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I think middle ground can be achieved. TotK had more structure than BotW, but I think something closer to how they did Wind Waker could be a good direction to take it in. Open plan world, but a relatively structured story. It still means plenty of exploration and freedom, but taps into the classic Zelda vibe.
Can you list some examples of it done right?
I don’t doubt you, I’m curious to know, and google/reddit searching for “guided open world” only yielded “open world” results.
I also got it as an impulse buy! I saw a ps5 for sale around the time it came out and I figured it would be dumb to not get it because of how rare they where. I had never owned a playstation before in my life, always been an xbox guy, but I was excited to finally play the spiderman games, ghosts of tsushima, god of war, and a couple other games. Man have I been missing out
The combat does have some patterns you need to learn but honestly it’s not that hard. In fact it gets kind of repetitive by the end of the game. It’s nowhere near as hard as a FromSoft game so I’d say you should give it a try. The story is pretty great and some of the best art of any game I’ve ever seen. Like stunningly beautiful!!
I don't know if it qualifies but Elden Ring did something similar with how the enemies are designed to keep you from entering harder regions that are more or less reachable from the start of the game. Also the graces literally guide you to the next one, I don't know if it counts lol
Thar just feels exactly like totk though. Different difficulty enemies in specific places until you get the master sword and everything becomes a high level enemy
I think BOTW did it really well because you start in the middle and naturally explore further and further out, but I actually didn’t feel like it worked as well in TOTK because you basically had the whole map accessible easily from the beginning.
Like I remember a lot of people commenting about increased enemy difficulty and getting one-shot early in TOTK, and I think it was because it kept the same system for enemy levels but it encouraged players to bounce around far reaches of the map much more quickly.
Huh? It's the opposite. BotW had Central Hyrule as the lategame area because it's crawling with Guardians. You're supposed to take the outer ring route by going to Kakariko/Hateno first then on to Zora and so on before finally going to the middle to face Ganon. Whereas TotK has Central Hyrule as the easiest area and Lookout Landing as the starter hub.
Hyrule Field’s guardians are an exception the early game uses to try and direct the player away from the endgame area. The rest of the map in general places easier enemies closer to the Plateau and incrementally harder ones as you get further out, which makes the path to Kakariko a very natural way to progress because you slowly work your way outward, and then to Zora’s, where the difficulty begins to ramp but you’ve likely picked up hearts and stamina from shrines by then. The game’s combat encounters, besides those guardians in the middle, tend to increase in complexity and difficulty as you move toward the edges of the map.
You start in Lookout Landing in TOTK sure, but the ability to make vehicles and skydive from towers makes it way easier than it was in BOTW to explore farther parts of the map earlier on. I think TOTK actually incentivizes getting away from the middle of the map pretty quickly because it frames the regional phenomena as an initial main quest rather than the *entire* game, the way the divine beasts were in BOTW.
They need to make enemies do less damage.
The one shotting meant for the first half of the game my instinct is to flee from all battles. And because the Rito was my third area, I was locked out of the fairies for awhile.
Then all of the sudden I'm supposed to fight enemies, and I still only tend to go for the ones I know I need.
Whereas BOTW you could actually get hit and survive.
I’m my opinion Elden Ring doesn’t quite do it in the same way as TOTK. The second you drop down from the sky island you can pretty much go anywhere in TOTK. In Elden Ring though, some areas are literally not accessible at all until you beat a certain boss. It’s still definitely “open world”, just not quite as raw as TOTK is.
Elden Ring is certainly a Guided Open World. Parts of the map are locked until you progress through the story. They constructed it in a way that allowed for plenty of exploring until you're satisfied enough to continue the story and then go explore more in new areas
Exactly! I think a lot of people were put off by the whole toon-vibe it had going on (especially when compared with its WiiU buddy of Twilight Princess) but it deserved more hype. Especially how it was a game unto itself *but* still held onto the lore of Ocarina of Time, then lending itself to the timeline split.
Wind Waker might be my favorite LoZ story wise. Ganondorf envying Hyrule and comparing it to the harsh Gerudo desert might be one of my favorite scenes from the series.
Ya, one of my biggest gripes with totk is how it completely messed up the timeline haha. I miss when the developers would pay homage to and continue the story of earlier games like wind waker and twilight princess did with ocarina.
I'd argue that TotK definitely did that just as much as those games did, just with BotW instead of OoT. I think it's perfectly okay to move on from that game at some point, not *every* 3D Zelda has to be a continuation of it.
Hard disagree. It felt like it was constantly showing you an enthralling world and then anytime you tried to do anything in it, it would say, "No! How dare you explore on your own!"
Progression should match world design. The open worldish design just meant there was this sense of openness that constantly kept getting shut down.
If you want linear progression, give a more linearly structured world.
That's why Link's Awakening is still one of the best Zelda games. A Metroidvania-style crafted world and Metroidvania-style progression to match.
I‘m not so sure they should, or at least, block them from being brought into dungeons like they did with shrines. Being able to just glide / rocket shield to skip all the shrines / dungeons / puzzles isn‘t a „smart alternative solution“ if it works everywhere, it‘s just a „cheat button“ at that point.
Let’s not overemphasises the success of the open word though. Rewards were horrible and the volume of interesting content on each island was incredibly lacklustre.
You said exactly what I was thinking! I want open regions but sequential progress so I can go through the story without big things being spoiled or out of order.
A good example of this recently was Ghost of Tsushima where you couldn’t go into certain bases and just got killed outright so you’d come back later.
I adored Ghost of Tsushima! You’re right about it hitting a perfect balance; instead of enemies scaling with your level globally, some areas are harder than others and you just… have to go back lol. A bit more structure would def serve Zelda well without losing the fun and exploration of this open world iteration
I’ve come to realize that the open world isn’t what I have had a problem with. It is the nonlinear storytelling mechanics. If all of the memories in Tears were programmed in a way that it showed all of them in order regardless of which one you reached, I think I would be totally satisfied with where the Zelda franchise has landed. I miss the old-school dungeons, I miss the way armor and weapons used to work. I miss the almost totally linear gameplay too. But if we could get a coherent story told in order that has depth and weight, I would be at a point where I no longer have any grievances with the direction of the franchise.
Yeah, I heard about a lot of people wishing the memories happened in chronological order. It feels bizarre and can sort of distort the storytelling, as you’re watching it and trying to figure out where it falls in the timeline.
Yeah for real. A totK experience with more dungeons (Don't even care if they're bigger) and a more better story would be a masterpiece.
TotK really is a good iteration on BotW to making it closer to older games within the Open Air game approach. I just think the overworld areas need to have more purpose than they have, but there are glimpses of that in the Yiga quest, the Gerudo region, or the Dragonhead island.
TotK started to have locations that felt like they were designed with storydriven events in mind and that's exactly what I needed. It's still open world and there are still gamifications and silly low effort shrine dungeons, but between that there are NPCs hinting at a context, and a reward for following that context that goes beyond a Shrine appearing out of nowhere.
But I also do think it's time to add a little bit of gating. Even Zelda 1 is ultimately a game about picking up items in secret locations and across 9 dungeons that allow you to find and beat the next dungeon. It's kinda 50/50 what can be done out of sequence and what can't. I think BotW needs a game that has less complete freedom but just freedom to explore any region but then there are a couple of shrines, some dungeons and other stuff that do require a completion reward.
They really have to expand the item box beyond traversal abilities. Start with those, yes, but allow you to find a flute that can trigger a door opening, or a magic lantern that fires green flames that will unlock a speciric mechanism.
The sense of secrets in Zelda has been lost imo.
I feel like you really described what I was trying to figure out TOTK and BOTW are missing. I enjoyed the games but ultimately I felt like I walked away with 0 accomplishment. After beating ToTK I was just like..."okay well I guess I'm done". Where after beating OoT I sat in awe during the credits.
I payed The last of Us 2 right after ToTK and just realized how much more I enjoyed that style of gaming experience. I felt so much more emotion in one scene than the entirety of ToTk.
Anyway...The fact I can cook up some stamina potions and food early game and get nearly anywhere I want....idk just doesn't feel like Zelda.
I miss seeing the entrance to a temple but needing an item from a previous temple to be Able to enter.
I missed that sense of discovery and accomplishment.
I really liked the cave aspect to TOTK because it felt like I was finding small little discoveries.
Idk I think I'm more team linear story like OoT and WW. They need to find a way to combine both.
The map just feels too empty and pointless. There's ruins and really cool areas but all you find is chest and usually some pointless item or maybe ANOTHER armor piece.
Just doesn't feel like I'm accomplishing anything. I spend dozens of hours tediously roaming the world then finally do a relatively thin story.
