• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.
  • Do you have audio editing experience and want to help out with the Famiboards Discussion Club Podcast? If so, we're looking for help and would love to have you on the team! Just let us know in the Podcast Thread if you are interested!

Discussion Game Developers in awe of Nintendo’s Tears of the Kingdom "miracle"

Kreese

Kreese

Koopa
Banned
Edit: More quotes added to the OP. It would be great to get some technical discussion going on about the game regarding its development.

www.yahoo.com

Game dev blown away by Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom says it "shouldn't be possible on the Switch"

"Nintendo's out here making people look like fools on hardware that's literally tenfold what the Switch is"
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com

"Each one of these systems would have been astounding if it was just it by itself. To have it all happening at the same time and all of it to be interconnecting and working and playing nice with each other while the entire Legend of Zelda game, the normal loop that we experience from Breath of the Wild, is just laying right on top, that doesn't seem possible."

As Young points out, the Switch is "notorious for having a very weak CPU" and memory speed that's "incredibly slow compared to modern hardware", so to have all of this going on at once and "behaving predictably" is nothing short of miraculous. "Nintendo's out here making people look like fools on hardware that's literally tenfold what the Switch is," he concludes, "and they're doing things that people thought were impossible on modern hardware."





Former Naughty Dog dev









 
Last edited:
This is really cool yet I’m still hoping someone breaks it to do some unintended tomfoolery.

The coolest tricks in Breath of the Wild (e.g. bullet time bounce, windbombing) is due to messing around with its physics.
 
This game is really amazing on a design point of view (and beyond that) funny enough I got one heavy freeze when I jumped from a sky island to the Lost Woods.
 
It is so impressive. The ambition is on another level.

I don't get when people are still more impressed with these visual spectacles where you mash some buttons during QTEs between little cutscenes where you have no control over your character at all.
Everything is scripted and the developers know almost exactly where you at and what you will do next in these games.
It's still hard and expensive work to get right but what Nintendo tries here is on another level for a polished big open world AAA game with a narrative.
This development philosophy is just inspiring.

Outer wilds was the last game before that impressed me on that level. And BotW before that, obviously.
 
Definitely the most impressive systems driven game I've ever played. If a new Thief or Deus Ex or Dishonored can even come close to what they achieved here, we're in for a bright future of immersive sims.
Hats off to the testing and QA Teams. This gam must've been a nightmare to debug.
 
I have had literally 0 issues with buggy physics, which is just mindblowing considering all the possible interactions.
 
www.yahoo.com

Game dev blown away by Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom says it "shouldn't be possible on the Switch"

"Nintendo's out here making people look like fools on hardware that's literally tenfold what the Switch is"
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com

"Each one of these systems would have been astounding if it was just it by itself. To have it all happening at the same time and all of it to be interconnecting and working and playing nice with each other while the entire Legend of Zelda game, the normal loop that we experience from Breath of the Wild, is just laying right on top, that doesn't seem possible."

As Young points out, the Switch is "notorious for having a very weak CPU" and memory speed that's "incredibly slow compared to modern hardware", so to have all of this going on at once and "behaving predictably" is nothing short of miraculous. "Nintendo's out here making people look like fools on hardware that's literally tenfold what the Switch is," he concludes, "and they're doing things that people thought were impossible on modern hardware."
 
small performance issues aside, the game is just a miracle in how polished and bug free it is when you consider how ridiculously complex its systems are. it's just on another level.
 
ertaboy356b said:
How is TOTK compared to Nuts and Bolts?
Click to expand...
Well there's V-Sync in both BotW & TotK so at least compared to Nuts & Bolts, there's no screen tearing.

Jokes aside, Banjo required you to use vehicles for the entirety of the game, for every single challenge, plus you had a time limit. You don't have any in TotK. Most of the challenges have multiples ways to be done.

Despite its quality, I ended up having a burnout on Nuts & Bolts. I have already more than 90 hours on TotK and I'm far from being burned out.
 
It all starts with a vision. The rest is figuring out how to do it and polishing it. It's the vision that's most important.
 
TheSpaceBetween said:
I mean... They made Mario Maker 2 right? In my opinion that game has even more potential for things just to absolutely break and fall apart, yet it never, ever does.
Click to expand...

There's somewhat of a difference that you can't simply compare Mario Maker to what they've done in TotK.

The biggest difference alone, one being a "2D" game and the other a full on 3D 3rd person game, is (imo) making comparisons already not workable.
 
boris_feinbrand said:
Definitely the most impressive systems driven game I've ever played. If a new Thief or Deus Ex or Dishonored can even come close to what they achieved here, we're in for a bright future of immersive sims.
Hats off to the testing and QA Teams. This gam must've been a nightmare to debug.
Click to expand...
I think you can make an argument that this is actually an immersive sim. I feel it stops short of being one due to the quests having one result, but it’s very close.
 
I can’t remember the last time a game seemed this magical. Anouma and Co. are the GOATs.
 
