could be a truly excellent way to both "return to form" for the Zelda formula while keeping the vastness of Hyrule available to the player (albeit over time).

One of the coolest moments in my first BotW experience was leaving the great plateau, an excellently realized area, and seeing the utter VASTNESS of the game world open up before me. However, realistically I was only going to be able to explore one place at a time. I think it would be really awesome if we could experience that sense of "wow, this was so good already - and now there's EVEN MORE?" multiple times in the course of playthrough. It would keep things mysterious and fresh in areas that are restricted, AND would allow the developers to add classic Zelda staples like "Key Items" such as the hookshot or an Iron Boot analogue to the restricted areas, which once obtained would significantly expand areas previously visited with new secrets using the key items.

Probably the only mark against BotW was the ability for the player to do and see virtually everything immediately after Great Plateau, so secrets and hidden items became pretty stale after a short while - a quick Stasis and Magnesis scan of any suspicious area revealed basically everything there was to know. Adding more key items and secrets, gated behind temporary inaccessibility, would be a sweet way for the game to feel fuller and richer than ever before!
 

Echolight

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I think they should keep most of the world open and let you go where you please, but let certain places, maybe like a village, be restricted until a certain time in the story, or until you get a certain item to get there.

I would love to see like a secret place where you have to go through all these challenges, and you need almost all the items to get through it, but once you make it through, you can see like this beautiful forest with like a waterfall and all these unique creatures there, that would be amazing!z it would be peaceful, and have this calm music to it, and you go just enjoy yourself there. It's my dream place. I need more secret areas in BotW 2.

So, I think the game should have some linear progression in it, but don't restrict all of it! I love open worlds! :)
 
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Bowsette Plus-Ultra

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I think they should keep most of the world open and let you go where you please, but let certain places, maybe like a village, be restricted until a certain time in the story, or until you get a certain item to get there.

I would love to see like a secret place where you have to go through all these challenges, and you need almost all the items to get through it, but once you make it through, you can see like this beautiful forest with like a waterfall and all these unique creatures there, that would be amazing!z it would be peaceful, and have this calm music to it, and you go just enjoy yourself there. It's my dream place. I need more secret areas in BotW 2.

So, I think the game should have some linear progression in it, but don't restrict all of it! I love open worlds! :)

So, regarding villages. If you had to design the gating method, how would you keep someone from, in this example, going to a village before the story intended them to? Assuming you have all the climbing abilities from the first game.
 

Echolight

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So, regarding villages. If you had to design the gating method, how would you keep someone from, in this example, going to a village before the story intended them to? Assuming you have all the climbing abilities from the first game.

Maybe there’s a village or something in the mountains, and the only way to get there is going up a steep cliff side, and you can’t get up without getting enough stamina, and maybe they’ll make the hookshot an item, and you could hook shot up there.

Or maybe there’s a place where the only way you could get there is going through lava, like where the gorons live, and you get these special boots, to be able to walk on lava, to get there.

Or maybe they’ll make an ability to swim underwater, and you could upgrade that too like stamina, and maybe there is some secret places you can go if you’ve upgraded it enough to stay underwater long enough
 

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