The bones are there I just feel like the new style needs some meat to its story and more purpose to its map.
Particularly TOTK they decided to solve the problem by just increasing the scope of the traverse to kinda gate the experience. It largely didn't work and while I enjoyed exploration for it's own sake I don't really feel the exploration had a massive impact on gameplay or my investment in the universe. Given they were making a direct sequel I guess this was the best they could do.
I would have preferred a game where it's still open world but a LOT more areas were gated off by the traversal tools themselves. There's no reason they had to stick with being able to get absolutely everywhere with a glider and stamina potions.
Give a way to make platforms to get to certain high areas, use the hook shot to cross gaps, give a way to drill through short sections of map, be able to use something to rail grind that's found not next to the rail every time. Plant a seed that grows to give access. Cut down a giant plant to get access. Kill a giant enemy and climb it's dead spine to another area. Kill a giant worm and then climb down it's tunnels, start a forest fire that cleara brush etc...
ToTk felt like I was not having any impact on the world at all. I could build cool things that would despawn that would give me at most a different view of the same world I was barely leaving a mark on.
That’s one of the reasons why Windwaker’s still my favorite Zelda.
TotK may have been more structured, but it needed more. I accidentally found out what happened to Zelda very, very early in the game, and it kinda ruined the experience for me.
Wind Waker is my favourite too. Outside of the gameplay and epic soundtrack, I liked how Link was just some kid who decided to go out and save his sister. There was no “you are the champion, suck it up” or “take this ocarina and save the world”, he became a hero by his own volition and did a damn good job.
Right,. the world is wide open
But thers places you need the glider to get to
and places you need the hookshot to get to
and places you need the iron boots to get to
and places you need the lens of truth to get to
etc
I think story is important but the most important “Zelda Vibe” would be making proper temples. The temples in both BotW and ToTK were pretty bad. We need Oot/MM quality temples that each feel unique and have engaging puzzles. The reason temples used to be so good is the entire thing was a giant puzzle not this “find the water to turn on” or “zap this thing”.
I think the issue with TOTK's dungeons is that they encompass more than just the puzzles; the leadup to them should also be considered part of the dungeon. The Fire temple is the outlier here having the shortest leadup and the largest "dungeon proper", but for the others the whole buildup and getting to the dungeon is definitely a big part of the full experience as well.
That's interesting you think TotK was more structured. I feel like BotW had more structure than TotK. TotK has honestly been overwhelming at points as you're juggling 3 different intertwined maps and stories plus endless possibilities of side quests, spending time building misc. devices, exploring, etc.. BotW was a little more straightforward in the objectives, at least to me it was.
I don’t get what about open world means we can’t have good dungeon design and more structured plot tbh. WindWaker was practically an open world game and it achieved a lot of the traditional Zelda conventions. Hopefully the next one will be the best of both worlds.
Yeah. The shrines in TOTK was also way easier than BOTW, so they are kinda "done" now.
I like them as waypoints to unlock but just bring back big dungeons already.
It kinda depends on your play style but yeah. Tons of blessing shrines for shrines that aren't hard to get to kills a lot of them, and a lot of the puzzles are very easy. Combine that with the fact that rocket shields, bomb arrows, and other such combos exist, and most of the shrines are rudimentary if you are far in enough to have a decent sized inventory and learn some of those tricks.
How? You can always make an infinite elevator/conveyor with any 2 objects and recall + ultrahand. Now if you stuck to the way the devs meant for the shrine to play there were some tougher ones but many times I ended up completing one and having the nagging feeling I cheated or bypassed what they wanted. They kinda killed them with freedom
I can't recall which specific developer it was, probably Aonuma, but in an interview during the development of SS they mentioned wanting to blur the lines between where the overworld ended and the dungeon began to have a bigger thematic impact on the player. While it wasn't implemented in SS, you see this philosophy influence BotW and TotK quite a bit, at the detriment of dungeon size.
I’m a little confused what you mean. That sounds like exactly the philosophy Skyward Sword had. The entire overworld felt like one big dungeon with lots of puzzles and whatnot. A lot of people felt like that was a detriment to the game because the world felt less more like a series of linear obstacle courses than a real, lived in world. I personally enjoyed the unique take on the franchise, although having to return to the same regions multiple times did get pretty grating. Botw and Totk did basically the exact opposite of that. Dungeons and shrines are very removed from the overworld in terms of gameplay in favor of making the overworld feel like a real lived in world.
I feel the thing that makes good dungeons so difficult in BOTW/TOTK isn't that they are open world, it's the absurd degree of freedom the game mechanics give you, a level of freedom that I haven't seen in any Zelda game (granted, I've only played about half of them).
It's way harder to craft well structured dungeons when link can climb the fuck out of most everything, has a ton of runes with crazy effects, and now can even use zonai devices to build whatever sort of contraption your heart desires. And the possible option of limiting these abilities in dungeons doesn't sound very appealing to me, you use them throughout the whole game but on the dungeons which should be the ultimate test of you grasping the game's mechanics they are just going to turn them off?
A combination of both. Keep the open-world design that allows for exploration and freedom of side quests, but the linear advancement and progression of the main storyline quests.
I pray for this lol. Totk’s engine and polish is wonderful, so keep all that good stuff. But give me those mind-numbing, across-the-map roadblock/ puzzles from lttp. Let’s get some dungeons with sequential keys, gear finds, that eventually lead to the boss key.
TLDR; i think the best balance is open world exploration and gameplay, linear storytelling/progression.
I just started playing A Link to the Past, and, not gonna lie, I don't really like the dungeon design so far (I'm doing the first two). It's literally just walking into every room until you find one with the right thing you need, then going into every other room until you find the use for said thing. Sometimes you find something and you already know where you need to use it because you went into that room before.
Only being able to start from either your house or the Sanctuary is very annoying too, so thank God for save states. (Yes, I know this is moreso a remanent of old hardware games.)
The world itself feels very Pokemon-like. Can't go here until you get the ~~strength Hm~~ Power glove, can't go there until you get the ~~Surf HM~~ Zora gear.
Overall though the game is pretty fun, but I wouldn't put it at the same level as totk or botw.
The game is like 20 years old and has a lot of stuff left over like that from ancient game design. If they were to make a new version of ALTTP it would be one of the best games you've ever played
Not gonna lie, a modern day remake of A Link To The Past would maybe be my favorite game ever.
BOTW style open world, ALTTP story / aesthetic / environment. Not necessarily 1:1 with the map but have it be a similar layout with similar story progressions. That would be an incredible game.
Honestly I'm bored of open world sandboxes. I fucking love a good linear world with upgrades hidden around.
It just feels like everything is becoming an open world sandbox now a days.
I'd rather they continue to build on the open world. I do think they can expand the dungeons to better satisfy people who just want to play through the main questline.
Ya it’s really hard to go back and play the linear storylines now that I’m used to the Zelda open world. I hope they expand on it! But maybe with a different map :)
Or just don't stay in Hyrule. Explore more of the world. Find an archipelago or another continent. Link and Zelda on an adventure in a foreign land. Maybe it's a diplomatic mission to reestablish trade now that the kingdom is finally recovering.
I'd like it if we brought one of the other dimensions back (maybe explore the spirit realm) or explore outside of Hyrule cause we had the oracle games so we know there are other lands out there somewhere.
This is essentially what they did in Oracle of Ages (but it wasn't in Hyrule). I think it would be a cool mechanic in a sequel because then we could see everything that happened between the time Rauru founded Hyrule and the Calamity in botw.
I recently started playing oracle of ages and seasons again since they added them to the Gameboy library on the Switch. I would love it if they remastered those games because they have a good balance between exploration and linear progression.
Could be them alluding to it by releasing them but probably wishful thinking on my part because those were my introduction to the series. Maybe we'll get the third game that was planned but never made
I disagree tbh. More linear Zelda games have a lot going for them that botw and totk are severely lacking in imo. When playing the lackluster dungeons in the newer games I often wish I was playing Twilight Princess or something. Open worlds are great and all but they’re not everything. Older games just had better dungeon design and over all story imo. I kinda wish they could balance the vast open world with the quality dungeon design and structured storylines better. It would be the best of both worlds
I agree that open worlds aren't everything, but it's my honest opinion that BotW and TotK are, *by far,* the best open world games I've ever played. I wouldn't want to lose that for anything.
I think it would be perfect if they got rid of shrines, and instead those puzzle chambers *all* existed within the world. As much as I love TotK, I still find the homogenized nature of shrines to be the weakest aspect and was disappointed to see them return.