DrJay said:
I think you can make an argument that this is actually an immersive sim. I feel it stops short of being one due to the quests having one result, but it’s very close.
Click to expand...
Might explain why this game does so much for me, yes.
Until BotW my favorite game ever was the original Thief. And I love Deus Ex, System Shock, 2017s Prey etc. as well.

Creating my own solutions for problems always was a major thing that drew me to these type of games.
 
ILikeFeet said:
Hell, the Kirby presentation this year was very popular. GDC would have to rent out a whole theater for TotK
Click to expand...

crowded-people.gif
 
Horror Kid said:
It is so impressive. The ambition is on another level.

I don't get when people are still more impressed with these visual spectacles where you mash some buttons during QTEs between little cutscenes where you have no control over your character at all.
Everything is scripted and the developers know almost exactly where you at and what you will do next in these games.
It's still hard and expensive work to get right but what Nintendo tries here is on another level for a polished big open world AAA game with a narrative.
This development philosophy is just inspiring.

Outer wilds was the last game before that impressed me on that level. And BotW before that, obviously.
Click to expand...

Yep - actively playing TotK, I got bored in the latest Spider-Man 2 trailer everyone is gushing about and didn’t even finish it. Lots of visual spectacle that amounts to holding forward and pressing two buttons together when told. Just doesn’t do it for me anymore.
 
Yeah this game is something special. They took what they introduced in BOTW to the next level while expanding the scope of the game with temples and expected things like more side quests.
 
This is part of the reason why they had a "small" marketing campaign. They didn't want to show their entire hand too early. In about 3-4 years we will start to see TotK inspired games. Remember it only took Fenyx Rising 3/4 years to drop after being heavily inspired by BotW.
 
TheSpaceBetween said:
I mean... They made Mario Maker 2 right? In my opinion that game has even more potential for things just to absolutely break and fall apart, yet it never, ever does.
Click to expand...
Mario Maker 2 absolutely does break. Broken track glitch, black hole glitch, Wiggler-on-water hardlock. Hell, even just the way launchers interact with various other items is pretty glitchy.

This is not a fair comparison since Mario Maker 2 has been out for 4 years and I'm sure the glitch hunters will find ways to break TOTK in entertaining ways in due time, but still.
 
The stuff they've built here, which I assume will be shared with the rest of EPD, makes me really excited for their next system. We’re finally gonna get that next gen Wave Race, fami. 🤞🏼
 
touchfuzzy said:
Yep - actively playing TotK, I got bored in the latest Spider-Man 2 trailer everyone is gushing about and didn’t even finish it. Lots of visual spectacle that amounts to holding forward and pressing two buttons together when told. Just doesn’t do it for me anymore.
Click to expand...
Gameplay is always more important than visual spectacle. In this era of diminishing graphical returns, fun gameplay is more important than ever.

I too am sick of games where you’re supposed to figure out what the developers intend for you to do rather than you getting gud/and or making meaningful choices to figure it out.

Based off the reaction to that PlayStation show yesterday, PlayStation is about to experience gamer drift as the audience gets bored and finds something else to do with their time.

I’m off topic. More importantly, the new Legend of Zelda game is a real treat to play and something I’ll remember for decades and will probably come back and replay well into my retirement age. I know I’ve barely scratched the surface too.

I hope the other developers take some inspiration from Nintendo and put out software that has such systems that provide such player choice and fun. The only game I saw that successfully borrowed and design ideas from Breath of the Wild was Elden Ring and it was an excellent title.
 
It's been eye-opening to see the praise from devs for this. I got that the systems were impressive on a conceptual and design level, but I never really thought about the technical aspects of it.

Paradoxically, I think this is because the game just works so seamlessly I was never really prompted to think about it by something not working.
 
DrJay said:
I think you can make an argument that this is actually an immersive sim. I feel it stops short of being one due to the quests having one result, but it’s very close.
Click to expand...
I feel like it is an immersive sim in any way other than the quests, because almost everything is up to the players to come up with and to use the interlocking systems.

For me the focus on systems driven gameplay is key. Take games like DeusEx for example. Outside Of a few scenarios, different quest endings or paths have very limited or small consequences to the gameplay or world. Sure some NPCs might be dead, but you can get their items or info elsewhere.

Then again, Deus Ex was decades ago. With current tech they could go all out with it. And by that I mean I would absolutely play a game that looked like the OG Deus Ex but had Physics and systems on par with TotK, and free form quest design that allows for real consequences like in Disco Elysium
 
We have all forgotten now, but when BotW released there were comments from the guys behind the Havok physics engine (the one Botw an TotK use) saying how amazed they were at the technical capabilities of the Nintendo developers, and how they were doing stuff with their engine that they didn't thought was possible. BotW was extremely stable and polished, and then Nintendo employed another 6 years to build on top of that. So, in essence you have one of (if not THE) best development teams in the industry, with time and enough resources working on an engine for 12 years. It's going to be really hard for any other studio to catch up, probably we won't see anyone even attempt it in this console gen.

