General Gaming It's been 3+ years since BOTW, and we're heading into a new console gen

[crispy4000]

2 hours ago, TheLeon said:

Wow, it has been three years, huh? Maybe I’ll go back and actually finish it some day. 

I’ve already decided I’ll be buying the DLC once BoTW2 has a hard date.

[cusideabelincoln]

What BOTW did was take elements from other games and put them together in an intuitive manner.  

[legend]

I object to the notion that BotW isn't unique or an important place from which to draw inspiration. It is *not* just like other open world games.

 

While I could probably name a number of things it does, the most important aspect of BotW is beyond the tutorial island, there is no linear structure at all and the exploration and reward is largely self-directed.

 

As mentioned, you can go straight to fight the boss from the get go. Just saying that might not sound all that significant, but I think it's wildly critical. In most games you go through a series of events before reaching the boss/final task because the game says you have to do it. In BotW, you do the various quests because they have actual value in making Link better prepared for the final fight. And making the things you do in the world have tangible value completely changes the player investment in what they're doing.

 

The way it presents those additional things is also important. You can make a similar argument about level grinding -- you do it to make your character more capable, but level grinding is mindless and repetitive, it's busy work. In BotW, the things you do to improve are more varied, and you generally explore things because they're interesting.

 

Few games can compare to reward I felt for finding the master sword. The game didn't just put a pin on my map and say "retrieve the master sword." Instead I was exploring the world, saw what looked like the lost forest and decided to see what was there. From which I found the master fucking sword! Which has really interesting properties that other weapons do not. Similar story goes for the Hylian shield. 

 

 

I'm sure we can point to some other games that kind of sort of do these things before, but none of them nailed this the way BotW did, and I think it's an important piece of game design that other developers should take note of. And it's important for other developers not to just do these things superficially where they can tick a box, but think about how BotW incorporates all these ideas in the whole design.

 

[HGLatinBoy]

2 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

Poll is very divided.  That’s neat to see.

 

The influence is there, especially with the circular stamina wheel.  (First introduced in SS actually.)  But man does that look rough.  Let’s hope it’s early.

 

It also illustrates why the glider was such an important part of what made BOTW click.  I like that there’s a bit more to jumping however.

It was a very early build accidentally leaked by Google.