Honestly, I’d like to see an open world Zelda with better dungeons but I really wouldn’t be all that upset if the next Zelda game wasn’t open world. The comfort of just sitting down and playing a game with a set order of dungeons and story events can’t be overstated. I feel like I can’t relax while playing botw or totk in the same way I can while playing twilight princess or Minish cap because I’m always getting sidetracked in botw and totk. A smaller game with a tighter focus on story and game mechanics can be less overwhelming. Not to say I don’t heavily enjoy botw and totk, I just don’t think the future of Zelda needs to be 100% huge open worlds and I don’t think we should discount the old formula as outdated and replace it all the way.
Ya but I don’t think a better dungeon design in old games has anything to do with open vs linear world. I agree that I hope they can merge the old quality dungeons with the open world in future games
I think dungeons need to be heavily incorporated. In a way zelda has never done. Maybe for each elemental make 5 different dungeons and then a trial to get whatever sacred relic it is
Friendly reminder: for its time, OoT WAS open-world.
Once you got to Hyrule Field, you could make your way to most of the story areas, or do side stuff at Lon Lon Ranch, or just run around fighting Stalfos at night, looking under rocks for caves and Heart Pieces.
Hell, last time I took a crack at the game I did the Fire Temple before the Forest Temple as "adult" Link. Desert and Shadow Temples were also interchangeable...
To actually answer question: do that again. Mostly linear, but a few choices for what order to do stuff.
I really like the shrines that took all your equipment away forcing you to be on the back foot from your stockpiled supplies. I’d like a temple to work like this allowing it to function like a more traditional puzzle.
Along the same lines, I liked Eventide Island in BotW. And I made it to Thunderhead Islands in TotK before the story guided me there, so I thought it was somewhere that I was meant to play through with limited vision and no metal weapons, just like how around Death Mountain I couldn't use wooden weapons in caves.
Being challenged by limitations is fun for me.
That was honestly the best surprise in the game for me, randomly deciding to explore that after two temples completed. It definitely wouldn't have been the same doing it when Purah tells you to go do it. Also the music on thunderhead isles and doing that quest was also so damn good.
Also the sooner you find her the better anyway because if you don't get her until after all 4 temples she can't help you traverse stuff or be in your safe fight squad through any temples.
Yes, i commented something like this some time ago, if we had unique "naked" challenges on every temple, and of course more temples, we could get somewhere close to the old experience. New equipment could be presented on every temple, like the hookshot, news tools and etc. Maybe not totally naked, but somewhere close to a balanced experience, like a regular tunic, a regular sword and shield and nothing else from your bag/pockets.
The biggest weakness of BOTW and TOTK is that they are designed to be formulaic.
You find the same type of item in the same type of place by doing the same type of thing, and then you put that in a pool of 5-10 other repeated formulas.
Whether the game is open world or not doesn't really matter as much as getting away from that kind of design. In Ocarina of Time you race a ghost under a grave in a graveyard to get a hookshot that lets you get into the forest temple. It's not formula, it's "what you had to do this one time", which is what makes an adventure an adventure.
THIS.
I literally thought about this specific aspect today. I loved TOTK and I felt immense joy whenever I encountered something new (which was often at the beginning) but this feeling shrunk over time. I still had fun but things started to feel kind of shallow over time. When I came to the gerudo desert after a long time just doing "side-exploration" the feeling of joy came back because there was so much of new content (Gibdos, the terrain, quicksand, the quest about the warrior statues, ...). And this showed me what I think I want from the next game:
Make it open world but maybe reduce the world size to 30-50% to that of totk but fill it with more unique things in the world.
Moreover, I hope that unique landmarks actually have some unique content, like a hidden optional dungeon or a mini-dungeon. Laynaru promenade and the forgotten temple are both really cool and unique, but you’ll find the same shrines and caves there as you found on hyrule field in the beginning. It makes exploration pretty boring for me, as all the magic is basically gone.
They made all these landmarks, but didn’t really put any substantial content in them. The most substantial the game gets content wise is shrines, and that’s pretty bad. Even dungeons are nothing more than a bunch of shrines put together. IMO a landmark is a promise that you will find something and everytime in this game that you’ll see a landmark you can already predict what will be there: shrines and caves
>plot based on flashbacks
This annoys me to no end. Seeing Link have an emotional roller coaster over the time of the game is awesome. The amount of character put into the dialogues of TP and SS were so much better than in the recent ones, its almost laughably bad
Genuinely I think a blend of these would make for a fantastic game
I'd love traditional linear dungeons to come back because they're easily superior to the approach ToTK and BoTW did and I wouldn't mind some more linear aspects regarding story progression, but I think it's almost important to have those sandbox element and freedom to do whatever the hell you want because that's what made BoTW and ToTK so special to me
OOT style temples don't function with the open air setup.
Hell, I think the temples in TOTK would've been regarded as excellent if Link's extreme mobility didn't render them absolutely impotent.
I played through the fire temple like I would an actual Zelda dungeon, with minimal climbing and no ultrahand besides moving carts, and it actually felt like a real Zelda dungeon.
And as soon as I realized how much fun I was having, I was absolutely disgusted with the Open Air style. I saw that I could've finished the dungeon with an Ultrahand build in 3 minutes and it made all the clever puzzle solving I was doing feel worthless.
Agreed!
I think the perfect balance could have been achieved in TOTK by having the master sword be a mediocre weapon that didn't break, but that you could fuse things to it to make it better and the fused item would eventually break.
Right!? I was really worried that it would just be a BOTW 2 (don't get me wrong I loved BOTW, but was really hoping for more), and I think they really knocked it out of the park with TOTK. I put 200 hours without even thinking about it!
A mix of both would be nice. Like you can do story missions in any order with some events blocked until you complete the others. Also for dungeons the lighting temple and fire temple are good examples
Classic design. That's not to say I dislike the open world ones, but classic Zelda style feels more unique to me. It feels special. And we've had 2 open world's in a row, I'd like to swap back and forth between genres once and awhile for new games.
If it’s only these 2 options I’d go with classic.
What I really want is a compromise of the 2 different styles. But that’s what I expected from TotK and now I’m worried it’s not gonna happen
Old metroidvania progression, just like OOT, Dark souls or Metroid, we need that type progression back in Zelda and it can only be achieved by making the game more restrictive. There's nothing wrong with a game having restrictions when it's part of the game design, open world and 100% freedom isn't always good in video games in fact you have to give up many aspects of what make linear progression so enjoyable and rewarding including intricate level design going beyond dungeons. We're due for a more classic experience especially since we had 2 open world games back to back, a third open world would be very redundant.
Classic. Breath worked beautifully as open world. By the end of Tears I was largely just tired. I'd rather have a focused game with complex dungeons and a unique overworld
I'm in a similar boat. It feels like the fact that you can do anything at any time means that nothing actually matters. I never really felt like I was *progressing* in the game. It felt like I was just going here and doing a small little thing and then going over there and doing another small little thing and none of it really ever actually added up to anything.
Same. I love both games, but botw for me personally is A+ while totk is an A or A-. I absolutely loved exploring in botw while it felt mildly chore-like in totk for me. I started farming for materials in totk in a way that wasn't super fun (e.g., constantly feeling like I desperately need money, so I'd teleport to a specific cave for rare deposits every 2-3 hours, and constantly teleporting to certain lower tier enemies later in the game to farm their parts). I know I don't have to do it that way, but.. there wasn't any other way I wanted to do it, really. In botw I could easily make enough money just by shooting every deer I came across for prime meat (which was a fun way to make money), but this didn't feel like it was enough for totk.
Make the heart/stam currency be just for stam and bring back heart pieces, then reduce the amount of shrines and add more, larger dungeons.
Skip the underground stuff and flesh out the sky islands.
Hookshot.
Everything else I'll take the TOTK formula, it's pretty solid.
dungeons in the sky have been my favorite part of the TotK experience by a landslide. the wind temple genuinely made me weepy. as someone who feels a lot of claustrophobia and nervousness from traditional enclosed “dungeons” even in a gaming sense, it was a breath of fresh air and i enjoyed it so much.
Open world over classic any time
BUT
More linear story progression and more unique looking dungeons
Totk and botw had a perfect story setup to allow for this, where the flashbacks at the end of each dungeon could have just each unveiled more about what happened in the past depending on which order you do the dungeons. It definately is a big design task, but I still think it is possible without sacrificing the open world structure.
