Discussion Did you think Tears of the Kingdom was too big?

[Mekanos]

It is a ginormous title, with an exceptional amount of content to get and discover. However, the freedom of traversal, the lightroots-shrines connection, and the much-easier-to-find shrines all make things a lot more easier. Did a lot more in this game than I did in Breath of the Wild...way more shrines, more korok seeds, more additional items and quests. I think this game is a lot friendlier/accessible, and I really liked it.

Yeah I put in maybe 50 hours max into BOTW, and that was across a year or so. I put in 120 hours into TOTK… in a month. The freedom and options you have are staggering but always in a more “I want to go there next!” instead of feeling like a drag. I enjoyed taking my time and going off the beaten path.

 

[DarkField]

I think the game gives you a lot to do and think how you want to do it and that's a cool addition, because the map is big enough for you to travel through it however you want, that is why, I didn't like the game, because I don't like construction at all in games unless is the building of a city or something long lasting and meaningful, but vehicles? Na, not my thing. And in my opinion you have to enjoy building different ways of traveling the map, because, for me, the landscape is not different enough from BOTW to justify a second visit.

 

[Beanstar40]

There’s definitely something to be said about setting your own stopping points. I loved this game, and breath of the wild, but if I tried to do everything in them I would get burnt out fast. Like, I love mario odyssey, but because I collected all 1,000 power moons on my first play through I don’t know if i want to play it again

 

[balgajo]

I think the game gives you a lot to do and think how you want to do it and that's a cool addition, because the map is big enough for you to travel through it however you want, that is why, I didn't like the game, because I don't like construction at all in games unless is the building of a city or something long lasting and meaningful, but vehicles? Na, not my thing. And in my opinion you have to enjoy building different ways of traveling the map, because, for me, the landscape is not different enough from BOTW to justify a second visit.

My main problem with building was knowing that if I spent my resource I’d need to go back to depths or use the dispenser. So I saw myself walking on foot a lot. And as my horse was never near(usually I came from fast travel or shrine) walking was the only option.

 

[grobla123]

I'll be honest, the sky feels like it runs out of ideas after the 3rd Archipelago, and the depths by the 6th Lightroot. That, and the re-use of the original overworld kind of made the experience a bit of a slog, despite having so much gameplay depth. I would have preferred all the effort go into a sky/new overworlds/depths around a 3rd of the size, full of entirely new stuff. That's not really how open world games work though and size is absolutely a selling point Nintendo was never going to sacrifice. Still, had a lot of fun and didn't regret the purchase.

 

[balgajo]

I'll be honest, the sky feels like it runs out of ideas after the 3rd Archipelago, and the depths by the 6th Lightroot. That, and the re-use of the original overworld kind of made the experience a bit of a slog, despite having so much gameplay depth. I would have preferred all the effort go into a sky/new overworlds/depths around a 3rd of the size, full of entirely new stuff. That's not really how open world games work though and size is absolutely a selling point Nintendo was never going to sacrifice. Still, had a lot of fun and didn't regret the purchase.

A bit offtopic but I would love if instead of depths and sky this game was about transitioning between 10.000 years in the past and totk years.

 

[Ab]

Definitely too big if you're worried about being a completionist but also have a huge backlog

 

[Ab]

BOTW was already too big, TOTK’s sky and depths were basically a band aid solution to break the monotony

So in BOTW you had this pretty clear dichotomy between the overworld and the puzzles (Shrines). In TOTK the world feels more alive, as you have more major events outside of the four main dungeons. Besides the main quests there are other things to do, so that’s where the sky and depths come in, it’s kind of like the gameplay loop is around three tiers of grinding. You have the BOTW map that has new events + caves. In the caves you get the seeds that light things up so you can see in the depths. In the depths you get Zonaite to upgrade your battery so you can use more of the Zonai parts which you get in the sky. The Zonai parts help you nagivate the depths, you also get the flowers to make food that heals you from the gloom. See it’s like a loop, there’s also the fact that exploring the surface helps you to explore the depths and vice-versa.

