I guarantee the next Switch Zelda game will come sooner than usual

[Joe Auty]

I don't think I've seen this discussed elsewhere, so I thought I'd bring this up here...

Breath of the Wild obviously is the latest Zelda game, but I would bet that within Nintendo's internal circles they not only thought of this development effort as a game, but also a Zelda engine which future games can be based off of.

It is ridiculous how much detail is in this game from the way that grass moves, to the way gravity and overall physics work, the way animals move, the sun shines, etc. In addition there are a number of more technical achievements that we might not think of: being able to load a ton of data without putting content into separate loading zones, basic NPC and animal AI, greater use of vertical space, etc.

I have seen threads and discussions about whether the next Zelda game should be just like Breath of the Wild, but I think what is overlooked is that whatever gameplay decisions for the next game this doesn't mean that the engine has to be abandoned. You don't want there to be frogs and crickets? Fine, leave them out. You don't want snow/ice or shield surfing? Smaller world? Same. As an engine I would bet that it was designed to be improved upon, and to plug in new content: giraffes, underwater swimming, whatever.

My point is that Nintendo spent way too long on this game to just walk away from its engine and start from scratch, and there is no need to do so because technically it is an unbelievable engine to work with no matter whether or not you liked the game. Reusable code is very important to software developers, I would bet that the game was designed for its components to be as reusable as possible - even on different hardware.

I would imagine that code reuse (that we are completely oblivious to) has always been a part of Zelda games, but Breath of the Wild as an engine upgrade is probably the most massive the franchise has ever seen.

Therefore, since this engine is absolutely jam packed with stuff, I see no reason for the next game to require as much time to complete. Surely there will be new mechanics that will take time... New textures, terrain, all sorts of new stuff (and obviously cutscenes), but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they couldn't release a great new game for next year. Why not?

 

[Spirit]

Yes, but Aonuma likes to piss about for a year 'exploring gameplay concepts' before he even has a notion of the next game.

 

[Princess Niki]

I want a prequel to Breath of the Wild set 10,000 years prior when the first calamity happened, they should bring back normal temples for it, show the creation of the divine beasts & guardians and use the sheikah slate again.

 

[Joe Auty]

Yes, but Aonuma likes to piss about for a year 'exploring gameplay concepts' before he even has a notion of the next game.

Sure, but like any company I'm sure the execs above him will hold him to starting dev after a certain date. The amount of time for him to mull over what the game should be about has to be finite, and not open-ended and bound to nothing. No company works that way, and to my original point I would bet that the new engine will help stimulate all sorts of new creative ideas that would have been very difficult prior.

 

[Dio]

Sure, but like any company I'm sure the execs above him will hold him to starting dev after a certain date. The amount of time for him to mull over what the game should be about has to be finite, and not open-ended and bound to nothing. No company works that way, and to my original point I would bet that the new engine will help stimulate all sorts of new creative ideas that would have been very difficult prior.

Nintendo works that way. Time and time again Aounuma and Miyamoto have been allowed to stall and delay their games. There is no new reason the director of the next Zelda will be held to a time limit.

Unless you say your uncle works at Nintendo and you know something you shouldnt?

 

[el :BeoWolf:]

I'd guess that we'd here something about a new zelda game by the holidays of this year. Though the Switch and BotW are game changers so all we can do is wait and see

 

[Spirit]

Sure, but like any company I'm sure the execs above him will hold him to starting dev after a certain date. The amount of time for him to mull over what the game should be about has to be finite, and not open-ended and bound to nothing. No company works that way, and to my original point I would bet that the new engine will help stimulate all sorts of new creative ideas that would have been very difficult prior.

TP and WW used the same engine and they were still 4 years apart.

BotW and SS were almost 6 years apart, so sure now that they have BotW's engine we could be looking at another 4 year turn around but that is still a long time and with game worlds getting bigger and how slow Nintendo work to begin with it could easily be another half a decade before we get another 3D game from Aonuma.

 

[Joe Auty]

Nintendo works that way. Time and time again Aounuma and Miyamoto have been allowed to stall and delay their games. There is no new reason the director of the next Zelda will be held to a time limit.

Unless you say your uncle works at Nintendo and you know something you shouldnt?

I'm obviously speculating like anybody else, I'm not claiming to know anything for certain, but I also think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I'm not saying that they aren't allowed to stall and delay, I'm just saying that they are held accountable and need to justify their creative output, or lack thereof.

 

[Joe Auty]

TP and WW used the same engine and they were still 4 years apart.

BotW and SS were almost 6 years apart, so sure now that they have BotW's engine we could be looking at another 4 year turn around but that is still a long time and with game worlds getting bigger and how slow Nintendo work to begin with it could easily be another half a dacade before we get another 3D game from Aonuma.

Really? I always figured cell-shading would pose significant differences to engine requirements, but maybe not... I suppose part of the TP effort was spent messing around with motion controls a bit too? Who knows how much of an effort that was...