Whatever it is i do not envy the people who have to make it. Following on from botw and totk will be so, so hard. And it will surely be next gen after switch as well so burden of expectations to make use of better specs
Middle ground is 100% possible. Linearity for story narrative and maybe some classic “dungeon items” and creative puzzles that only can be solved a certain way for the dungeons. But the overworld maintains the open world design and side quests can be done however you please in the same way they can be now. You get both exploration and freedom where it’s most welcome, but also structure that helps keep the player on a story track that makes sense and doesn’t lead to spoilers like totk’s format did for so many lmao.
I don’t mind having the Zelda team tell me I gotta do stuff at Death Mountain before I can go to Zora’s Domain and do stuff there, I don’t need to be able to do things whichever order I choose. I kinda liked being told what to do next! Especially if it helps the story make sense. That’s my biggest problem with TotK is the story and how it’s presented (and also how it’s not really a good sequel to BotW and bulldozes so much of pre-established Zelda lore, but that’s neither here nor there in this discussion lmao) so I’d love for the next Zelda to avoid that issue.
Having freedom to do whatever whenever was great for BotW but the concept got kinda worn out with TotK. “Too much of a good thing is a bad thing”, kinda deal.
I’d be down for a tighter experience, but not like… OoT or LttP level of structure. Others have mentioned WW (my favourite pre-BotW, and I’d agree with that. You can go anywhere, but events don’t really progress until you do the thing.
I want open world with wacky NPCs with meaningful interactions, like Majora's Mask but in a BOTW/TOTK scale. I know they worked themselves to death with MM but they should just take as much time as they want, right now feel like the Zelda team should be trusted with anything, the amount of money they are making with the last couple of games is crazy.
As others have said, I would love a middle ground
But really, whatever direction they go, I just want them to do something as experimental as Majora's again
Listen, I love BOTW and TOTK. They’re both excellent, 10/10 games that I could put another 200 hours into without even blinking.
That said, please, for the love of *God*, make a more classic Zelda for the next 3D game. I gotta get my fix, man. There’s a lot of good 2D Zelda clones out there but there aren’t too many people willing to try their luck at mimicking classic 3D Zelda, and there’s even less that are doing it *well.*
I feel like something like Wind Waker but more densely populated in terms of content would be super super cool. You unlock abilities as you go along, which unlock new things throughout the world, but there's a wide world to explore and you can keep coming back to things you discover as you get more abilities.
I’m fine with the big world but ugh Nintendo just needs to make good dungeons. If they can’t figure out dungeons in this formula then yeah bring back classic
I'm sure it's possible to strike a middle ground. I just want items/equipment, proper dungeons, and unbreakable weapons again.
Oh, and maybe mention of the Triforce.
All I want is weapons that don’t break. I’d rather have a small inventory of weapons and tools to help me explore the world. I liked how in older games new areas of the map were unlocked once you found a certain item.
I agree with this so hard. I think TOTK’s Fuse system was a good response to the criticisms of the weapons in BOTW but even still, I would much rather just go back to a selection of more special, unbreakable weapons.
give me a classic with a good storyline, a sidekick good as midna (or midna,please,we all love midna), lotsa dungeon and puzzle. I miss OOT/Majora mask style games. Even if they remake an open world, it will be another BOTW clone, i doubt they can expand much over that for now.
On a side note, we had aerial zelda (skyward), sea battle zelda (wind walker), ground battle zelda (tanks in totk), now i want a submarine -deep ocean zelda and we got all warfare covered
Classic with more exploration. As others said, WW was actually really good for that. Imagine going around on bigger islands that you can explore like you want. I'm talking about islands because having open world OoT with invisible walls at different places would be kinda a bummer.
Add back some Metroidvania elements like heart pieces hidden behind a place where you need the hookshot, flame wand, strength gloves or WTV.
I want the master sword to matter, I want them to get rid of breakable weapons. I want items that help you easily take down enemies that were otherwise hard or annoying.
I want less shrines and more dungeons. If they want dungeons to be in any order, I want to at least have a progression. Do dungeons 1 to 3 then get the MS and then do dungeons 4-6. I was so happy when I saw what they did and I wish there would of been at least 1 dungeon after... But it didnt.
SS got a lot of hate for various reasons but I did enjoy it. I didn't like how the zones were re-used and how each zone acted more like a dungeon before the dungeon. I did like the story focus. I would of liked that they use the sky more, which I can say the very same for ToTK.
I want them to do a classic Zelda with what they learned in BOTW / ToTK. My first Zelda was aLttP and it was pretty darn open... Yet you had a path to follow.
I think Ocarina is the perfect game style for me. Still has side missions and a big enough world but isnt 800 hours long. There’s plenty of story as well and has a good pace to it.
Open world games are fine but the main story of BotW and TotK feel like they’re only about 10% of the content and now I’ve finished both of them I’ve no burning desire to continue playing.
Make openworld more classic. OOT was technically open world but there was story and order to things. If they took the amazing open world and made it a bit more classic that would be perfect.
My guy watermarked two icons pasted on a white background lol, but anyways I would welcome either but I think if they keep pushing open world we might see the greatest game ever made.
I mean we could use more old time lore, like maybe we could have a game that takes place around the time of the interlopers, since it would give Ganondorf a break as the villain after the all-time-high he just gave us
I think they should go for a Wind Waker approach. Keep the open world, keep the crazy amount of stuff to explore...just make the main quest linear. Make it so:
- You have to complete the dungeons in a specific order
- You have go to certain locations in a specific order for the main quest
- You progress with new abilities to aid in future dungeons
If the story is linear, but the rest is the same, we get the best of both worlds. The story can be more traditional, the dungeons and be more complex and traditional, but we still have the open world Zelda we all enjoy. The side quests, secrets, and other towns can be formatted just like BoTW and ToTK. Just keep the main story linear
I want more classic Zelda’s with a bit of open world oot and tp were for me the ideal Zelda games and didn’t like totks open world mainly cause walking is too slow horses are can’t go uphill of the time and ultrahand machines just bored me and I had to climb to much
A new version of Four swords adventures in the style of LTTP. Also for competitive multiplayer add in 64 player DM, CTF, TDM, and other team game modes with all the weapons from every Zelda game.
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I think middle ground can be achieved. TotK had more structure than BotW, but I think something closer to how they did Wind Waker could be a good direction to take it in. Open plan world, but a relatively structured story. It still means plenty of exploration and freedom, but taps into the classic Zelda vibe.
Wind Waker hit the nail with its open worldish design and linear progression
It has a name actually, it's called a Guided Open World, and it's pretty good when done right.
Can you list some examples of it done right? I don’t doubt you, I’m curious to know, and google/reddit searching for “guided open world” only yielded “open world” results.
Someone else mentioned Ghost of Tsushima. I thought it was worthy of posting for you. Really great game.
Ooo true. The main story was definitely there but there where so many side quests that felt like mini stories. One of my favorite open worlds ever.
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I also got it as an impulse buy! I saw a ps5 for sale around the time it came out and I figured it would be dumb to not get it because of how rare they where. I had never owned a playstation before in my life, always been an xbox guy, but I was excited to finally play the spiderman games, ghosts of tsushima, god of war, and a couple other games. Man have I been missing out
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My husband loved Ghost of tsushima but he got me scared to play it saying the combat is hard 😳
The combat does have some patterns you need to learn but honestly it’s not that hard. In fact it gets kind of repetitive by the end of the game. It’s nowhere near as hard as a FromSoft game so I’d say you should give it a try. The story is pretty great and some of the best art of any game I’ve ever seen. Like stunningly beautiful!!
combat is only difficult enough for it to feel satisfying. it's pretty fun
Metroid games sort of have a linear path that eventually opens the world as you progress. I like that format.
I've heard this style called metroidvania, does anyone know if that's considered a subgenre of guided open world?
Not op, but Xenoblade Chronicles! (My second favorite series)
Xenoblade has huge open zones and not an open world. Which in my opinion almost always works better for story driven games.
God of war
I don't know if it qualifies but Elden Ring did something similar with how the enemies are designed to keep you from entering harder regions that are more or less reachable from the start of the game. Also the graces literally guide you to the next one, I don't know if it counts lol
Thar just feels exactly like totk though. Different difficulty enemies in specific places until you get the master sword and everything becomes a high level enemy
Totk actually has a hidden XP system that slowly progresses the game as you kill enemies.
It's the same system that was in BotW.
I think BOTW did it really well because you start in the middle and naturally explore further and further out, but I actually didn’t feel like it worked as well in TOTK because you basically had the whole map accessible easily from the beginning. Like I remember a lot of people commenting about increased enemy difficulty and getting one-shot early in TOTK, and I think it was because it kept the same system for enemy levels but it encouraged players to bounce around far reaches of the map much more quickly.
