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Breath of the Wild An embarrassment of riches?

With Breath of the Wild being the biggest Zelda to date its hard to imagine the next game being even bigger.

While the overworld will probably be bigger in some way, i wonder if the actual amount of content in BotW could be matched.


If the next 3D Zelda doesnt have a weapon durability system then will we see as many weapons?

If the next Zelda drops the temperature and physics engines will we see as much armour?


I'm impressed with the amount of choice of weapons and armour in BotW and that's before we get to the amiibo fan service with the tunics and weapons from previous games. It works in BotW really well, but i dont know if it'd work as well or feel as special in the next game.

Is there a little too much content in BotW?
Will it be hard to match?
Will you feel let down if the next Zelda doesnt have as many weapons or as much armour or the dynamic physics system?

Like a Mario Kart with 80 tracks and the following Kart having only 20, is BotW an embarrassment of riches?
 

Azure Sage

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Anything less than what BotW is will feel like a downgrade.... if they try to make it a game similar to BotW. If they once again try to do something different, it won't feel like a downgrade, but honestly no matter what they do it'll probably feel lacking in comparison, the sheer amount of content in BotW is just mind-boggling. And tha'ts not even just with collectibles and weapons and armor; the world itself is so vast and full of things to discover, I'm 215 hours in and still discovering things. In order for it to not feel like a downgrade, they'd have to do one of two things; make it even bigger or make it completely different. If they continue the trend of convention-breaking and make a game that's once again totally different, then it won't matter much if it has less content.
 
I was actually wondering about this, yeah. I think in some way, BotW lacking a lot of that Zelda "essense" protected the series, but its definitely a valid concern. And I certainly don't want Nintendo teasing us with another game for ~4 years and having it be not worth it. I was genuinely worried about BotW, in that regard. But once you put faith in Nintendo, they let you down, so of course it worries me.

I think the best shot would be returning more to the series roots but bringing certain elements from BotW back with it. One place where BotW was pretty weak was in its story—mostly because of how far ahead in whatever timeline it falls, so all the backing lore was near irrelevant—so I think a follow up game's relation to BotW could be significant. Do they stick it near BotW to make it less of an outlier, or do they go back to the other games? Problem is, even if the concept of a game is sound in theory, it can always flop once executed, and I am definitely skeptical. I always am when it comes to Nintendo, tbh.

I guess the important thing is not to compare new titles to BotW, or expect anything of it until you play it. That's how I've handled the last few Zelda games and managed to enjoy them because they obviously exceeded my ground level expectations.
 

Dio

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Personally I only care about the story, characters and the lore. I know full well I'm not going to collect all the korok seeds or do all the shrines because there is nothing in it for me. That's not why I play. Therefore a lot of content has been put in which didn't need to be and I'd have rather they focussed their time and money on other aspects like storytelling and making decent cutscenes.

A decent physics engine seems like a natural progression so removing it would seem like a downgrade.

As for the weapons and armour selection. I won't be too upset if there isn't as much, though I like the variety. But if they'd kindly do away with the breaking system I'd content myself with less.
 
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I feel like i'd need a cooldown on a game this big. For their next one, I'd like to see either the Majora's Mask-esque follow up with a tight story focus, or a "return to form" that keeps what they learned here about things like monster lethality and cleverness, but gets back to creating a beautiful skill progression of increasingly complex and interesting dungeon puzzles.
 
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With Breath of the Wild being the biggest Zelda to date its hard to imagine the next game being even bigger.
It won't be and it totally should not be. We don't want a Breath of the Wild 2. Just like how Majora's Mask is not Ocarina of Time 2.

The best idea is not to make a better clone as they eventually get stale. The way to go is to take the core elements and values from Breath of the Wild and make something totally different (most likely not of the same huge scope but just as good. Just like how Majora's Mask is not the same huge scope of Ocarina of Time, the next Zelda game should not try to be the same scope of Breath of the Wild. Something totally different but just as good would be the best idea.
 
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Let's look at things this way, just for comparison:

Open world is open world, period. I like open world. I like being able to go anywhere and do anything. THE original zelda game was essentially open world, like this. If you want to talk "roots", BotW is more "roots" than ANY other zelda game out there. But what most people know of LoZ is the linear progression games, and they mistakenly think that's what all the games are supposed to be like.

So, back on point ... from a practical standpoint, I'm pretty sure that we are going to see "open world" zelda games from here on out, like it or not. What I don't think we yet know is how they will design the next game, and the next. Just because something is "open world" doesn't mean you can't implement mechanics/strategies/things that - on the one hand - allow you to explore your surroundings and find materials, meet people, etc... while also combine a linear function for getting from A to Z in the story. This way, you're allowed to enjoy the unique experience of exploration, with side quests, shrine-like mini dungeons, collection of <insert stuff here> ... so on and so forth, but all of that won't affect the actual progression of the end game, which is defeating Ganon. Perhaps you have to explore, quest, etc in the open world to get clues that point you to the first "trigger" you have to enable... then the next, and the next.