 

[Castle]

Really? I always figured cell-shading would pose significant differences to engine requirements, but maybe not... I suppose part of the TP effort was spent messing around with motion controls a bit too? Who knows how much of an effort that was...

Cel-shading is actually cheap and easy to implement, especially the lazy manner in which ninty does it. That's why they do it.

The cel-shader effect is actually a lighting technique. Behind all the vibrant pastels are graphics that look like any other game, but with simplistic modeling and flat textures given a glossy sheen to enhance the toony look after the lighting filter's been applied.

Remove the filter and the game looks like any other game but with bad models and cruddy textures. The whole graphics engine doesn't have to be retooled. It's about as easy as flipping a switch.

I also don't figure that TP's rudimentary motion controls were all that challenging to implement. They could have been easily overlaid over the game's existing functionality with a few simple UI tweaks to accommodate them. IIrc TP was still delayed by about a year, but that could have been for anything. Most likely general polish - mostly graphics - that the game would have desperately needed, especially for the Wii port.

 

[Joe Auty]

Cel-shading is actually cheap and easy to implement, especially the lazy manner in which ninty does it. That's why they do it.

The cel-shader effect is actually a lighting technique. Behind all the vibrant pastels are graphics that look like any other game, but with simplistic modeling and flat textures given a glossy sheen to enhance the toony look after the lighting filter's been applied.

Remove the filter and the game looks like any other game but with bad models and cruddy textures. The whole graphics engine doesn't have to be retooled. It's about as easy as flipping a switch.

I also don't figure that TP's rudimentary motion controls were all that challenging to implement. They could have been easily overlaid over the game's existing functionality with a few simple UI tweaks to accommodate them. IIrc TP was still delayed by about a year, but that could have been for anything. Most likely general polish - mostly graphics - that the game would have desperately needed, especially for the Wii port.

Also decisions relating to overall direction and gameplay elements, such as the pivot from the early WW prototypes to the final result.

Everything I've said is contingent upon a vision that doesn't see a lot of pivots, but I would think that the engine would at least remove a lot of technical obstacles and roadblocks.

 

[Castle]

Everything I've said is contingent upon a vision that doesn't see a lot of pivots, but I would think that the engine would at least remove a lot of technical obstacles and roadblocks.

Yes. Nintendo gets to build on a pretty solid existing engine. A good majority of any video game development project is getting the tech to work how you want it too, even more time is spent developing a new engine from the ground up. I figure that was at least two of the six years botw spent in development.

So the next Zelda game already has half the work done. And it should be a simple enough matter to figure out a new conceptual spin or even just a few conceptual tweaks on botw's formula for the next game.

My biggest concern with the Zelda series moving forward is that now that Ninty has fallen into the "MOAHR BIGGHARR!!" pitfall that every other "OPHIN WHARRRLD!!!" developer has blundered into, they'll have to contend with each subsequent entry having to at least look bigger and more complex than its predecessor. So far, the Zelda series has managed to keep its scale reigned in. But now that they've gone the standard Ubisoft/GTA/Elder Scrolls open world route, they risk future Zelda games looking scaled back compared to BotW. The problem is that eventually you end up having to produce a game that's too big to manage.

 

[Mellow Ezlo]

The reason Twilight Princess took nearly four years to come out after The Wind Waker was because they had to make several changes to the engine in order to make the game work. It was originally going to be a sequel to the latter game, but that was scrapped and moved to the DS since the developers thought the graphics would better suit that system. Because of TWW's sales, they opted to instead make a more realistic Zelda.

It wasn't just the graphics, though. TP had a development period of about three years because of the new innovations they were trying to implement. Horseback combat alone took about four months to get right. Then there was the whole thing of porting it to the Wii, adding motion controls, and polishing the game. The game used TWW's engine, but they made a ton of changes.

Look at Majora's Mask as a good example of what Nintendo is capable of doing in a short period. The game reused Ocarina of Time's engine and several character models, but everything else in the game was new. In just one year of development, they created a time travel system, they improved the graphics and animation, they created an original story, they composed a new soundtrack, etc. They used many resources recycled from Ocarina of Time, but still created a completely original new game.

So when you consider what happened with Twilight Princess, all the changes they had to make for that game they do not need to make for a potential Breath of the Wild sequel. If you look at what they were able to do in just a short year for Majora's Mask, another game using BotW's engine could pretty realistically be done in two years or less. It all comes down to what Nintendo wants to do. After spending six years on the game, and delaying it twice to improve the game's engine, they definitely should continue where they left off rather than starting from scratch.

 

[Fun Link]

Kinda funny how this one played out… even counting hyrule warrior age of calamity I think the prediction was wrong… h well haha

 

[Chevywolf30]

Kinda funny how this one played out… even counting hyrule warrior age of calamity I think the prediction was wrong… h well haha

He was right about the game using the same engine, but that's pretty much all he got right.