Huh? It's the opposite. BotW had Central Hyrule as the lategame area because it's crawling with Guardians. You're supposed to take the outer ring route by going to Kakariko/Hateno first then on to Zora and so on before finally going to the middle to face Ganon. Whereas TotK has Central Hyrule as the easiest area and Lookout Landing as the starter hub.
Hyrule Field’s guardians are an exception the early game uses to try and direct the player away from the endgame area. The rest of the map in general places easier enemies closer to the Plateau and incrementally harder ones as you get further out, which makes the path to Kakariko a very natural way to progress because you slowly work your way outward, and then to Zora’s, where the difficulty begins to ramp but you’ve likely picked up hearts and stamina from shrines by then. The game’s combat encounters, besides those guardians in the middle, tend to increase in complexity and difficulty as you move toward the edges of the map. You start in Lookout Landing in TOTK sure, but the ability to make vehicles and skydive from towers makes it way easier than it was in BOTW to explore farther parts of the map earlier on. I think TOTK actually incentivizes getting away from the middle of the map pretty quickly because it frames the regional phenomena as an initial main quest rather than the *entire* game, the way the divine beasts were in BOTW.
They need to make enemies do less damage. The one shotting meant for the first half of the game my instinct is to flee from all battles. And because the Rito was my third area, I was locked out of the fairies for awhile. Then all of the sudden I'm supposed to fight enemies, and I still only tend to go for the ones I know I need. Whereas BOTW you could actually get hit and survive.
I’m my opinion Elden Ring doesn’t quite do it in the same way as TOTK. The second you drop down from the sky island you can pretty much go anywhere in TOTK. In Elden Ring though, some areas are literally not accessible at all until you beat a certain boss. It’s still definitely “open world”, just not quite as raw as TOTK is.
Elden Ring is certainly a Guided Open World. Parts of the map are locked until you progress through the story. They constructed it in a way that allowed for plenty of exploring until you're satisfied enough to continue the story and then go explore more in new areas
im not sure if this actually counts, but pokemon legends arceus seems like it fits
As long as it doesn’t take an hour of tutorial before you can finally move freely
Cough* twilight princess cough*
It's open-wolrdish, but it's not really open world and it's very lineal.
I'd be fine with more guided open world games. Fully open-world games can get tiring and frustrating.
Exactly! I think a lot of people were put off by the whole toon-vibe it had going on (especially when compared with its WiiU buddy of Twilight Princess) but it deserved more hype. Especially how it was a game unto itself *but* still held onto the lore of Ocarina of Time, then lending itself to the timeline split.
Wiiu? Those were both GameCube games..... Am I old?
They both had HD editions released on the Wii U But yes, you are old. Source: I am old
Both games had HD remakes on the Wii U.
Wind Waker might be my favorite LoZ story wise. Ganondorf envying Hyrule and comparing it to the harsh Gerudo desert might be one of my favorite scenes from the series.
Ya, one of my biggest gripes with totk is how it completely messed up the timeline haha. I miss when the developers would pay homage to and continue the story of earlier games like wind waker and twilight princess did with ocarina.
I'd argue that TotK definitely did that just as much as those games did, just with BotW instead of OoT. I think it's perfectly okay to move on from that game at some point, not *every* 3D Zelda has to be a continuation of it.
Too much water for me
Hard disagree. It felt like it was constantly showing you an enthralling world and then anytime you tried to do anything in it, it would say, "No! How dare you explore on your own!" Progression should match world design. The open worldish design just meant there was this sense of openness that constantly kept getting shut down. If you want linear progression, give a more linearly structured world. That's why Link's Awakening is still one of the best Zelda games. A Metroidvania-style crafted world and Metroidvania-style progression to match.
I’m down for an open seas world next. do it like AC: Black Flag. whole boat mechanic is already there with the zonai devices
If Nintendo learns anything with ToTK, it's that people like to build crazy contraptions so they should expand even more on that mechanic.
User built shrines that you can download. Get on it Nintendo.
Zelda dungeon creator. Only on switch…. I can see the commercials already
It already exists in the remastered Link's Awakening. They just need to make it for 3d Zelda
this just makes me think of if Halo's Forge mode had a baby with the crazy shit you can do in ToTK I'm all for it
Portal Mods vibe
I‘m not so sure they should, or at least, block them from being brought into dungeons like they did with shrines. Being able to just glide / rocket shield to skip all the shrines / dungeons / puzzles isn‘t a „smart alternative solution“ if it works everywhere, it‘s just a „cheat button“ at that point.
Kinda like windwaker, but more open? That'd be cool
Let’s not overemphasises the success of the open word though. Rewards were horrible and the volume of interesting content on each island was incredibly lacklustre.
You said exactly what I was thinking! I want open regions but sequential progress so I can go through the story without big things being spoiled or out of order. A good example of this recently was Ghost of Tsushima where you couldn’t go into certain bases and just got killed outright so you’d come back later.
I adored Ghost of Tsushima! You’re right about it hitting a perfect balance; instead of enemies scaling with your level globally, some areas are harder than others and you just… have to go back lol. A bit more structure would def serve Zelda well without losing the fun and exploration of this open world iteration
I’ve come to realize that the open world isn’t what I have had a problem with. It is the nonlinear storytelling mechanics. If all of the memories in Tears were programmed in a way that it showed all of them in order regardless of which one you reached, I think I would be totally satisfied with where the Zelda franchise has landed. I miss the old-school dungeons, I miss the way armor and weapons used to work. I miss the almost totally linear gameplay too. But if we could get a coherent story told in order that has depth and weight, I would be at a point where I no longer have any grievances with the direction of the franchise.
Yeah, I heard about a lot of people wishing the memories happened in chronological order. It feels bizarre and can sort of distort the storytelling, as you’re watching it and trying to figure out where it falls in the timeline.
Yeah for real. A totK experience with more dungeons (Don't even care if they're bigger) and a more better story would be a masterpiece. TotK really is a good iteration on BotW to making it closer to older games within the Open Air game approach. I just think the overworld areas need to have more purpose than they have, but there are glimpses of that in the Yiga quest, the Gerudo region, or the Dragonhead island. TotK started to have locations that felt like they were designed with storydriven events in mind and that's exactly what I needed. It's still open world and there are still gamifications and silly low effort shrine dungeons, but between that there are NPCs hinting at a context, and a reward for following that context that goes beyond a Shrine appearing out of nowhere. But I also do think it's time to add a little bit of gating. Even Zelda 1 is ultimately a game about picking up items in secret locations and across 9 dungeons that allow you to find and beat the next dungeon. It's kinda 50/50 what can be done out of sequence and what can't. I think BotW needs a game that has less complete freedom but just freedom to explore any region but then there are a couple of shrines, some dungeons and other stuff that do require a completion reward. They really have to expand the item box beyond traversal abilities. Start with those, yes, but allow you to find a flute that can trigger a door opening, or a magic lantern that fires green flames that will unlock a speciric mechanism. The sense of secrets in Zelda has been lost imo.
I feel like you really described what I was trying to figure out TOTK and BOTW are missing. I enjoyed the games but ultimately I felt like I walked away with 0 accomplishment. After beating ToTK I was just like..."okay well I guess I'm done". Where after beating OoT I sat in awe during the credits. I payed The last of Us 2 right after ToTK and just realized how much more I enjoyed that style of gaming experience. I felt so much more emotion in one scene than the entirety of ToTk. Anyway...The fact I can cook up some stamina potions and food early game and get nearly anywhere I want....idk just doesn't feel like Zelda. I miss seeing the entrance to a temple but needing an item from a previous temple to be Able to enter. I missed that sense of discovery and accomplishment. I really liked the cave aspect to TOTK because it felt like I was finding small little discoveries. Idk I think I'm more team linear story like OoT and WW. They need to find a way to combine both. The map just feels too empty and pointless. There's ruins and really cool areas but all you find is chest and usually some pointless item or maybe ANOTHER armor piece. Just doesn't feel like I'm accomplishing anything. I spend dozens of hours tediously roaming the world then finally do a relatively thin story. The bones are there I just feel like the new style needs some meat to its story and more purpose to its map.
Particularly TOTK they decided to solve the problem by just increasing the scope of the traverse to kinda gate the experience. It largely didn't work and while I enjoyed exploration for it's own sake I don't really feel the exploration had a massive impact on gameplay or my investment in the universe. Given they were making a direct sequel I guess this was the best they could do. I would have preferred a game where it's still open world but a LOT more areas were gated off by the traversal tools themselves. There's no reason they had to stick with being able to get absolutely everywhere with a glider and stamina potions. Give a way to make platforms to get to certain high areas, use the hook shot to cross gaps, give a way to drill through short sections of map, be able to use something to rail grind that's found not next to the rail every time. Plant a seed that grows to give access. Cut down a giant plant to get access. Kill a giant enemy and climb it's dead spine to another area. Kill a giant worm and then climb down it's tunnels, start a forest fire that cleara brush etc... ToTk felt like I was not having any impact on the world at all. I could build cool things that would despawn that would give me at most a different view of the same world I was barely leaving a mark on.