That’s all fine during the first few hours but once you’re far enough, well it’s pretty apparent how most sky islands have the same layout, the depths are samey, most caves are too. So while at least it’s not just the Shrines that are samey, it’s still the same overall problem. I know the classic answer to this is that “you don’t need to do everything” but here’s the thing, it’s okay for Korok seeds and the signpost guy to be so abundant that the game doesn’t expect you to find them all, since here the point is just to provide resources to the player. However, in the case of Shrines, it’s a problem because they are handcrafted content. The game constantly distracts you and sidetracks you with shiny spots and other points of interests. When you look for a new Shrine, cave or quest, you expect them to be “one of the great ones”, one of the surprises, like Eventide was in BOTW. That’s why it’s perfectly valid to complain about huge open world games being repetitive, it’s not a “stop being a completionist” problem, it’s a pacing problem if the act of “exploring to your heart’s content” leads you to repetition

I haven't found any two caves that is samey to another? I mean thematically sure but they are all very different i feel like

 

[TheCongressman]

I haven't found any two caves that is samey to another? I mean thematically sure but they are all very different i feel like

Yep. The caves feel so fresh because the layouts are all unique, and they get creative with it and make you think about navigating in interesting ways. The depths all feels exactly the same because there's no discernible structure for 90% of it, it's all just massive stretches of the same trees.

 

[Regulus Tera]

I will be honest, I don’t understand the “BotW/TotK are too big” arguments when the games allow for near instant access to the final boss after the tutorial. These games are designed to be paced around the whims of the player.

I will agree however that reusing this version of Hyrule has its drawbacks, and I hope they don’t pull this again for the inevitable sequel.

 

[Ab]

Yep. The caves feel so fresh because the layouts are all unique, and they get creative with it and make you think about navigating in interesting ways. The depths all feels exactly the same because there's no discernible structure for 90% of it, it's all just massive stretches of the same trees.

I mostly agree, but traveling through the darkest was fun for the first playthrough. There definitely should of been a town in the depths though

 

[balgajo]

I will be honest, I don’t understand the “BotW/TotK are too big” arguments when the games allow for near instant access to the final boss after the tutorial. These games are designed to be paced around the whims of the player.

I will agree however that reusing this version of Hyrule has its drawbacks, and I hope they don’t pull this again for the inevitable sequel.

Because fighting the final boss from start means nothing as 99%(invented number time) of the players won’t be able to overcome the challenge. So for the majority, if they want to see the ending, they will end up completing the main quest and feel forced to engaje with the upgrade system(shrines, koroks, fairy).

 

[Kreese]

It's huge,

but not at all empty, unpolished or other drawbacks you usually get from huge game.


Having this much content at this high quality is basically a dream game.

That's what most gamers hope for when they buy a game.

 

[Regulus Tera]

Because fighting the final boss from start means nothing as 99%(invented number time) of the players won’t be able to overcome the challenge. So for the majority, if they want to see the ending, they will end up completing the main quest and feel forced to engaje with the upgrade system(shrines, koroks, fairy).

The thing is that the vast, vast majority of those systems are entirely optional, if not 99%. The game nudges you towards some “critical path” quests, but it allows for such free-form exploration that I can’t see this being a problem except for completionists, and at that point I just don’t think this version of Zelda is appropriate for such playstyles.

