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[reelbigtink]

That will inherently change the way open worlds are designed. The reason you can have so much freedom in Zelda is because it was designed from the beginning to trust the player.

Something most modern AAA games do not do.

Yeah, I can only speak from my personal experience but I've never been more "into" an open world than with BotW. They found the perfect balance between freedom and limitations. If the next GTA or whatever manages to learn the right lessons here I can see myself sinking hundreds of hours into whatever that is as well.

Although a big chunk of my enjoyment might also come from Nintendo "magic"/nostalgia but I'd rather not be cynical about it.

 

[victreeb3l]

Dude on the bottom left lmao

Sounds awesome. Will watch the whole thing later today.

 

[Buggy Loop]

With western devs being pretty much responsible for the creation of the genre and making many iterations of them, every year for a whole now, Nintendo coming in and nailing it on first try is just insane. It's like your drunk friend that says "Hold my beer" and actually pulls something insane off.

 

[Hero]

I really don't think it does. It's a great game but it really doesn't do anything new, just what it does do it does well. Biggest thing devs can learn from the game is giving more freedom to players.

Giving players the amount of freedom it does isn't new? The physics and chemistry and interactivity with virtually everything in the game isn't new?

 

[Zalman]

Just listened to the whole thing. Very interesting to get their perspectives. This game is really something special.

 

[Kebiinu]

Super stoked about the future of gaming in general, as well as the Zelda franchise. They can only go up from here, I'm sure. BotW is a dream, no other open world game has made me deviate from the main objectives to this extent. It's like every time you play, you create your own adventure.

It can't be stressed enough that people need to play this game. It's that good, lol.

 

[Soul of the Beast]

Interesting to see Ken Levine talking about this game. I honestly didn't expect it.

For me, I have never played any Zelda game in my life, and this game still managed to make me go out and buy a Switch in a heartbeat. (My only Nintendo console is a Wii and I don't even really like it.)
Knowning what kind of game design I admire, the first time I saw Breath of the Wild's gameplay I immediatly fall in love with it.

It's so beautiful and detailed, the art style match the soft lighting perfectly. The fields, villages and ruins reminds me of Princess Mononoke and Shadow of the Colossus at times. And that's only the look of the game.

The parry/evade system, weapon degradation, use of various item during combat, combining foods to get different results (reminds me of MH series which I also love), ability to climb any surface you want..etc.

The characters are uniquely designed, charming and memorable. Unlike most open world games where you are constantly talking to humans after humans, ''oh hey it's male human NPC nuber #1029, so glad to see him again.''

Did I mentioned how good the music is?

This game is, like Hidetaka Miyazaki once said, a game made for game lovers.

 

[The Hermit]

Watched last night. Was a lot of fun.

Me too, before sleeping.

I too obsessed with this game and I just in the middle, after 80hrs.

No other game did that to me, closest were Diablo II and Xenoblade.

I still don't know what I will fell after I finish this game, I just hope the ending/final boss will impact me the same as Ocarina of Time did. The main problem is the framerate in the WiiU version.
I will probably buy again for the Switch and here is the beauty of this game: my whole playthrough will be completely different.

Like one of the devs said, I can see myself playing this game for a long, long time

 

[gamerMan]

This game is going to be studied for a very long time.I like how they said that Nintendo laid out the world like Disneyland so that you would always have points of interest in your view without them explicitly telling you where to go.

The discussion on the physics engine was great. I am still dumbfounded how they tested all the non deterministic gameplay that comes out of the physics engine. With much more powerful hardware, I would like to see other developers include simulation aspects in their game instead of just emulating it with controlled states that are predetermined.

Also, I think they are right. This is a more bold Nintendo. It's exciting to see what Nintendo is going to do next.

 

[MyNameIsRye]

I don't get it I guess. I can play zelda for 90 mins and not accomplish anything. That's not fun to me.

 

[reelbigtink]

I don't get it I guess. I can play zelda for 90 mins and not accomplish anything. That's not fun to me.

What do you consider an accomplishment? More story beats? Better gear? Discovery? I feel like Zelda has all of that and you can easily experience all of them in 90 minutes.

 

[mlclmtckr]

I have the audio version downloaded, gonna listen after 8-4 Play. So excited!

It's weird but I only want to hear about Zelda from gaming podcasts right now. I turned off the Beastcast after they finished talking about it lol

 

[Lingitiz]

I don't get it I guess. I can play zelda for 90 mins and not accomplish anything. That's not fun to me.

I feel like I can explore and have fun and see new shit in a bite-sized session. I feel constantly surprised.