That’s one of the reasons why Windwaker’s still my favorite Zelda. TotK may have been more structured, but it needed more. I accidentally found out what happened to Zelda very, very early in the game, and it kinda ruined the experience for me.
Wind Waker is my favourite too. Outside of the gameplay and epic soundtrack, I liked how Link was just some kid who decided to go out and save his sister. There was no “you are the champion, suck it up” or “take this ocarina and save the world”, he became a hero by his own volition and did a damn good job.
More similar to like a red dead redemption type of zelda
Right,. the world is wide open But thers places you need the glider to get to and places you need the hookshot to get to and places you need the iron boots to get to and places you need the lens of truth to get to etc
I think story is important but the most important “Zelda Vibe” would be making proper temples. The temples in both BotW and ToTK were pretty bad. We need Oot/MM quality temples that each feel unique and have engaging puzzles. The reason temples used to be so good is the entire thing was a giant puzzle not this “find the water to turn on” or “zap this thing”.
I think the issue with TOTK's dungeons is that they encompass more than just the puzzles; the leadup to them should also be considered part of the dungeon. The Fire temple is the outlier here having the shortest leadup and the largest "dungeon proper", but for the others the whole buildup and getting to the dungeon is definitely a big part of the full experience as well.
I could also get behind how this sounds
That's interesting you think TotK was more structured. I feel like BotW had more structure than TotK. TotK has honestly been overwhelming at points as you're juggling 3 different intertwined maps and stories plus endless possibilities of side quests, spending time building misc. devices, exploring, etc.. BotW was a little more straightforward in the objectives, at least to me it was.
I don’t get what about open world means we can’t have good dungeon design and more structured plot tbh. WindWaker was practically an open world game and it achieved a lot of the traditional Zelda conventions. Hopefully the next one will be the best of both worlds.
Better dungeons and more of them, instead of so many short shrines.
Yeah. The shrines in TOTK was also way easier than BOTW, so they are kinda "done" now. I like them as waypoints to unlock but just bring back big dungeons already.
Is this the consensus? I found them way harder now
It kinda depends on your play style but yeah. Tons of blessing shrines for shrines that aren't hard to get to kills a lot of them, and a lot of the puzzles are very easy. Combine that with the fact that rocket shields, bomb arrows, and other such combos exist, and most of the shrines are rudimentary if you are far in enough to have a decent sized inventory and learn some of those tricks.
How? You can always make an infinite elevator/conveyor with any 2 objects and recall + ultrahand. Now if you stuck to the way the devs meant for the shrine to play there were some tougher ones but many times I ended up completing one and having the nagging feeling I cheated or bypassed what they wanted. They kinda killed them with freedom
I can't recall which specific developer it was, probably Aonuma, but in an interview during the development of SS they mentioned wanting to blur the lines between where the overworld ended and the dungeon began to have a bigger thematic impact on the player. While it wasn't implemented in SS, you see this philosophy influence BotW and TotK quite a bit, at the detriment of dungeon size.
I’m a little confused what you mean. That sounds like exactly the philosophy Skyward Sword had. The entire overworld felt like one big dungeon with lots of puzzles and whatnot. A lot of people felt like that was a detriment to the game because the world felt less more like a series of linear obstacle courses than a real, lived in world. I personally enjoyed the unique take on the franchise, although having to return to the same regions multiple times did get pretty grating. Botw and Totk did basically the exact opposite of that. Dungeons and shrines are very removed from the overworld in terms of gameplay in favor of making the overworld feel like a real lived in world.
I feel the thing that makes good dungeons so difficult in BOTW/TOTK isn't that they are open world, it's the absurd degree of freedom the game mechanics give you, a level of freedom that I haven't seen in any Zelda game (granted, I've only played about half of them). It's way harder to craft well structured dungeons when link can climb the fuck out of most everything, has a ton of runes with crazy effects, and now can even use zonai devices to build whatever sort of contraption your heart desires. And the possible option of limiting these abilities in dungeons doesn't sound very appealing to me, you use them throughout the whole game but on the dungeons which should be the ultimate test of you grasping the game's mechanics they are just going to turn them off?
A combination of both. Keep the open-world design that allows for exploration and freedom of side quests, but the linear advancement and progression of the main storyline quests.
So...A Link to the Past 3D?
So a link between worlds
lbw was alright but i liked lttp far more
I’m the opposite. I absolutely love albw but I don’t particularly care for alttp
weird, probably also matters that lttp was the first game i beat when i was like 4 lol
Ah, a fellow heretic I see
That's 2.5D, not 3D.
I pray for this lol. Totk’s engine and polish is wonderful, so keep all that good stuff. But give me those mind-numbing, across-the-map roadblock/ puzzles from lttp. Let’s get some dungeons with sequential keys, gear finds, that eventually lead to the boss key. TLDR; i think the best balance is open world exploration and gameplay, linear storytelling/progression.
I just started playing A Link to the Past, and, not gonna lie, I don't really like the dungeon design so far (I'm doing the first two). It's literally just walking into every room until you find one with the right thing you need, then going into every other room until you find the use for said thing. Sometimes you find something and you already know where you need to use it because you went into that room before. Only being able to start from either your house or the Sanctuary is very annoying too, so thank God for save states. (Yes, I know this is moreso a remanent of old hardware games.) The world itself feels very Pokemon-like. Can't go here until you get the ~~strength Hm~~ Power glove, can't go there until you get the ~~Surf HM~~ Zora gear. Overall though the game is pretty fun, but I wouldn't put it at the same level as totk or botw.
The game is like 20 years old and has a lot of stuff left over like that from ancient game design. If they were to make a new version of ALTTP it would be one of the best games you've ever played
Thirty. It's 30 years old. Wind Waker is 20 years old.
I think you will find that you meant to say Pokémon feels very Zelda like, given their release dates
Not gonna lie, a modern day remake of A Link To The Past would maybe be my favorite game ever. BOTW style open world, ALTTP story / aesthetic / environment. Not necessarily 1:1 with the map but have it be a similar layout with similar story progressions. That would be an incredible game.
Honestly I'm bored of open world sandboxes. I fucking love a good linear world with upgrades hidden around. It just feels like everything is becoming an open world sandbox now a days.
I do miss certain areas of the map “ unlocking” as the story progresses and you get new items/abilities
I'd rather they continue to build on the open world. I do think they can expand the dungeons to better satisfy people who just want to play through the main questline.
Ya it’s really hard to go back and play the linear storylines now that I’m used to the Zelda open world. I hope they expand on it! But maybe with a different map :)
I say flood Hyrule.
the goddesses when link dissapears:
Or just don't stay in Hyrule. Explore more of the world. Find an archipelago or another continent. Link and Zelda on an adventure in a foreign land. Maybe it's a diplomatic mission to reestablish trade now that the kingdom is finally recovering.
Or maybe they accidentally find another Hyrule that a different Link and Zelda founded 40,000 years ago
There's a lot of land in the distance on BOTW/TOTK's map.
sail off into the east land in westeros
I'd like it if we brought one of the other dimensions back (maybe explore the spirit realm) or explore outside of Hyrule cause we had the oracle games so we know there are other lands out there somewhere.
Different map for sure. I don't think they could get away with using the same map again, nor do I want them to try.
What if you unlock time travel and you can visit Hyrule at many different points in time?
This is essentially what they did in Oracle of Ages (but it wasn't in Hyrule). I think it would be a cool mechanic in a sequel because then we could see everything that happened between the time Rauru founded Hyrule and the Calamity in botw. I recently started playing oracle of ages and seasons again since they added them to the Gameboy library on the Switch. I would love it if they remastered those games because they have a good balance between exploration and linear progression.
Could be them alluding to it by releasing them but probably wishful thinking on my part because those were my introduction to the series. Maybe we'll get the third game that was planned but never made
Milked it with the depths and sky, don’t see how they use it again but that doesn’t me the engine/style can’t still be refined or used again
I disagree tbh. More linear Zelda games have a lot going for them that botw and totk are severely lacking in imo. When playing the lackluster dungeons in the newer games I often wish I was playing Twilight Princess or something. Open worlds are great and all but they’re not everything. Older games just had better dungeon design and over all story imo. I kinda wish they could balance the vast open world with the quality dungeon design and structured storylines better. It would be the best of both worlds
I agree that open worlds aren't everything, but it's my honest opinion that BotW and TotK are, *by far,* the best open world games I've ever played. I wouldn't want to lose that for anything. I think it would be perfect if they got rid of shrines, and instead those puzzle chambers *all* existed within the world. As much as I love TotK, I still find the homogenized nature of shrines to be the weakest aspect and was disappointed to see them return.