 

[Yoshifan31]

I haven't found any two caves that is samey to another? I mean thematically sure but they are all very different i feel like

Thematically they do vary between regions but the most striking differences are the ones in the desert and volcano

Other than that they are just not memorable enough for the most part. There’s no cave that’s as long as that long one, I struggle to name 5 that stuck with me. You just already know what to expect, most of them are just basically resource spots that have the things you find in caves, plus you find and kill the blue frog. Some of them have Shrines inside, some have a chest with armor, but even then they still follow some kind of template that you already know about after the first few times. The majority of them are just not memorable

 

[Ab]

Thematically they do vary between regions but the most striking differences are the ones in the desert and volcano

Other than that they are just not memorable enough for the most part. There’s no cave that’s as long as that long one, I struggle to name 5 that stuck with me. You just already know what to expect, most of them are just basically resource spots that have the things you find in caves, plus you find and kill the blue frog. Some of them have Shrines inside, some have a chest with armor, but even then they still follow some kind of template that you already know about after the first few times. The majority of them are just not memorable

I really don't think caves are meant to be memorable. Not all of them anyways. I remember being surprised everytime (98%) I entered a cave and this one had a huge stream or this other one went on and lead to another area of the map or another one went and did something different.

 

[meatbag]

These games are designed to be paced around the whims of the player

It’s a common complaint with open-ended games, because some people feel like they’re missing out when they don’t do everything, or most of the content. S’like how people say Super Mario Odyssey had too many moons. I just did the ones I wanted to do and moved on. Some people don’t want to do that. It is what it is.

Because fighting the final boss from start means nothing as 99%(invented number time) of the players won’t be able to overcome the challenge. So for the majority, if they want to see the ending, they will end up completing the main quest and feel forced to engaje with the upgrade system(shrines, koroks, fairy).

Well, it doesn’t seem like a sticking point for the majority of people? Anecdotally none of my family and friends that stuck to the critical path ever felt they were “forced” to engage with anything. Some only found two sages. Some never found the Master Sword. They did fine.

The depths all feels exactly the same because there's no discernible structure for 90% of it, it's all just massive stretches of the same trees

Yeah, the Depths sorely needed greater environmental variety. Lighting up the darkness became less fun when you figure that you’re going to see the same old flora and fauna. Could have used a few more enemy types, more ruins, more weirdness.

 

[Irene]

I’ll just answer this thread with the hard rock brothers’ quote:

“Which is the best Iron Maiden album?”
“The longest one.”

 

[JazzPotatoes]

I think there's definitely something to be said for how BotW excelled at using minimalism to set the pace of exploration for the player. There wasn't as much to do in the overworld, but riding around on a horse, checking out landmarks just had a vibe all of its own.

I hardly ever touched fast travel playing BotW because for me, the journey was such an integral part of the experience. TotK pretty much mandates that I use fast travel.

That being said, I disagree with a few other users here in that The Depths have been the most interesting part of the game for me, mostly because they're the bit that manage to recapture that minimalist, danger-but-chill-exploration vibes from BotW. Looking out, spotting a lightroot in the distance, then planning out how to get there in the dark has been one of the best parts of the game for me, precisely because it's when I feel least distracted by side quests.

 

[Bait02]

Yes, it's too big and that leads to too much time spent on traversal and too much content repetition.
That's really my only gripe with the game.

Ideally, I would like the next open-word Zelda to be about 70%-80% the size of BOTW but being more curated and more challanging to traverse (a bit like sky islands were).

 

[JazzPotatoes]

I think if I was to put my super critical hat on, my suggestions for TotK would have been:

Get rid of the Hyrule overworld, and divide up the main dungeons, quests, towns, shrines etc between the sky islands and the depths. The game would still have been overwhelmingly large with two overworlds to travel between, and it would have kept things a lot fresher.

It's still an amazing game, mind, but if we're talking about things that would have tightened up the experience...

 

[linkwashere]

Problem with it is that, same as with BOTW, TOTK is a game that has been designed to the players who don't want to explore everything and just tackle things presented to themselves naturally. The game is definitely too big if you are looking for everything it has to offer, mainly because after 30h you probably will get bored of the same design patterns everywhere and the repetition will kick in.

Also, similar to BOTW, it's at its very best at the very beginning, when you need to think about solutions to traverse the map. The moment you can build something with ultrahand that let you fly all over the place, it loses a big part of its appeal and make traversal uninteresting and trivial.