This type of attitude is how we've ended up in the cycle of every game having some sort of XP bar filling, skill tree, some meaningless progression system, etc. I keep seeing people having a hard time with not being rewarding for every tiny little thing they do, and it just puts in context how we've been so conditioned by every other game out there.

 

[BorkBork]

I don't get it I guess. I can play zelda for 90 mins and not accomplish anything. That's not fun to me.

That's exactly what's so fun for me. I can set out to try to accomplish a task but be completely sidetracked by something else. I may get rewarded, I may not, but I am pretty much guaranteed to have experienced something new, surprising, and unexpected.

 

[Interfectum]

I don't get it I guess. I can play zelda for 90 mins and not accomplish anything. That's not fun to me.

The hell you doing for 90 minutes? Climbing trees?

 

[LotusHD]

I don't get it I guess. I can play zelda for 90 mins and not accomplish anything. That's not fun to me.

That's part of the fun for a lot of people. When I left the plateau, it took me over 2 days before I actually bothered to go into the town they advised me to go to, because I was having so much fun exploring. The best part is that if you're a person that solely cares about the story, then you can just focus on that instead. But yea, it's very easy to get sidetracked and "lost" in this game.

 

[victreeb3l]

That's exactly what's so fun for me. I can set out to try to accomplish a task but be completely sidetracked by something else. I may get rewarded, I may not, but I am pretty much guaranteed to have experienced something new, surprising, and unexpected.

Yup. Just pick up the controller and head in some random direction and next thing you know you discovered a bunch of new things and its 2am in the morning.

 

[Skilletor]

And, it's worth noting, trusting the player is something Zelda games had been doing less and less over the years. Having that trend broken would be cause for massive celebration even without the rest of BotW's overhaul of the series' conventions.

Thanks for the link, OP. Going to watch it at lunch.

Right. I hate pretty much every 3D Zelda. This is the first one I've put any significant amount of time into and that's definitely a reason why.

 

[Peltz]

Yet to play the game but it certainly seems to be a true classic.

HOWEVER. It's too early to say really, and it still annoys me with people calling it the greatest game of all time, or a classic.

Say what you love about it, and then in 10 years tell me its a classic.

I mean... if you play it, you'll understand why it's fairly non-controversial to call this game a classic. This game is up there with stuff like Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, Mario 64, Halo CE, etc. It's definitely got that magic factor.

It reminds me of the first time I played Super Mario Bros. 3 as a kid. I was playing for months, getting further and further each time (remember there was no save feature on the original NES version) and I came to the world with Giant enemies called Giant Land. After months of playing the game, I had no idea I would see giant enemies like that. It blew my mind! In fact, I'd never seen giant enemies like that in a game prior to SMB3. It really felt like I discovered something new and the game constantly surprised you with stuff like that: The angry sun, pipe world, giant land, hidden whistles, a vine that led to a second half of World 5, the tanooki suit, random ship full of coins that appeared on the map, etc.

Zelda is like having all of those shocking things to discover in a modern open world with tight gameplay. Every area really feels distinct which is impressive considering just how huge this game really is. You will constantly be shocked with the stuff you find the first time you play it.

The problem with talking about BotW in specifics, however, is that revealing why it's so great has the potential to spoil a lot of the game. It has a lot to do with the places you discover more so than the mechanics (which are also very much an accomplishment in their own right). But, it's really safe to say that they made this world feel very lush and magical in a very "Nintendo" like way.

You just really need to play it.

 

[CopperPuppy]

I think it will be seen as a watershed game going forward.

 

[Soul of the Beast]

I don't get it I guess. I can play zelda for 90 mins and not accomplish anything. That's not fun to me.

No one is forcing you to not accomplish anything, have you not played an open world?
Just go do the main story line if you don't feel like exploring.

 

[g23]

And this my friend's is why Nintendo is the greatest.

You think 343 or Naughty Dog would have came up with ways to actually revolutionize their respective genres gameplay. No, it's all refinement year after year with the same old formula.

 

[BorkBork]

The hell you doing for 90 minutes? Climbing trees?

That's what Miyamoto would have done.

And this my friend's is why Nintendo is the greatest.

You think 343 or Naughty Dog would have came up with ways to actually revolutionize their respective genres gameplay. No, it's all refinement year after year with the same old formula.

Refinement is not a bad thing. Can you imagine Nintendo going Mario Galaxy 2 on BOTW?

 

[manueldelalas]

What the hell is that guy in the bottom left doing? Lmao

I need a gif of that.

 

[Bamboo 竹]

That's exactly what's so fun for me. I can set out to try to accomplish a task but be completely sidetracked by something else. I may get rewarded, I may not, but I am pretty much guaranteed to have experienced something new, surprising, and unexpected.