Personally, what I like most about all these systems is how gameplay-focused they are. Some things are simplified to remove jank and make them more enjoyable to use. Some good examples:
  • How Korok puzzle pieces just move themselves into place once you get them close enough to their final position.
  • How Cryonis ice blocks just broke when you swam under them, so you wouldn't get trapped below them.
  • How enemies, animals and other entities like trees or ore deposits just go puff! and turn into the corresponding collectible, which immediately becomes affected by the world's rules (food gets frozen in cold climate or cooked in hot one, they are physically affected by terrain, gravity and other forces...).
  • How dots mark the places were devices will connect when using UltraHand and how these dots are discretely placed (meaning that you can't attach stuff at any point, the game tries to detect middle and extreme points to help you). Once you start looking at them, you can build stuff much better and quicker.
  • Autobuild is the best example of this approach: You built something cool? No need to spend any time doing it again, if you want to you can just build it instantly anytime anywhere.
The game is constantly in this sweet spot between a realistic simulation and an enjoyable experience. BotW is a masterpiece, but it truly was a technical prototype for TotK, it did turn the crank up to 11!


Bonejack said:
Might be wrong, but i think you can watch them sometimes afterwards online somewhere?
Click to expand...
The GDC channel on Youtube and the GDCVault site (https://www.gdcvault.com/) have a lot videos.
 
Last edited:
Zellia said:
It's been eye-opening to see the praise from devs for this. I got that the systems were impressive on a conceptual and design level, but I never really thought about the technical aspects of it.

Paradoxically, I think this is because the game just works so seamlessly I was never really prompted to think about it by something not working.
Click to expand...
Like a lot of technical craft (eg film editing) the more skillful it is the less you notice it.
 
Im rapidly closing in on the endgame of TOTK. While there’s a few things I could criticise about it (and I’m looking forward to digging over it with fami in the spoiler thread when I’m done) they are all so minor compared to the absolutely stunning sense of game design in the physics.

Ultrahand gets 90% of the praise, but Ascend is something I only really started to make the most out of in the temples. Combined with Recall, I was then doing stuff like building a table and lifting it near the ceiling, before putting it back down again. Jumping on it, using Recall to send it back up, then Ascend to swim through the ceiling. It all just feels like it should bug out at any moment but it all just works, giving an amazing sense of place, that these areas have rules you can manipulate and everything is available for play and experimentation and exploitation. In fact it’s expected.
 
touchfuzzy said:
Yep - actively playing TotK, I got bored in the latest Spider-Man 2 trailer everyone is gushing about and didn’t even finish it. Lots of visual spectacle that amounts to holding forward and pressing two buttons together when told. Just doesn’t do it for me anymore.
Click to expand...
This was exactly the game I was thinking about when writing my comment.

I don't want to say these game shouldn't exist, that's why I didn't name it. But the praise these games still get is doing the medium a disservice, imo (a bit of hyperbol, I know). Because this way they can't really evolve on a high budget level.

Indies are doing awesome stuff for years now (Teardown from SONYs showcase comes to mind as well) but the Zelda team delivers the fun of it to the mainstream and that's really good.
 
TheSpaceBetween said:
I mean... They made Mario Maker 2 right? In my opinion that game has even more potential for things just to absolutely break and fall apart, yet it never, ever does.
Click to expand...
Mario Maker 1 & 2 are comically broken, and I'm sure with time people will find all manner of crazy ways to break the physics of TotK if the game continues to be played the way BotW was. Looking how many duplication glitches have been found in only 2 weeks.
 
How spider man is still a thing quite frankly baffles me. With Disney putting out a marvel movie every month, I can't stand anything related to it. Might be a good game there but that ip is an auto no from me.
 
correojon said:
The game is constantly in this sweet spot between a realistic simulation and an enjoyable experience. BotW is a masterpiece, but it truly was a technical prototype for TotK, it did turn the crank up to 11!
Click to expand...
It‘s far from a realistic simulation (not more so than other games with physics), but they polished the physics based system to an almost unbelievable degree and used many tricks to fake things in a really smart way.
 
Glitches will always exist, the point about TotK is that the average player experience will not suffer many glitches, unlike what has happened with several AAA releases during the past few years.

I get the comparison with Mario Maker in that sense as well, the average player will build a ton of stuff and probably never encounter a glitch.
 
lexony said:
It‘s far from a realistic simulation (not more so than other games with physics), but they polished the physics based system to an almost unbelievable degree and used many tricks to fake things in a really smart way.
Click to expand...
It's realistic with some degree of abstraction to make it fun. For example, it would be boring to take the real amount of time to pluck and clean a bird you hunted or the actual steps required to prepare a rice bowl. Generally, if you can do something in real life, you can do it in the game, while skipping some of the more tedious real-life steps.
 
Bonejack said:
The seats for the TotK talks at GDC 2024 will surely be very popular.
Click to expand...

GDC 2024:

Nintendo: Each copy of the game contains the soul of a lost child which helps stabilizes the game and minimized bugs.

Developers: Oh my god, that's horrifying. But if you put two souls into each copy, that should stabilize games even further, correct? Does the age of the child matter?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


Back
Top Bottom