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They absolutely should because the time between Zelda installments is ridiculous. Though I'd rather a 2D and a 3D team
Fromsoft absolutely do not wait until the previous game they've got is done before they start working on the next. They'd never manage the ~3 year turn around between releases, and we know that Elden ring started development in 2017, while they were still working on Seikiro. Seikiro itself started development when they finished the Bloodborne dlc in 2015, which was while they were still working on Dark souls 3.Zelda and Mario are the most AAA of Nintendo's IPs. That means they require a lot of resources, both in quality and in quantity. If you create a 2nd Zelda team you'll have to split some of this high-quality assets between both teams, which would result in both Zelda games being dragged down to a lower quality level. Best case scenario you will end up with one game being excellent (but below the bar BotW has set) and the other one being mild. For example, look at what happened to Dark Souls 2 when FROM Software tried to make it at the same time as they were making Bloodborne. Worst case scenario, you end up with 2 mild games.
Zelda is a prestige franchise and it's achieved and maintained that status by Nintendo putting everything they have into it every time. This is a formula that works amazingly well, I wouldn't change a comma.
I mean that was my point, good games are better than open world games. The whole problem with open world is how they have basically the same pacing. Let’s say you have a curve that represents a game’s “intensity” or density or agency, whichever. Your good, structured games will have a regular amount of spikes. Open world games would be a straight line with tiny bumps on it. If you had another curve to represent fun, open world games would have exponential decay. The whole issue is how their selling points are total freedom but at the end of the day the game itself is just wandering around, going through bite sized challenges, collecting uninteresting collectables like stat upgrades or crafting materials. There are so many ways that Zelda could have implemented non-linearity for their new game on an HD console for the first time, but instead we have to deal with their take on industry trends rather than expanding upon what Zelda has been doing. Working on more powerful hardware would be much less limiting for them in terms of structure for their games. Imagine a totally seamless Zelda game where the line between dungeon and field is blurred, basically interconnected areas that all have the complexity of a dungeon. Essentially the same structure as something like Dark Souls but in the context of Zelda it would kind of look like Skyward Sword but nonlinear and with more than three regions. Imagine a game with the schedule complexity of Majora’s Mask for the first time in 20 years, imagine a town that would give Clock Town a run for its money. The list goes on and on but these ideas might as well be dream games at this point due to the current pace and design decisions of Zelda releases. The new mechanics and physics puzzles in BOTW are definitely steps forwards for the series but when you can’t provide enough interesting contexts for these due to the games being these very sparse open worlds that are way too big… yeahIn the past 5 years the "consensus GotY" (ugh) has been:
- 2018: a linear action adventure game with basically the same structure as OOT style Zelda, runner up was an open world
- 2019: an open world game focused on traversal
- 2020: a linear action game with dense level design
- 2021: a linear puzzle platformer
- 2022: an open world with a similar structure to BotW
Nah, you just need to accept that open-world games aren't inherently bad. They simply offer a different gameplay experience and value proposition.good games are better than open world games
Nintendo did both for Breath of the Wild. If you listened to their GDC talks, they were very clear that they took inspiration from both the older Zelda games and from other games. They weren't out to make "an open world game using the Zelda IP". They wanted to recapture the sense of adventure that defined the Zelda series, and their gameplay prototypes eventually developed into an open world.instead we have to deal with their take on industry trends rather than expanding upon what Zelda has been doing
This could still suck. Execution matters.Imagine a totally seamless Zelda game where the line between dungeon and field is blurred, basically interconnected areas that all have the complexity of a dungeon
True, but Demons Souls-Dark Souls1to3-BloodBorne-Sekiro-Elden Ring are all based on the same engine and share a lot of assets; They're different tweaks of the same formula (save Sekiro maybe) which allows From to build the next game "on top" of the previous one. They even reuse animations, menus and a lot of enemy designs and game systems. And please don't take this as me trying to take an ounce of merit away from From's achievements: I love Souls games and both DS1 and Sekiro are high on my list of GOATs.Fromsoft absolutely do not wait until the previous game they've got is done before they start working on the next. They'd never manage the ~3 year turn around between releases, and we know that Elden ring started development in 2017, while they were still working on Seikiro. Seikiro itself started development when they finished the Bloodborne dlc in 2015, which was while they were still working on Dark souls 3.