 

[MisterSpo]

I played for 170 hours and initially yeah, I thought it was too big and too stuffed, with three layers to the overworld, more quests, more shrines, more main quests, more systems, and more puzzles and distractions littered about.

Then I let myself enjoy that aspect of it. I played what was in front of me, had an 'emergent' adventure, and embraced that lack of planning. That led to some of the best gaming I've ever experienced, even when it took me wildly away from the intended order of things (like having found all the geoglyphs and the Master Sword with only one temple completed; but the way this happened in the game meant it had a tremendous amount of impact given the game's side content is tied more cohesively to the central narrative thread).

If I got bored of something - like Koroks and sign puzzles - I stopped doing them. I didn't attempt to find and finish all caves, wells or sidequests because the thought of attempting that was overwhelming, but did finish all main quests, shrines, and side adventures. It's a world I love that's stuffed to the brim and a pleasure for me to engage with.

And the best thing is, whenever I go back - either for a second playthrough, or just to explore my existing save - there's still more to see and do.

 

[Horror Kid]

I think TotK is too big for what it had to offer but when I think about the next Zelda I even want the landmass to be bigger...

I don't have a problem with huge maps. I just don't want it to feel too stuffed with things to do. Pacing is everything. Let it breathe.
That's what BotW did much better imo. At times it reminded me of riding through the world of Shadow of the Colossus. Pure vibes.
And then you find something unexpected.
I just want exploring to be more fun and unique again.

I would be all for a huge ocean map with several islands which combined are even bigger than all layers in TotK.
But make these islands really diverse. Unique fauna and flora, unique enemies and npcs, unique dungeons/temples/cities, varied types of riddles depending on the environment.
TotK has all that, but it feels crammed and not very well distributed over the whole map.

 

[Warlord]

Problem isn't size, it's content.
The Depths have nothing interesting in it once you dived 2-3 times
Sky islands are copypasted and exist just to have more shrines
Only the overworld has something in it, and in my playthrough most of what I did was boring and repetitive.

 

[TanookiTom]

I am surprised reading some of the opinions, especially regarding the depths.

Initially there was a (short-ish) period where I indeed felt a bit overwhelmed by the game - there was just SO much to do, even compared to BotW.
But once I just went at it at my own pace things settled in quite nicely and now I have done most of the "big" stuff in the game, including uncovering much of the depths.

I kinda avoided the depths initially but started to appreciate it more and more. They actually turned out to be more interesting than what I originally though but yeah, if people would like to cut parts of the map, the depths would be the way to go.

A lot of how you enjoy such a massive game really comes down to your playstyle. I kinda stopped playing "full time" but going back for shorter game sessions to wrap up parts of the map / depths left unexplored before I complete the story. Really loved the game, more so than BotW actually.

 

[Deleted member 3433]

Lightroot-hunting was very addictive, and I did most pitch-dark. "Last one today" I said on numerous late-night gaming sessions, while continuing further. lol

 

[Mekanos]

Lightroot-hunting was very addictive, and I did most pitch-dark. "Last one today" I said on numerous late-night gaming sessions, while continuing further. lol

Yep, same. Plenty of times where I told myself I'd just do a quick pitstop and then lost a couple of hours down there. Some Lightroots require really clever thinking in terms of how you traverse the terrain. I enjoy it.

 

[Ylork]

Yes, Tears of the Kingdom is too big.

The biggest issue for me, is the depths. Environments are too monotonous and they have nothing interesting in it. Personally, I only went there for the main and side missions. I didn't want to be disgusted before I'd finished this game. On the other hand, Sky Islands are very nice, but unfortunately are too repetitive but thankfully, their total surface area isn't huge.

To be honest, I'd have preferred more (real) side quests to discover all the secrets of Hyrules (shrines, caves and others). In fact, there's also an issue with content.