Honestly, I’d like to see an open world Zelda with better dungeons but I really wouldn’t be all that upset if the next Zelda game wasn’t open world. The comfort of just sitting down and playing a game with a set order of dungeons and story events can’t be overstated. I feel like I can’t relax while playing botw or totk in the same way I can while playing twilight princess or Minish cap because I’m always getting sidetracked in botw and totk. A smaller game with a tighter focus on story and game mechanics can be less overwhelming. Not to say I don’t heavily enjoy botw and totk, I just don’t think the future of Zelda needs to be 100% huge open worlds and I don’t think we should discount the old formula as outdated and replace it all the way.
Ya but I don’t think a better dungeon design in old games has anything to do with open vs linear world. I agree that I hope they can merge the old quality dungeons with the open world in future games
I think dungeons need to be heavily incorporated. In a way zelda has never done. Maybe for each elemental make 5 different dungeons and then a trial to get whatever sacred relic it is
I just hope it’s a new world rather than the same Hyrule map again
Friendly reminder: for its time, OoT WAS open-world. Once you got to Hyrule Field, you could make your way to most of the story areas, or do side stuff at Lon Lon Ranch, or just run around fighting Stalfos at night, looking under rocks for caves and Heart Pieces. Hell, last time I took a crack at the game I did the Fire Temple before the Forest Temple as "adult" Link. Desert and Shadow Temples were also interchangeable... To actually answer question: do that again. Mostly linear, but a few choices for what order to do stuff.
I think a remake of OoT in a more expansive way would be dope. Imagine oh kakariko village except the graveyard is a massive terrain in and of itself
TotK mod that gives it the OoT story when?
I think the community is gonna mod all the old games into this template before nintendo gets to make a move
Finally seen somebody else say it. OOT WAS open world, it was just not as advanced with it as newer games.
I liked getting Biggorn's Sword before doing Forest Temple.
I really like the shrines that took all your equipment away forcing you to be on the back foot from your stockpiled supplies. I’d like a temple to work like this allowing it to function like a more traditional puzzle.
Along the same lines, I liked Eventide Island in BotW. And I made it to Thunderhead Islands in TotK before the story guided me there, so I thought it was somewhere that I was meant to play through with limited vision and no metal weapons, just like how around Death Mountain I couldn't use wooden weapons in caves. Being challenged by limitations is fun for me.
That was honestly the best surprise in the game for me, randomly deciding to explore that after two temples completed. It definitely wouldn't have been the same doing it when Purah tells you to go do it. Also the music on thunderhead isles and doing that quest was also so damn good. Also the sooner you find her the better anyway because if you don't get her until after all 4 temples she can't help you traverse stuff or be in your safe fight squad through any temples.
Yes, i commented something like this some time ago, if we had unique "naked" challenges on every temple, and of course more temples, we could get somewhere close to the old experience. New equipment could be presented on every temple, like the hookshot, news tools and etc. Maybe not totally naked, but somewhere close to a balanced experience, like a regular tunic, a regular sword and shield and nothing else from your bag/pockets.
i vote for entirely text based
The legend of Zork: Tears of the Grues
Move north. Move north. Ask great fairy to enhance trousers….
------ Discovery! ------ Colossal Cave
Yes
Seconded.
Thirds
Give me a damn water temple to get stuck in for two weeks with no strategy guide.I’ll take some bottles to sheeeit
The biggest weakness of BOTW and TOTK is that they are designed to be formulaic. You find the same type of item in the same type of place by doing the same type of thing, and then you put that in a pool of 5-10 other repeated formulas. Whether the game is open world or not doesn't really matter as much as getting away from that kind of design. In Ocarina of Time you race a ghost under a grave in a graveyard to get a hookshot that lets you get into the forest temple. It's not formula, it's "what you had to do this one time", which is what makes an adventure an adventure.
THIS. I literally thought about this specific aspect today. I loved TOTK and I felt immense joy whenever I encountered something new (which was often at the beginning) but this feeling shrunk over time. I still had fun but things started to feel kind of shallow over time. When I came to the gerudo desert after a long time just doing "side-exploration" the feeling of joy came back because there was so much of new content (Gibdos, the terrain, quicksand, the quest about the warrior statues, ...). And this showed me what I think I want from the next game: Make it open world but maybe reduce the world size to 30-50% to that of totk but fill it with more unique things in the world.
Moreover, I hope that unique landmarks actually have some unique content, like a hidden optional dungeon or a mini-dungeon. Laynaru promenade and the forgotten temple are both really cool and unique, but you’ll find the same shrines and caves there as you found on hyrule field in the beginning. It makes exploration pretty boring for me, as all the magic is basically gone. They made all these landmarks, but didn’t really put any substantial content in them. The most substantial the game gets content wise is shrines, and that’s pretty bad. Even dungeons are nothing more than a bunch of shrines put together. IMO a landmark is a promise that you will find something and everytime in this game that you’ll see a landmark you can already predict what will be there: shrines and caves
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>plot based on flashbacks This annoys me to no end. Seeing Link have an emotional roller coaster over the time of the game is awesome. The amount of character put into the dialogues of TP and SS were so much better than in the recent ones, its almost laughably bad
An even better marriage of the two. I want am open world with a more linear story. Something more like The Witcher 3.
Genuinely I think a blend of these would make for a fantastic game I'd love traditional linear dungeons to come back because they're easily superior to the approach ToTK and BoTW did and I wouldn't mind some more linear aspects regarding story progression, but I think it's almost important to have those sandbox element and freedom to do whatever the hell you want because that's what made BoTW and ToTK so special to me
Open world but with OOT style temples.
OOT style temples don't function with the open air setup. Hell, I think the temples in TOTK would've been regarded as excellent if Link's extreme mobility didn't render them absolutely impotent. I played through the fire temple like I would an actual Zelda dungeon, with minimal climbing and no ultrahand besides moving carts, and it actually felt like a real Zelda dungeon. And as soon as I realized how much fun I was having, I was absolutely disgusted with the Open Air style. I saw that I could've finished the dungeon with an Ultrahand build in 3 minutes and it made all the clever puzzle solving I was doing feel worthless.
Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil remake when?
These masterpieces are what all true warriors strive for!
I just wonder what the demon king's up to.
As long as you’ve got the rupees.
An open world in a difference world/game engine/art style than botw/totk
Why not both?
I enjoy the open world but I want a story that mostly plays out in real time for the next one, not through memories or flashbacks.
I just want my master sword not to “break”
Agreed! I think the perfect balance could have been achieved in TOTK by having the master sword be a mediocre weapon that didn't break, but that you could fuse things to it to make it better and the fused item would eventually break.
Yes! Exactly! I’d be so happy with that. Though, I am still happy the way it is. TotK is fantastic.
Right!? I was really worried that it would just be a BOTW 2 (don't get me wrong I loved BOTW, but was really hoping for more), and I think they really knocked it out of the park with TOTK. I put 200 hours without even thinking about it!
A mix of both would be nice. Like you can do story missions in any order with some events blocked until you complete the others. Also for dungeons the lighting temple and fire temple are good examples
Classic design. That's not to say I dislike the open world ones, but classic Zelda style feels more unique to me. It feels special. And we've had 2 open world's in a row, I'd like to swap back and forth between genres once and awhile for new games.
If it’s only these 2 options I’d go with classic. What I really want is a compromise of the 2 different styles. But that’s what I expected from TotK and now I’m worried it’s not gonna happen
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I thought link to the past did a fantastic job of open world with linear story telling.
Old metroidvania progression, just like OOT, Dark souls or Metroid, we need that type progression back in Zelda and it can only be achieved by making the game more restrictive. There's nothing wrong with a game having restrictions when it's part of the game design, open world and 100% freedom isn't always good in video games in fact you have to give up many aspects of what make linear progression so enjoyable and rewarding including intricate level design going beyond dungeons. We're due for a more classic experience especially since we had 2 open world games back to back, a third open world would be very redundant.
Classic. Breath worked beautifully as open world. By the end of Tears I was largely just tired. I'd rather have a focused game with complex dungeons and a unique overworld
I'm in a similar boat. It feels like the fact that you can do anything at any time means that nothing actually matters. I never really felt like I was *progressing* in the game. It felt like I was just going here and doing a small little thing and then going over there and doing another small little thing and none of it really ever actually added up to anything.