So much this. I was on my way to one tower and ended up going to Zora's domain without even planning it. On another experience I decided to climb the mountains to go from Kakariko to Hateno village as a shortcut to repair the Sheikah Slate and ended up visiting a

Spoiler

corrupted dragon

.

 

[SomewhatGroovy]

great podcast. love gameinformer

 

[OrbitalBeard]

Yet to play the game but it certainly seems to be a true classic.

HOWEVER. It's too early to say really, and it still annoys me with people calling it the greatest game of all time, or a classic.

Say what you love about it, and then in 10 years tell me its a classic.

Well, a lot of us actually have played the game. 95+ hours for me, personally.

It's not too early to say this game is a classic.

 

[Ocarina_117]

Refinement is not a bad thing. Can you imagine Nintendo going Mario Galaxy 2 on BOTW?

Be still, my beating heart.

 

[VariantX]

That will inherently change the way open worlds are designed. The reason you can have so much freedom in Zelda is because it was designed from the beginning to trust the player.

Something most modern AAA games do not do.

Its like they looked at skyward sword and said, "lets do the opposite of 95% of the shit that happens in the beginning of the game"

 

[Soul of the Beast]

I am genuinely surprised by how much they love the openness of the game, since their games are usually quite linear (this is NOT a critique, I fucking loved BioShock.) I honestly expect them to say something like ''This game is great but I don't know if I enjoy the fact that you were never given any clear direction on where to go.''
But they love it, they absolutely fucking love it.

It's amazing.

 

[victreeb3l]

Oh man when that one dude mentioned thinking about Metroid in this engine I was just screaming YESSSSSSSS PLEASEE NINTENDO

 

[13ruce]

Just running around and doing nothing substantial for hours already satisfy me in this game just going to some monster camps or killa lynel etc.

Killing a few world bosses along the way and explore more. Played 100+ hours already and i am halfway through with shrines and still have like 50 sidequests to do. And only like 70 korok seeds.

Played through the main game story already and love the harder enemy variants and also still enjoy the game.

This game makes just fucking around fun wich is hard for a game to do for me due to my ADHD and bad focus/bad attention span that comes with it. Normally i hate exploring because of that Mental Illness i have, but now for the first time in my life i enjoy exploring and having fun doing that in a game.

Normally i just finish the main story and move to another game. But thanks to this game i am open for exploration in games now and maybe even in real life

 

[m051293]

And this my friend's is why Nintendo is the greatest.

You think 343 or Naughty Dog would have came up with ways to actually revolutionize their respective genres gameplay. No, it's all refinement year after year with the same old formula.

I don't disagree, but to be fair ND is still innovating in other ways.

In a world where top end PC gaming GPUs are now approaching the power of ~10 TFLOPS, ND is managing to push the edge ITO visuals on hardware that is 20% as powerful.

Gameplay is king, but what ND does is necessary for the industry as well.

 

[guek]

And this my friend's is why Nintendo is the greatest.

You think 343 or Naughty Dog would have came up with ways to actually revolutionize their respective genres gameplay. No, it's all refinement year after year with the same old formula.

Nintendo focuses on refinement more often than not, they just have a better track record than most of succeeding when they do try to mix things up.

 

[Plum]

That's what Miyamoto would have done.



Refinement is not a bad thing. Can you imagine Nintendo going Mario Galaxy 2 on BOTW?

Mario Galaxy 2 is great but Nintendo needs to go Majora's Mask on that engine. A darker, more contained, weird af Zelda would be the perfect compliment.

 

[Zero²]

And this my friend's is why Nintendo is the greatest.

You think 343 or Naughty Dog would have came up with ways to actually revolutionize their respective genres gameplay. No, it's all refinement year after year with the same old formula.

Well its not like Nintendo wasn't guilty of that themselves, I mean Zelda is the definition of formulaic. Now BotW is a open effort to change this formula in a way that still feels like Zelda without retreading the similar concepts over and over, and that's part of the reason it's so fresh and unique.
Maybe with a few more entries these companies will be able to change their genres in significant lengths as well, it's all a matter of time and necessity.

 

[jroc74]

^Thank you.

I agree with what they said that is more interesting to think how the success of thsi game is going to change or influence Nintendo's future games than to speculate how it is going to influence other developers.

Makes sense. I agree too.

I mean, for Zelda its new territory. Not so much for some other developers.

And this my friend's is why Nintendo is the greatest.