This would allow you to unlock things piece by piece, in the progression they want you to, so they can tell the story you want to hear ... but all the while, you're free to roam and do really cool things like we did in BotW ...

If they can combine the open and linear worlds together the right way, we're in for what will likely the be the bet video game ever made, period.
 

Castle

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It will be interesting to see where ninty takes LoZ from here. Given that they've basically caved and made The Zelda Scrolls: Hyrule, if they've given into this template cookie-cutter OPIN WAAAAHRRLD!! Ubisuck school of game making then the only way they can go from here is MORE BIGGER!!!!!!

... which is of course what every open world game has been doing for the last ten years and not only are people kinda sick of it, developers aren't making their open world games bigger than their last because they're already bigger than they have any business being.

And ninty has neither the time nor the competence to make the next Zelda larger in scale than BotW.

I'm guessing they'll try to go some other way... maybe a way that makes sense next time? (yeah right!). Or maybe just a smaller, densely packed, more compact yet nonetheless open world like they kinda really should have done with BotW.... with more story... and more dungeons... and bring back items and tools... and far less collectathon *****work.

But it's likely ninty will pull a herp-a-derp 180 loop and do something completely bonkers nobody wants or asked for.
 

DarkestLink

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There's not enough content in BOTW. Nowhere near enough. It'd be hard to make a game with less. And they won't be able to make it bigger until the 9th gen, because as it is the game can barely run with its current oversized world.
 

Aku

Joined
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Let's look at things this way, just for comparison:

Open world is open world, period. I like open world. I like being able to go anywhere and do anything. THE original zelda game was essentially open world, like this. If you want to talk "roots", BotW is more "roots" than ANY other zelda game out there. But what most people know of LoZ is the linear progression games, and they mistakenly think that's what all the games are supposed to be like.
Pretty much this. This is as 'rooted' as it gets, the linear progression only seems to be something that is mainly fondly remembered because it was behind so many of the most nostalgic games. I think though that one can only do that kind of game so long before it grows stale, formulaic and boring. Unfortunately it seems that some hardcore fans associated that type of gameplay with 'real' Zelda, while everyone else slowly got bored of the repetitive gameplay and started drifting off and moving onto Dark Souls and Skyrim.


So, back on point ... from a practical standpoint, I'm pretty sure that we are going to see "open world" zelda games from here on out, like it or not. What I don't think we yet know is how they will design the next game, and the next. Just because something is "open world" doesn't mean you can't implement mechanics/strategies/things that - on the one hand - allow you to explore your surroundings and find materials, meet people, etc... while also combine a linear function for getting from A to Z in the story.
Well, it's what the devs said they'll be doing, so the the probability of the next Zelda game being open world reaches almost 100%. I think the devs are aiming to try and regain the older fans that they lost, open world is what they remember, plus it's likely that they are going for new fans too, since linear progressing is something that is seen as highly limited and boring nowadays.

If they can combine the open and linear worlds together the right way, we're in for what will likely the be the bet video game ever made, period.
They can't go too back to linear progressing, or they will lose a lot of new fans. Maybe have somethings set up in such a way that allow a bit more of a story to be possible sure, but linear progressing almost killed the series.
 

DarkestLink

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I would hardly call the original Zelda an open world. Several dungeons and overworld segments are completely blocked off until you get the right equipment. It's partially non-linear and that's all. But even if we ignore this and just pretend it's open world, this was hardly the focus of the game. The focus was dungeons and items. You literally spend more time in the dungeons than the overworld and, because it's a short game, this can easily be verified. I took a look at Zelda Dungeon's own video walkthrough which is about 90 minutes and counted the time spent in dungeons and overworld which is 60 and 30 minutes respectively.

Dungeons have always been the meat of the games and the original is no different. BOTW has very little dungeon time and focuses far more on exploration than any other Zelda, including the original. And let's be honest...the original Zelda was hardly hailed for its amazing exploration. Quite the contrary, the main flaw that has consistently been brought up (even during release) was how tedious the exploration was, considering it essentially amounted to OCD wall bombing and tree burning.

As for modern Zelda titles like OoT, TP, etc. the main thing that separates them from the original are puzzles (which was first truly embraced in OoT) and linearity, which was a necessity that stemmed from the puzzle focus.
 

YIGAhim

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They'd probably go to match all of the amounts of stuff. If there were 20 of something, they'd do 20 of it again, but work more on the aspects that they missed.
 
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I wouldn't be surprised to see some combination of linear progression and open world (I know that sounds like an oxymoron).
Kingdom of Amalur was like that. It had distinct areas and regions that were open, but getting to each one was a bit of a progression which made the game somewhat linear. I could see the next one doing something similar, with more of an emphasis on dungeons and specialty items. Maybe each area has a couple of dungeons that can be tackled in any order with plenty of other things to find as well. Once an area is completed perhaps it opens up a gateway to the next area. Rinse, repeat.
 

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