Aonuma and his team have come closer to Ubi Soft formula, and it's not a compliment.

For the next Zelda, I'm expecting a lot of changes. And above all, I hope the developers will be more reasonable on the size

 

[Kreese]

I'm deliberately playing this game at a snails pace (only one temple after nearly 200 hours ). It's my favourite game ever thus far and I'm going get the absolute most out of it.

I still find new things and monsters in the depths, I still love stumbling on to a new caves or sky islands and the world rarely fails to find new ways to surprise me. This game is the gift that keeps giving.

I kind of feel bad for some people I know who b-lined the main story with the pull to come back and the magic somewhat diminished thereafter because this will probably last me until next year at this rate. Of course, I'm not putting in as many hours as I used to, but it's like a good book that I'll keep coming back to until I finally finish. Reminds me of when I read the LOTR trilogy which was epic and took me a couple years.

 

[Lucifer]

Yes it's too big, there's definitely quite a bit of copy paste-like experiences, especially with caves. The depths are way too big for what they are as well.

 

[DittoM]

The people saying yes would not survive Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition.

 

[JorgenRaft]

Yeah, I don't think the depths in particular really earned their size. It gave me the same feeling Pokemon S/V did where it felt too big for no real reason.

Meanwhile I really enjoyed what they did with the recycled main map for the most part.

 

[balgajo]

The thing is that the vast, vast majority of those systems are entirely optional, if not 99%. The game nudges you towards some “critical path” quests, but it allows for such free-form exploration that I can’t see this being a problem except for completionists, and at that point I just don’t think this version of Zelda is appropriate for such playstyles.

I mean the option is there. But realistically I don't see a player bored by the content wanting to tackle a bigger challenge a face the final boss without completing the basic stuff. It's more likely they will just drop the game. If this was the soul games audience I could see a point on doing this.

 

[VegiHam]

Too small, honestly. What's the point of a range of quests if they all learn you exactly the same, main plot critical, lore?

Should've had more strands of backstory beyond just the sages. Give me the history of the Zonai, and what happened to everyone except the two we meet, and why the depths were abandoned, and why there's sky islands. Make all those answers worth discovering, and found through different questlines

Instead we got dungeons, ring ruins, geoglyphs and island tablets all telling the same exact story. This massive kingdom, and it's 10000 year history, contains ONLY ONE story? Makes the world feel narratively small in a way BotW didn't.

 

[touchfuzzy]

No, bizarre complaint. If you love a game, the more of it the better.

 

[Lozjam]

Eh....

TotK just brings in the best content of BotW and makes all of its side quests like that.

Like, there are some cool quests in BotW, like Eventide Island, the Kass Quests. But you needed to go to very specific spots on the map to even get something of that quality.

But TotK brings that same quality everywhere.

And the argument of the depths being too big is rather silly too. If you played a spiderman game example, and you walked everywhere, you would say that New York is a terrible map with nothing to do. But the game isn't designed to be walked around, you are designed to swing through it.

It's the same with the depths. You aren't supposed to walk through every single part of the depths, at all. You are supposed to design fast vehicles to traverse it, hence the piles of the Zonai parts that the game gives you for free.

 

[Sampdoria]

It was too big specially when the depths felt too empty. when you think about it the enemy variety is actually worse than in BotW relative to the map size in both games

 

[Maronic03]

We should ask Ridley.

 

[Lovecatt]

Not one bit

 

[VolcanicDynamo]

Not at all. If you do not find all of the content fun then don’t do it all. I 100% understand the complaints about the sky and the depths but there’s nowhere in the game that says you must do all of it to finish. Only do what you find fun, that’s the appeal of this game. I read posts from people who after a month and 100 hours haven’t done a single temple and that’s valid.

For example I find at least 75% of Super Mario Odyssey’s content super boring so I don’t do it and just do what I need to finish the game. I don’t think the game is “too big,” since, like BotW, the appeal is that you can approach completing the game pretty much however you see fit.

