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Developers Weigh In On The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild's Brilliance
- Thread starter Exile20
- Start date
PhilipDoesMatter
Member
They are trying to learn a thing or two there.
James Scott
Banned
Breath of the Wild greatly raises the standards for the genre. Would be interesting to see what devs learn from it
WonkyPanda
Member
Definitely bookmarking for later.
Any spoilers? Thanks OP.
Any spoilers? Thanks OP.
Portugeezer
Member
Cheers, will watch after work.
AcademicSaucer
Member
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.
AquaWateria
Member
Spoilers?
James Scott
Banned
Maybe. There's little in the way of handholding but it doesn't punish you much for experimenting and dying.
Mario Odyssey is seemingly going in the same direction
Polygonal_Sprite
Member
Will watch later. BotW is the best Nintendo game since Mario Galaxy.
Yup. Definitely feel that Odyssey will have some of botw's DNA.
I actually have not played BOTW yet but I'm really excited about what it seems to be influencing already. It's nice to see a return to the idea of an open world actually influencing the gameplay in a conceptual way, rather than just an aesthetic one.
For as great as games like GTA V and The Witcher III are (really great!) there is still a feeling of dissonance between the events of the game itself and the open world. Which is to say, you could transplant the exact gameplay and story into a series of vignettes and nothing would be lost other than the freedom to explore.
Whereas in Zelda it seems to be built from the ground up to factor in weather, environment, and exploration as fundamental parts of the game's design, rather than incidental ones.
I feel like we have seen the influences of the two games I mentioned above in terms of story, characters, and detailed worlds that feel real and lived in, and that's a good thing. But as it has been for the past decade or so, open worlds have largely been an aesthetic thing rather than something that the gameplay is built around.
For as great as games like GTA V and The Witcher III are (really great!) there is still a feeling of dissonance between the events of the game itself and the open world. Which is to say, you could transplant the exact gameplay and story into a series of vignettes and nothing would be lost other than the freedom to explore.
Whereas in Zelda it seems to be built from the ground up to factor in weather, environment, and exploration as fundamental parts of the game's design, rather than incidental ones.
I feel like we have seen the influences of the two games I mentioned above in terms of story, characters, and detailed worlds that feel real and lived in, and that's a good thing. But as it has been for the past decade or so, open worlds have largely been an aesthetic thing rather than something that the gameplay is built around.
F5'ing NeoGAF
Saw this last night. Was a great watch. Would love to hear other devs weigh in like this.
LegendofLex
Member
This is what excites me most.
Nintendo's design philosophy for the last seven or so years has been "what can we do to make our quirky games more accessible?"
Breath of the Wild's philosophy seems to mostly be "what can we do to keep the Zelda series relevant and in line with its founding vision?"
I'm hoping that's how they read its success, and that that feeds back in to how they make the next Zelda, too (alongside Nintendo's other games). I adore Breath of the Wild, and its world feels like a modernization of the classics' open worlds, but the dungeons really aren't anything like what you'd expect from the series looking back on its roots.
ThanksVision
Member
only a couple minutes in but Levine nails it as usual saying something I've been thinking since I started playing the game. I have so many complaints about the Switch as a device and nintendo's business decisions and we rant about it online here all the time.. but then you just start playing this game and all of that melts away. it is one hell of a game, thanks for sharing
Aaronrules380
Member
I mean there are a few. Most notably the Blood Moon is glitched and sometimes happens in the middle of the day or twice in a row which you probably did experience but didn't register
Astral Dog
Member
See that building? You can climb there!
Hari Seldon
Member
Seriously if he stops clicking does a bomb go off or something?
Paltheos
Member
The kind of games I enjoy. I haven't been too keen on Mario games since (and including) Galaxy. Mostly railroaded and/or small paths to an objective. Sunshine was a little guilty of this too by frequently changing world states depending on the selected Shine so you really couldn't just do whatever you wanted. Just set me loose and free, man. Railroaded paths work if the experience is very carefully tailored to be engaging and/or challenging in some way. If not, they're just boring.
AndrewDean84xX
Banned
The map and map icons alone put the exploration above and beyond all the rest.
Also dropped weapons sometimes despawn immediately/fall through the floor.
DecoReturns
Member
Anouma getting drunk lol
I admit I have not played every game but of the ones I have played it is the best and most enjoyable ever.
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.
Gamer @ Heart
Member
The climb anything anywhere is really the crux of this games exploration magic, and like they said, it's so hard to design a game around that that I don't see many copycats in the future.
Skittzo0413
Member
Your point about the dungeons is interesting, because I always thought that was also the weakest part of Zelda 1. It seems they sorta crossed the "sameyness" aspect of the Zelda 1 dungeons with the puzzle-like dungeons of the post LttP series to wind up with the 120 shrines. I really think the main dungeons were either an afterthought or more of a brand new experimentation, rather than them trying to reformulate the dungeons from the original.
Don't get me wrong though, I really liked how the main dungeons sorta forced you to think outside the box. They were just far too short with far too few enemies (and enemy types).
I had one where I threw away my weapon, then picked up a moblin arm by accident, then threw that away, but somehow the model of the arm remained on Link's back. Even when I had equipped a new weapon, it clipped through this stupid moblin arm always trying to grab Link's ass. Restarting the game got rid of that bug though.
I haven't really seen any others I can think of.
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.
I don't think you have to do something revolutionary to be an influential game. BotW offers unparalleled freedom, more so than any other game in the genre. And you mix that with the vertical world design, the survival mechanics that encourage discovery and random exploration. No open world game has really done this up to this point. I'm playing Horizon right now and it's just so pointless to have this open world where you're following a series of waypoints to the next mission. Zelda is the first open world game to throw that all away and make the world matter.
I mean even if you don't like the game as much, surely you can recognize the major things it's doing different that's really resonating with alot of players, especially those well versed in the genre. I have played nearly every open world game since Skyrim, and this is really the first that feels significantly different.
Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda didn't outright do anything new either on their releases, but the way it was executed and how it all came together at the time was what caused them to be the most influential games of all time.
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.
Serenitynow
Member
All of the Switch leaks actually came from inviting Aonuma to birthday parties and getting him drunk.
Jonneh3003
Banned
I wish we had more developers talking about other companies games, really interesting talk.
moltonasty
Member
This was awesome. IDK why but it makes me happy hearing how much Ken Levine loves it lol
nelsonroyale
Member
This makes me v. excited to play the game! Great impressions.
If you guys are serious its CLEARLY a looping gif/webm
Version 3.0
Member
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.