Breath of the Wild How much of BotW's identity will remain?

[Spirit]

Aonuma certainly made good on his promises to finally change up Zelda and challenge those conventions.

We have Link with a makeover, dropping the green tunic for the nifty blue champion's shirt.

We have less main dungeons which dont look or feel like the dungeons of old.

We have next to no hand holding as far as learning how to play the game goes.

Weapon breaking, overworld bosses, bigger focus on side quests, new controls and new powers... its all here.

BotW is a line in the sand. Like OoT it will probably guide the series for another 15-20 years...

But how much of BotW will remain?

How much of it felt as if it were made solely for BotW?

Will runes continue to be a thing in some form?

Will Link stay in blue or will he revert back to green or have his appearance complety change once again?

Will we see another 100+ mini dungeons and fewer main dungeons or will it change up again?


Is BotW the template for future Zelda games or will a lot of its elements be exclusive only to BotW itself?

 

[Jamie]

I think the next Zelda will be more plot centric. That's likely the most common complaint.

 

[Fraxinus]

As much as I think a lot of these elements work for botw, I kind of hope most of them aren't going to stay around. The open world, non-linear, foraging setup that botw has is perfect for a game set in a post-apocalyptic Hyrule. It kind of contributes to the overall atmosphere of the game. I don't think all Zelda titles could handle these elements that way botw can. So I hope that the successor is a bit more standard regarding gameplay and whatnot. At least no breakable weapons please.

 

[Justac00lguy]

As much as I think a lot of these elements work for botw, I kind of hope most of them aren't going to stay around. The open world, non-linear, foraging setup that botw has is perfect for a game set in a post-apocalyptic Hyrule. It kind of contributes to the overall atmosphere of the game. I don't think all Zelda titles could handle these elements that way botw can. So I hope that the successor is a bit more standard regarding gameplay and whatnot. At least no breakable weapons please.

I agree with this to an extent. With a post apocalyptic Hyrule, it's taking on the role of rediscovering the past. Kind of like looking at ancient wonders in our world. It's also inadvertently doing the same to Zelda fans. We're going through Hyrule and possible past locations in previous games and thinking "what happened here" or "I wonder if that's the same place that was in [insert game]". And the sometimes desolate landscape lends itself into this post apocalyptic theme as well, which is what I got in Shadow of the Colossus.

I do think we need more freedom in future Zelda games though. Take a Faron Woods and just expand it like its own little mini world rather than bordering on a linear pathway. One thing that will always bother me about the old Zelda formula though, is that I'll always play thinking of the dungeons. Not having that in this game really is refreshing.

 

[Fraxinus]

I do like botw's approach to dungeons. Like, I'm that person who always puts off dungeons til the last minute but I hate that I'm restricted from doing things until I do the dungeon. So its nice I can just kind of do my own thing and do the dungeons whenever. Plus goofing around/exploring yields productivity on its own in the game so even though in my mind I'm kind of doing nothing, I'm doing something. Makes getting down to business less of a chore, imo, which is definitely something the series has struggled with especially with later titles, imo.

 

[Silicon Switch]

Even a thriving kingdom can be relatively desolate.

• How many days did people have to travel in the Roman Empire to get to Rome?
• How far apart were towns in Europe in the middle ages?
• How far did Dorothy have to travel in the Wizard of Oz book?
• How far did Bilbo have to travel in The Hobbit? I would consider that world relatively peaceful; after all, the inciting incident for Bilbo was not a crisis in Hobbiton.
• How long did it take pioneers to cross the great plains of America before the transcontinental railroad?

In a modern age when we can easily and quickly fly across the world, quick travel seems normal, but in reality, it can take a long time to travel across a continent at a moderate pace on foot or on horseback.

That being said, I think there can be improvements to the BotW formula inspired by The Hobbit and the Wizard of Oz books.

Tl;dr: Classic "Hero's Journey" stories are the natural flow of events in an open world.

For example, The Hobbit was a journey to a single destination, There and Back Again. On the way, the party had many adventures. What would have happened if they had tried a different route like in The Lord of the Rings and gone to the Prancing Pony? They could have initially avoided the trolls and missed the loot. Yet the path was relatively linear: couldn't pass the trolls after they passed The Last Homely House unless they decided to head back for some reason.

The Legend of Zelda series could have a main quest that takes the player across the map and back, except in an open world.

Take The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as another example. There was a single goal through the entire book: Dorothy wanted to get back to Kansas. Yet she first was sent to Oz, then to the East, then back to Oz, then to the South before she was able to reach her goal. She only happened to find the tin woodman because of the scarecrow, and she could have easily passed without knowing he was there. Most of the land of Oz was based in agriculture, though there were some industrial craftsmen. On their way south, they could have gone around the town of China people instead of going due South. Dorothy could have easily decided to dismiss the wizard's demands and head South immediately to find Glinda, and thus meet her goal more quickly, except she would have had to find a way around the hammerhead people just North of where Glinda lives, and she might have had to leave the rest of her party to travel there.

This formula may be better for a JRPG than for a Legend of Zelda game, but sending the main character to one place after another in hopes of accomplishing a purpose is fully compatible with an open world.