See, here's the thing: I am both having fun with the game. I'm enjoying the shrines and shrine quests. I COULD ignore the Depths, but I feel drawn to going down there and getting Lightroots. I do the Koroks and Hudson signs I run into but don't deliberately seek them out. I want to see the story and the main quests.

And yet it still kinda feels exhausting. I think OP put it well in that the content does feel meaningful and is overall enjoyable, but there is so much of it that it can feel like a lot to get through. It probably doesn't help that the game can be so long in that regard. Mario Odyssey 100% is like...35ish hours? TotK All Shrines and story currently has me at around 90 hours, with plenty left to go in the Depths and many of the dungeons not finished. It's a tricky thing where I don't think the game is worse for being so stuffed but that, personally, playing it like I did BotW makes it feel too much at points?

 

[NabiscoFelt]

I'm generally in agreement here, the game is great but there's just so much of it. I ended up skipping large chunks at the end to avoid burnout

Granted, it's nice that the game does let you basically skip ahead to the end if you want, which helps alleviate that

 

[xaeroseven]

Definitely too large — unfortunately BOTW and TOTK are some of my least favorite Zelda games. I spent about 45 hours in TOTK and still felt too long and too little ‘substance’ in what you find / collect. The building / crafting didn’t really hook me either.

Sorry, commenting a bit more broadly on the game which I should probably do in the OT.

 

[GamerJM]

Yes. The two parts I think I'd like to be smaller are the depths and the tutorial. It doesn't matter much though since the game doesn't force you to engage with its size. The main thing is just that I'd appreciate a smaller game with a shorter dev time I guess.

 

[Síriocaz]

I'm far from finishing it, but no, on the contrary, thanks to the new possible vehicles, the original landmass now feels puny in comparison to Bread. It's way better this way if you ask me because Eldin, Hebra and Gerudo (including its highlands) don't feel like such chores to explore anymore. The one thing that gets tiresome it's the depths. The perpetual darkness and the not so interesting potential activities make it feel bigger than it really is.

But even with the airborne and subterranean additions, I think the game is relatively just as big as Bread.

 

[Cubs017]

It’s only too big if you try to do absolutely everything. You don’t really need to find every single cave or upgrade every piece of armor. If you just kind of play naturally and do what you really want it’s still a 100 hour game.

 

[Síriocaz]

It’s only too big if you try to do absolutely everything. You don’t really need to find every single cave or upgrade every piece of armor. If you just kind of play naturally and do what you really want it’s still a 100 hour game.

I left the game at 115 hours, and I swear a half of that must have been fighting the Lynels in the coliseums of the depths lol

 

[JorgenRaft]

It is VERY hard to have a well paced open world game and TotK honestly just made me appreciate BotW more in that regard. The pacing really felt near immaculate back then for what it was doing despite its size. I replayed BotW 100% a handful of times thanks to that but in TotK's case, I would kind of dread going through and 100%-ing the depths again.

 

[Mango]

.

And the argument of the depths being too big is rather silly too. If you played a spiderman game example, and you walked everywhere, you would say that New York is a terrible map with nothing to do. But the game isn't designed to be walked around, you are designed to swing through it.

It's the same with the depths. You aren't supposed to walk through every single part of the depths, at all. You are supposed to design fast vehicles to traverse it, hence the piles of the Zonai parts that the game gives you for free.

Its still empty and pointless regardless of how you traverse it. The equivalent would be a spiderman game where New York has no quests or purpose for existing beside swing around. The sky just as bad, with the same five or so island types sprinkled about. They shouldn't have tried to have three overworlds if they didn't have content to fill three of them.

 

[Mekanos]

Mario Odyssey 100% is like...35ish hours?

How are we counting 100%? Maybe if you are just counting unlocking Darker Side, but getting every Moon is at least 60 hours. I took 70.