Pretty much. Games take longer to make & are more resource intensive then ever. In this case it is not a money issue but a time/manpower one. Just look at Pokémon, CoD, or Assassin’s Creed for the amount of Human Resources needed to get these games out in a timely manner.Probably, would be more efficient to have more people working on the next proper Zelda game.
The times have changed, I would just suggest enjoy what you have and accept never getting more of it, goes for a lot of Nintendo franchises.
It’s also pretty clear everything that wasn’t a port has been botw brandedI feel like this might make for a distinction that's harder to market than a 2D/3D split. Call of Duty had multiple teams, but they were still producing the same kind of war FPS in different eras with different defined sub-brands for different time periods or whatever. Since BOTW, every Zelda release has clearly been a spinoff or remake. But it's sure to cause confusion if every other major new Zelda was an intentionally more limited release. If you have GTA III, V, and VII be open world games while IV and VI are something more linear, you've really got yourself two series and making fans of either series unsure about which are the ones they actually want.
If you had to chooseI'm gonna sound like a broken record at this point but I think they should take the OoT formula and divorce it completely from Zelda. Drop all the decades old baggage while keeping the structure. A new (or legacy) series with its own world, characters and tropes could make it feel sufficiently different from mainline open-air Zelda while delivering a similar experience.
If I had to, I'd probably go with StarTropics because that seems closer to the Zelda lineage in the way it mixes adventure and action elements. A new Murasame Castle I envision more like a character action game.If you had to choose
Startropics or Murasame Castle?
Nintendo has been, and is currently, going through pretty sweeping recruitment and hiring efforts over the last few years though. They are growing much more rapidly now than they were ~10 years ago.Imagine getting 3d Zeldas out every 3.5-4 years consistently (I envy from soft fans). I salivate at the thought. But nintendos strategy has been to maintain relatively smallish teams, with less expansion than some of the western juggernaut devs. I can't see it happen, nintendo likes making just enough heavy hitting games they need to sell their profit making console. They even sit on finished games if need be. They might stand to make more software sales but they don't seem to think it's worth it. Even if they were to expand and want more software sales, they may prefer new easy to sell and lower budget Mario titles.
I dunno, really.If I had to, I'd probably go with StarTropics because that seems closer to the Zelda lineage in the way it mixes adventure and action elements. A new Murasame Castle I envision more like a character action game.
That said, I don't think StarTropics is even on Nintendo's radar and if they brought it back it would change considerably. I mainly would hope for more respectful depictions of the cultures living on the tropical islands and a more contemporary take on the "adventurer archeologist" trope.
What do you think?
Because while being extremly polished good games 3D Mario games exhibit diminishing returns in terms of freedom and challenge compared to 2D Mario (the world building is also less consistent). I’d argue 2D Mario offers more freedom i.e in how they handle power-ups, they’re not contextual and you can beat the whole game with the one you prefer.Ok Yamauchi ("Japanese gamers like to be alone in their rooms and play depressing games")
Also if this is the case why did Mario sell so much better and then now on switch actually sold a tad worse then Zelda
they've been expanding massively since the switch launch and even have a new building being made for 2027.Imagine getting 3d Zeldas out every 3.5-4 years consistently (I envy from soft fans). I salivate at the thought. But nintendos strategy has been to maintain relatively smallish teams, with less expansion than some of the western juggernaut devs. I can't see it happen, nintendo likes making just enough heavy hitting games they need to sell their profit making console. They even sit on finished games if need be. They might stand to make more software sales but they don't seem to think it's worth it. Even if they were to expand and want more software sales, they may prefer new easy to sell and lower budget Mario titles.