You think 343 or Naughty Dog would have came up with ways to actually revolutionize their respective genres gameplay. No, it's all refinement year after year with the same old formula.

Cant speak for 343 but Naughty Dog used to do platformers....

They actually switched gears.

That would be like Nintendo switching gears and doing open world...oh wait....

Give Naughty Dog credit for switching gears with new IP (Uncharted and TLoU)

 

[OrbitalBeard]

I mean, for Zelda its new territory. Not so much for some other developers.

This is a genuine question: what modern AAA game has this level of freedom and hands-off approach towards guiding the player? I'm seriously asking, because I want to play it . By "modern", I mean this generation. No Man's Sky, perhaps? Haven't played it, so I don't know if it qualifies.

Also, one of the things I think is so great about this game is how appropriate it can be for families and young children to play. Most open world / sandbox games outside of Minecraft are not created for that audience.

 

[chrisPjelly]

Really interesting watch. People like to downplay the significance of how important it is for Zelda to shake things up for open worlds. Yes, none of the things Botw presented were new, but it takes so many good aspects of recent games that the sum of the components are greater as a whole. A lot more of the industry keeps an eye on Nintendo than you would think, so it's not a leap to think that could be revolutionize the way people approach open worlds.

 

[Peltz]

This game is going to be studied for a very long time.I like how they said that Nintendo laid out the world like Disneyland so that you would always have points of interest in your view without them explicitly telling you where to go.

Wow, the Disneyland comparison totally works. The layout in this game really does always have something unique or interesting visible without ruining the picturesque feel of it. I'm really not sure how they accomplished that.

It's like tight level design, but it goes on for miles and miles with tons of variety.

 

[Lingitiz]

Wow, the Disneyland comparison totally works. The layout in this game really does always have something unique or interesting visible without ruining the picturesque feel of it. I'm really not sure how they accomplished that.

It's like tight level design, but it goes on for miles and miles with tons of variety.

It feels like every time I start roaming around, I catch myself saying "What the hell is that thing?" at some object or monster off in the distance. It's a really cool and wondrous feeling.

 

[Spinluck]

Real recognizes real.

 

[(mat)]

Couple people asked but nobody answered. If you watched, are there spoilers?

 

[wildfire]

Interesting to see Ken Levine talking about this game. I honestly didn't expect it.

Why?

He was one of the few developers who actually ran a pod cast talking about other games while bioshock infinite was in production.

 

[thepenguin55]

Haven't watched the video yet (at work) but is there something else that Aaron Linde is know for? Cause Battleborn and ArenaNet maybe aren't the most impressive credentials...

 

[Affeinvasion]

It's like a AAA version of Scribblenauts. I'm actually shocked it took this long for a developer to take that open ended physics system and apply it to an open world game. Some of the puzzles in Scribblenauts are actually really similar to how some of the puzzles in BotW function.

Scribblenauts wasn't a GREAT game, but it really did some amazingly innovative things on a shoestring budget.

 

[wildfire]

Couple people asked but nobody answered. If you watched, are there spoilers?

No

 

[Übermatik]

To echo what others are asking, GAF, for the love of god, are there any spoilers in the video?

-EDIT- Nice

 

[jroc74]

This is a genuine question: what modern AAA game has this level of freedom and hands-off approach towards guiding the player? I'm seriously asking, because I want to play it . By "modern", I mean this generation. No Man's Sky, perhaps? Haven't played it, so I don't know if it qualifies.

Also, one of the things I think is so great about this game is how appropriate it can be for families and young children to play. Most open world / sandbox games outside of Minecraft are not created for that audience.

Compare Zelda games before BotW.
Now compare Zelda games before BotW vs other open world types of games before BotW.

Its new territory for Zelda. Not so much for some other developers.

Does it have to be a game from this generation? I mean Zelda as a franchise has been around since the 1980's.

We even had ppl on this forum thinking some of the gameplay in BotW was new to Zelda when at least one has been in the series since the early days of Zelda.

As far as freedom and hands off approach....quest markers and map icons can be turned off in some, many games.... For example GTA V.

Turning off HUDS too are a thing in many games. So is turning off mini maps.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

Compare Zelda games before BotW.
Now compare Zelda games before BotW vs other open world types of games before BotW.

Its new territory for Zelda. Not so much for some other developers.

Does it have to be a game from this generation? I mean Zelda as a franchise has been around since the 1980's.

Ok. Then show me a single modern open world game with this level of hands-off freedom. Seriously. I want to play it.

If you're saying BotW isn't anything new for other, modern devs, I need to know which games you're talking about, because I want to play them. The closest modern game I can think of is MGS V, but this game goes so much further than that.