 

[Lozjam]

Even a thriving kingdom can be relatively desolate.

• How many days did people have to travel in the Roman Empire to get to Rome?
• How far apart were towns in Europe in the middle ages?
• How far did Dorothy have to travel in the Wizard of Oz book?
• How far did Bilbo have to travel in The Hobbit? I would consider that world relatively peaceful; after all, the inciting incident for Bilbo was not a crisis in Hobbiton.
• How long did it take pioneers to cross the great plains of America before the transcontinental railroad?

In a modern age when we can easily and quickly fly across the world, quick travel seems normal, but in reality, it can take a long time to travel across a continent at a moderate pace on foot or on horseback.

That being said, I think there can be improvements to the BotW formula inspired by The Hobbit and the Wizard of Oz books.

Tl;dr: Classic "Hero's Journey" stories are the natural flow of events in an open world.

For example, The Hobbit was a journey to a single destination, There and Back Again. On the way, the party had many adventures. What would have happened if they had tried a different route like in The Lord of the Rings and gone to the Prancing Pony? They could have initially avoided the trolls and missed the loot. Yet the path was relatively linear: couldn't pass the trolls after they passed The Last Homely House unless they decided to head back for some reason.

The Legend of Zelda series could have a main quest that takes the player across the map and back, except in an open world.

Take The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as another example. There was a single goal through the entire book: Dorothy wanted to get back to Kansas. Yet she first was sent to Oz, then to the East, then back to Oz, then to the South before she was able to reach her goal. She only happened to find the tin woodman because of the scarecrow, and she could have easily passed without knowing he was there. Most of the land of Oz was based in agriculture, though there were some industrial craftsmen. On their way south, they could have gone around the town of China people instead of going due South. Dorothy could have easily decided to dismiss the wizard's demands and head South immediately to find Glinda, and thus meet her goal more quickly, except she would have had to find a way around the hammerhead people just North of where Glinda lives, and she might have had to leave the rest of her party to travel there.

This formula may be better for a JRPG than for a Legend of Zelda game, but sending the main character to one place after another in hopes of accomplishing a purpose is fully compatible with an open world.

Breath of the Wild does exactly this though: Go to these 4 places within the world in order to weaken Calamity Ganon. Then go to Hyrule Castle and beat him down.

 

[LoveMcQueen]

I love this game but I think the next one should a huge world that isn't open. It would be more fun to me to go through a world filled with puzzles that I have to complete to proceed. And actually have items instead of runes that aren't all just handed you to in the beginning. And a villian with dialogue because as far as I know, Calamity Ganon is just a monster bent on destruction with no motive.

 

[Silicon Switch]

Breath of the Wild does exactly this though: Go to these 4 places within the world in order to weaken Calamity Ganon. Then go to Hyrule Castle and beat him down.

Unlike the Wizard of Oz and The Hobbit, Breath of the Wild lets you do the main quest in whatever order you decide, and most players do it in the most logical order. Wind Waker, on the other hand, is a lot more like the classics mentioned above in that the order to do them is strict. One must realize that Breath of the Wild is basically Wind Waker with neither the annoying boat telling you to turn around nor permanent weapons. I like the permanent weapons, but not the annoying boat.

 

[Silicon Switch]

And now to answer the first post of this thread:

Aonuma certainly made good on his promises to finally change up Zelda and challenge those conventions.

We have Link with a makeover, dropping the green tunic for the nifty blue champion's shirt.

This is just like Link choosing to wear his conductor's uniform in Spirit Tracks. There's really nothing new here.

We have less main dungeons which dont look or feel like the dungeons of old.

We have next to no hand holding as far as learning how to play the game goes.

The hand holding is around the level of A Link to the Past. The fewer main dungeons thing is nothing new -- see the Gamecube games.
The fact that the dungeons don't feel like dungeons is the result of re-thinking conventions. It seems they isolated the battles from the puzzle solving, except not completely in the overworld.

Weapon breaking, overworld bosses, bigger focus on side quests, new controls and new powers... its all here.

They've been leading up to these things since at least Skyward Sword, but some of it was in Majora's Mask. The newest thing is the ability to jump, which isn't exactly new if you're familiar with the handheld titles.

BotW is a line in the sand. Like OoT it will probably guide the series for another 15-20 years...

Actually, OoT follows the conventions of A Link to the Past(3-7-1-ganon) mixed with Link's awakening(8 in-order, final boss), and Link's Awakening's legacy crept in to replace A Link to the Past's legacy by the time they released Spirit Tracks.

But how much of BotW will remain?

They will improve it, just like they improved on ALttP to form OoT, and improved on OoT to form Majora's Mask, which became the pinnacle of perfection.

How much of it felt as if it were made solely for BotW?

Programmers make libraries so they can reuse their own code. The Zelda team might even now be reusing the BotW engine and making small improvements. They have models, shaders, player abilities, an engine, and even some landscapes they can easily re-fit for Link's next adventure. If they want more revenue from the fools in America, they might spend time on making it look realistic -- or even better, spend some of their resources to develop a variety of shader styles and let the player choose, with the realistic being in the advertisements to America and the more amazing-looking artwork tailored for the Japanese audience.

