So why do I think the world is too large? Because of a lack of varied content. That's always the problem with Open World Games - What good is a huge world if large parts of it are fairly empty with nothing for you to do? I'm honestly sick and tired of developers proclaiming that the world of the game they're building is x times larger than the world in their previous game - That's only a great thing if you also scaled up your team by a lot in order to be able to fill that world with super fun content, which is most often not the case. Me just having to traverse longer distances that a designer didn't even touch doesn't mean the game is more fun, in fact, the opposite is usually true, which games like No Man's Sky have proven very well I think. Just running around in boring areas with little to no interactivity is just not fun.
- no checklists where the main- and all the sidequests are easily summed up, complete with destination markers and explanations
Funny reading this, considering I'm not sure which of the three are my favorite game of all time, BotW, SMW, or Ori.
Thanks for the insight, fun read.
Have you finished it? I completely agree that the white space is very, very important and ALTTP as well as Zelda 1 or Links Awakening have a lot of that too, but even in that white space, they usually managed to put little secrets like lifting a bush to find a hidden cave or other cool things in there. With this open world design, it often goes way too far and you just end up with vast landscapes of you just running and climbing with little to no interactivity.
There's a very fine line between 'white space' and 'white space that feels like wasted space'.
An awful decision, they should have trimmed time out of the 900 korok seeds instead.thats because it wasn't an oversight. It was a decision to save time.
I just don't really feel like most of the sidequests are rewarding enough. They felt like exploring the various islands in Wind Waker and Skyward Sword, in that they really just rewarded you with rupees you really didn't have any use for.
Have you finished it? I completely agree that the white space is very, very important and ALTTP as well as Zelda 1 or Links Awakening have a lot of that too, but even in that white space, they usually managed to put little secrets like lifting a bush to find a hidden cave or other cool things in there. With this open world design, it often goes way too far and you just end up with vast landscapes of you just running and climbing with little to no interactivity.
There's a very fine line between 'white space' and 'white space that feels like wasted space'.
Great write-up.
I now hope no site take your comments to make some outlandish headline or article.
simply because I'd never want to design a game that way. I think it's wrong to start with a huge landscape and then try to shoehorn a ton of content into it versus building really strong content in smaller chunks and then putting it together to ensure that every inch of the world truly feels well designed.
I got quite a few beatings for being outspoken on GAF already, so friendly journalist who reads this: Please don't manufacture this into a "Moon developer hates Nintendo/Zelda" sorta article. I love Nintendo, I love BotW, but I feel like GAF is filled with bright people that love games, so we should talk about how to make even better games and breaking down one of the best games that have shipped recently is a good exercise we can all learn from![]()
Great write-up.
I now hope no site take your comments to make some outlandish headline or article.
Even Witcher 3, probably the greatest open-world game we currently have
In principle I don't agree with the "fun per inch" motto. There's a certain verisimilitude in having such a large world that you're overlooking in this critique. Having such a huge expanse feels more like a place you could actually go, not the Disneyland ride highlight reel equivalent.
But that's just on paper. In practice BotW fails this because nobody lives in any of the space. You're trying to tell me this great kingdom exists in a giant reach with basically only three functioning towns, one of which is supposed to be a secret? Or that each of these other highly evolved races exist only in a single small town with maybe half a dozen civilian domiciles each? After finding Kakariko and Hateno I was hoping to find a dozen other such villages, but nope.
I think BotW does open world for the wrong reasons. The more empty space there is in the game, the more relatively exciting it is when you actually find something. Every time I find a new stable I'm elated because finally the game actually has something for me again. And that's well and good if the experience you're supposed to be having is that of a pioneer, but Hyrule is a kingdom several thousands of years old by this point so it makes absolutely no sense.
gerudo city?
This thread has me excited for how good the next mainline Zelda is going to be after they refine these negatives.
This thread has me excited for how good the next mainline Zelda is going to be after they refine these negatives.
This thread has me excited for how good the next mainline Zelda is going to be after they refine these negatives.
Oddly, no. While we have some pretty big projects in development , I'm not at all interested in making open-world games. There are certain systems that we might draw some inspiration from and there's one system that coincidentally is shockingly similar to a system we've been designing (down to UI layouts, etc.), but overall I don't think BotW makes us change direction in any way.
I'll always be more interested in designing with our 'fun per inch' principle, trying to make perfect experiences, perfect level designs where you'd have a really hard time trying to figure out how to improve upon it... Not saying we reached that goal just yet, but that's certainly our aspiration![]()
gerudo city?
So 4 full blown towns not 3.
And then there's many smaller settlement areas like the bazaar, tarry town, camps and all the stables. And people traveling randomly. He's pretty off base.
This.From a development perspective, the identical shrines seem like an efficient way of offloading specific puzzle development without necessarily worrying about integrating them into the world. Aside from the motion controlled ones which seem oddly coded, the puzzles themselves beam with ingenuity, cleverness or straight up ludicrous fun in messing with the physics. I welcomed the very short but sweet shrines as a quick means of getting the spirit orb.
Also worth noting that the shrine quests are technically not visually identical, even if the location you get the spirit orb from is.
I definitely do want more shrine quests and more integrated dungeons (akin to Hyrule Castle) in the DLC/successor games.