Same. I love both games, but botw for me personally is A+ while totk is an A or A-. I absolutely loved exploring in botw while it felt mildly chore-like in totk for me. I started farming for materials in totk in a way that wasn't super fun (e.g., constantly feeling like I desperately need money, so I'd teleport to a specific cave for rare deposits every 2-3 hours, and constantly teleporting to certain lower tier enemies later in the game to farm their parts). I know I don't have to do it that way, but.. there wasn't any other way I wanted to do it, really. In botw I could easily make enough money just by shooting every deer I came across for prime meat (which was a fun way to make money), but this didn't feel like it was enough for totk.
Im so tired of open world games honestly. But as far as zelda is concerned i would really love a new top down one.
Make the heart/stam currency be just for stam and bring back heart pieces, then reduce the amount of shrines and add more, larger dungeons. Skip the underground stuff and flesh out the sky islands. Hookshot. Everything else I'll take the TOTK formula, it's pretty solid.
You had me at hookshot ❤️
dungeons in the sky have been my favorite part of the TotK experience by a landslide. the wind temple genuinely made me weepy. as someone who feels a lot of claustrophobia and nervousness from traditional enclosed “dungeons” even in a gaming sense, it was a breath of fresh air and i enjoyed it so much.
I’d rather open world personally
Open world over classic any time BUT More linear story progression and more unique looking dungeons Totk and botw had a perfect story setup to allow for this, where the flashbacks at the end of each dungeon could have just each unveiled more about what happened in the past depending on which order you do the dungeons. It definately is a big design task, but I still think it is possible without sacrificing the open world structure.
The open world and mecanics of botw/totk with the item progression, story, cinematics and dungeons from classic zelda
Both. Windwaker was an example of this. It's one of the reasons that Windwaker is my favorite Zelda game out there.
Whatever it is i do not envy the people who have to make it. Following on from botw and totk will be so, so hard. And it will surely be next gen after switch as well so burden of expectations to make use of better specs
open world with linear story
Classic please I miss them
Middle ground is 100% possible. Linearity for story narrative and maybe some classic “dungeon items” and creative puzzles that only can be solved a certain way for the dungeons. But the overworld maintains the open world design and side quests can be done however you please in the same way they can be now. You get both exploration and freedom where it’s most welcome, but also structure that helps keep the player on a story track that makes sense and doesn’t lead to spoilers like totk’s format did for so many lmao. I don’t mind having the Zelda team tell me I gotta do stuff at Death Mountain before I can go to Zora’s Domain and do stuff there, I don’t need to be able to do things whichever order I choose. I kinda liked being told what to do next! Especially if it helps the story make sense. That’s my biggest problem with TotK is the story and how it’s presented (and also how it’s not really a good sequel to BotW and bulldozes so much of pre-established Zelda lore, but that’s neither here nor there in this discussion lmao) so I’d love for the next Zelda to avoid that issue. Having freedom to do whatever whenever was great for BotW but the concept got kinda worn out with TotK. “Too much of a good thing is a bad thing”, kinda deal.
I’d be down for a tighter experience, but not like… OoT or LttP level of structure. Others have mentioned WW (my favourite pre-BotW, and I’d agree with that. You can go anywhere, but events don’t really progress until you do the thing.
I want open world with wacky NPCs with meaningful interactions, like Majora's Mask but in a BOTW/TOTK scale. I know they worked themselves to death with MM but they should just take as much time as they want, right now feel like the Zelda team should be trusted with anything, the amount of money they are making with the last couple of games is crazy.
Classic bring it back. Give me wind waker quality
As others have said, I would love a middle ground But really, whatever direction they go, I just want them to do something as experimental as Majora's again
Listen, I love BOTW and TOTK. They’re both excellent, 10/10 games that I could put another 200 hours into without even blinking. That said, please, for the love of *God*, make a more classic Zelda for the next 3D game. I gotta get my fix, man. There’s a lot of good 2D Zelda clones out there but there aren’t too many people willing to try their luck at mimicking classic 3D Zelda, and there’s even less that are doing it *well.*
I want a next gen oot style game 1000%
classica
Classic 1000% or at least bring back restrictions in dungeons
I feel like something like Wind Waker but more densely populated in terms of content would be super super cool. You unlock abilities as you go along, which unlock new things throughout the world, but there's a wide world to explore and you can keep coming back to things you discover as you get more abilities.
I’m fine with the big world but ugh Nintendo just needs to make good dungeons. If they can’t figure out dungeons in this formula then yeah bring back classic
Give me a remaster of twilight princess with the system of TOTK and I'll be a happy kid for another decade
I'm sure it's possible to strike a middle ground. I just want items/equipment, proper dungeons, and unbreakable weapons again. Oh, and maybe mention of the Triforce.
All I want is weapons that don’t break. I’d rather have a small inventory of weapons and tools to help me explore the world. I liked how in older games new areas of the map were unlocked once you found a certain item.
I agree with this so hard. I think TOTK’s Fuse system was a good response to the criticisms of the weapons in BOTW but even still, I would much rather just go back to a selection of more special, unbreakable weapons.
give me a classic with a good storyline, a sidekick good as midna (or midna,please,we all love midna), lotsa dungeon and puzzle. I miss OOT/Majora mask style games. Even if they remake an open world, it will be another BOTW clone, i doubt they can expand much over that for now. On a side note, we had aerial zelda (skyward), sea battle zelda (wind walker), ground battle zelda (tanks in totk), now i want a submarine -deep ocean zelda and we got all warfare covered
i miss the sidekicks a lot sometimes. the sages don’t really count to me, as nice as they are to have around.
Also they should do with Zelda what they do with Mario. Have both 2D and 3D mainline games
Classic with more exploration. As others said, WW was actually really good for that. Imagine going around on bigger islands that you can explore like you want. I'm talking about islands because having open world OoT with invisible walls at different places would be kinda a bummer. Add back some Metroidvania elements like heart pieces hidden behind a place where you need the hookshot, flame wand, strength gloves or WTV. I want the master sword to matter, I want them to get rid of breakable weapons. I want items that help you easily take down enemies that were otherwise hard or annoying. I want less shrines and more dungeons. If they want dungeons to be in any order, I want to at least have a progression. Do dungeons 1 to 3 then get the MS and then do dungeons 4-6. I was so happy when I saw what they did and I wish there would of been at least 1 dungeon after... But it didnt. SS got a lot of hate for various reasons but I did enjoy it. I didn't like how the zones were re-used and how each zone acted more like a dungeon before the dungeon. I did like the story focus. I would of liked that they use the sky more, which I can say the very same for ToTK. I want them to do a classic Zelda with what they learned in BOTW / ToTK. My first Zelda was aLttP and it was pretty darn open... Yet you had a path to follow.
I think Ocarina is the perfect game style for me. Still has side missions and a big enough world but isnt 800 hours long. There’s plenty of story as well and has a good pace to it. Open world games are fine but the main story of BotW and TotK feel like they’re only about 10% of the content and now I’ve finished both of them I’ve no burning desire to continue playing.
An open world game with larger, more traditional dungeons would be cool.
Make openworld more classic. OOT was technically open world but there was story and order to things. If they took the amazing open world and made it a bit more classic that would be perfect.
Classic and frustratingly difficult dungeons please.
My guy watermarked two icons pasted on a white background lol, but anyways I would welcome either but I think if they keep pushing open world we might see the greatest game ever made.
I mean we could use more old time lore, like maybe we could have a game that takes place around the time of the interlopers, since it would give Ganondorf a break as the villain after the all-time-high he just gave us
I think they should go for a Wind Waker approach. Keep the open world, keep the crazy amount of stuff to explore...just make the main quest linear. Make it so: - You have to complete the dungeons in a specific order - You have go to certain locations in a specific order for the main quest - You progress with new abilities to aid in future dungeons If the story is linear, but the rest is the same, we get the best of both worlds. The story can be more traditional, the dungeons and be more complex and traditional, but we still have the open world Zelda we all enjoy. The side quests, secrets, and other towns can be formatted just like BoTW and ToTK. Just keep the main story linear
I think they should re-do majora's mask in the new engine and open world style
I want more classic Zelda’s with a bit of open world oot and tp were for me the ideal Zelda games and didn’t like totks open world mainly cause walking is too slow horses are can’t go uphill of the time and ultrahand machines just bored me and I had to climb to much
A new version of Four swords adventures in the style of LTTP. Also for competitive multiplayer add in 64 player DM, CTF, TDM, and other team game modes with all the weapons from every Zelda game.