Will runes continue to be a thing in some form?

I hope so for some abilities, but I also hope if the runes return then the team will drop the introduction idea entirely so the player has to find the abilities in the open world and can try a challenge to play through the game without a particular rune.

Will Link stay in blue or will he revert back to green or have his appearance complety change once again?

You will have to get a particular amibo to find out.

Will we see another 100+ mini dungeons and fewer main dungeons or will it change up again?

If they are still re-thinking the conventions of Zelda, they might go back to the 9-dungeon open world formula established in the original game, except with a huge world and no longer sprite-based.

Is BotW the template for future Zelda games or will a lot of its elements be exclusive only to BotW itself?

Since BotW was released early in the Switch's life cycle, and as mentioned above a development team saves old resources, if I knew how long it took to put all the resources into the world of BotW, I would bet on a spiritual successor released for at least the Switch towards the middle or end of its lifecycle depending on the time they took, just like Link's Awaking had the two Oracle games, Ocarina of Time had Majora's Mask, Four Swords for GBA had Four Swords Adventures for GCN and Minish Cap for GBA, Phantom Hourglass had Spirit Tracks, A Link Between Worlds had Triforce Heroes, and Ocarina of Time had Majora's Mask.

 

[DragonEleven]

I think elements of it will certainly spread within the Zelda franchise, but the open-world style will not be used for every game... it will just be added to the existing cycle of game styles (top-down, multiplayer, and 3D linear).
Due to the development time required, and the current release pattern of a Zelda game roughly every 2 years (on average), it'll probably be around a decade before we get another game like this.

 

[Lydia]

I wouldn't mind if the series continues like BotW, but I would like it to be more linear, with more storyline, and have weapons with better durability and a way to see how much is left. Also, the thing that bothers me with the Master Sword is the fact it doesn't last long and takes 10 minutes to recharge. I wouldn't like to see that again.

 

[Silicon Switch]

Due to the development time required, and the current release pattern of a Zelda game roughly every 2 years (on average), it'll probably be around a decade before we get another game like this.

What takes so long to make? The Zelda team has an engine, resources, and a history of re-using those things to make a spiritual successor for almost every game (see above post). Sure, it will take a long time, but I think Breath of the Wild will have a spiritual successor within 5 years. I don't see why that spiritual successor wouldn't be open world and story-driven.
If I'm guessing right, all they have to do is:

1. Make a new huge landscape and populate it with monsters and treasure
2. Make new characters with routines and side quests.
3. Develop new items, player abilities, and puzzles that require those things
4. Create a new main quest with a new to-do list to fight a big villain. Traditional dungeons would be nice.

I'm not saying it will be easy, but all of these things can happen concurrently. At a BotW scale, the characters and abilities might take the longest.

I wouldn't mind if the series continues like BotW, but I would like it to be more linear, with more storyline, and have weapons with better durability and a way to see how much is left.

To make things more obviously story-driven, all they really need to do is personally involve Link in the inciting incident at the beginning of the game, have Link's mentor point Link in a logical direction, give Link a companion who is also personally involved in the inciting incident and has his or her own hidden reasons for wanting Link's help to be revealed about halfway through the game, and frequently have some sort of story-related opposition interrupt Link the first time he makes his way to any important location, depending on the path he takes and where else he has been. It might be more effective if the blood moon did not revive certain enemies important to the story. This might extend the time it takes to make the game, but if they flesh out the story arc characters first, it will be easier.
As for seeing how much durability is left in an item, I agree that looking at the inventory to see if the weapon is red tinted or shiny is not precise enough, but at the same time, you can estimate how many more uses an item has based on the durability stats. I wouldn't mind if there was a health bar in the new games, or even in an update.

 

[DragonEleven]

What takes so long to make? The Zelda team has an engine, resources, and a history of re-using those things to make a spiritual successor for almost every game (see above post). Sure, it will take a long time, but I think Breath of the Wild will have a spiritual successor within 5 years. I don't see why that spiritual successor wouldn't be open world and story-driven.
If I'm guessing right, all they have to do is:

1. Make a new huge landscape and populate it with monsters and treasure
2. Make new characters with routines and side quests.
3. Develop new items, player abilities, and puzzles that require those things
4. Create a new main quest with a new to-do list to fight a big villain. Traditional dungeons would be nice.

I'm not saying it will be easy, but all of these things can happen concurrently. At a BotW scale, the characters and abilities might take the longest.

I'm not saying they can't do it... I'm saying they won't... that's where the current release pattern I was referring to comes in.
We're currently looking at a pattern of one major 3D title every 5 years on average, and I don't think they'll drop the linear style, so they'll probably alternate between the two... with top-down and multiplayer titles in between, roughly every two years.
Keeping the more linear style would allow them more freedom to experiment with new ideas within a controlled environment, which might cause problems if they attempted to do that in a fully open world game like BotW, and without that experimentation, the series would start to stagnate.

 

[DarkestLink]

BOTW could sell less than 2m and they would still stubbornly press on with this new formula.