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Discussion Polygon: Why Tears of the Kingdom's Physics Are So Mindblowing

HockeyBird

HockeyBird

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Came across this video from Polygon. It's a brief explanation as to why the physics engine in TOTK is so...well mindblowing. They have a game producer and a game software engineer to talk about it from the perspective of people that work in the industry.



Interestingly, the producer points to two things reasons why Nintendo was able to pull off such a feat: 1) Time to polish the game and 2) having senior level staff that have been with the company for a long time. She says the industry has a contractor problem and that for one game she was working on, she had to hire a bunch of contractors whose contracts only lasted 18 months. Thought it was an interesting point. As we know from Halo Infinite which had a similar contractor problem, if you are continuously turning over people during the development of a game, it's gonna bite you in the ass.
 
I actualy recall some kind of statement from Aonuma during BOTW's release press interview season where he said that the game had to take a whole year to deal with it's physics engine or something of that sort? If I'm not going senile and that really did happen I can totally see it, the game has an absurdly huge variety of moments where you wonder "I wonder if I can do -that-" and it turns out that yes, yes you can.
 
Bowser Sr. said:
I actualy recall some kind of statement from Aonuma during BOTW's release press interview season where he said that the game had to take a whole year to deal with it's physics engine or something of that sort? If I'm not going senile and that really did happen I can totally see it, the game has an absurdly huge variety of moments where you wonder "I wonder if I can do -that-" and it turns out that yes, yes you can.
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A whole year for polish and debugging. He said the game was basically complete in time for release mid-2022, but decided to delay in order to make sure the different interacting systems were bug-free.
 
Zelda is well suited to this kind of physics sandbox. The games have an anime / cartoonish aesthetic making it easier to abstract certain physics interactions without worrying about realism, it only needs to 'seem' logical e.g. shooting an ice arrow into a river to make an ice block then holding it in the sun til it slowly melts and shatters.

There's also always been a focus on 'tools' to fight, explore or solve puzzles, with each tool having some material impact or interaction with the world, since the first game. Bombs exploding weak walls and boulders, candles and torches burning bushes, various 'wind' based tools to retrieve or repel objects or enemies,, etc. The question of 'if I can do this, could I also do this?' has persisted in the series, taken to an extreme with the most recent titles.
 
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Serif said:
The games have an anime / cartoonish aesthetic making it easier to abstract certain physics interactions without worrying about realism [...]
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And Nintendo knows this. :)
SxuMYeL.png

(GDC: Breaking Conventions with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (1:03:33))
 
I do like how many game devs are scratching their heads at how Nintendo managed what they did with TOTK, when part of the answer lies in them not relying on a revolving door of contractors and instead having a large talent pool of long time, experienced employees familiar with the system and software. I know not every game is going to have the luxury of time that Nintendo can afford TOTK, but it does demonstrate that if you create a good working environment for which your best and brightest wish to stick around, it does pay dividends. Hiring and firing will only get you so far.
 
ShinNoNoir said:
And Nintendo knows this. :)
SxuMYeL.png

(GDC: Breaking Conventions with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (1:03:33))
Click to expand...
Videogames allow you to break all the limits that reality imposes and present an impossible world, with impossible creatures and actions. However, the industry seems to be moving to a direction in which they pursue more and more realism, limiting the imagination and the endless possibilities that the media allows. Nintendo will never force you to go through a scripted animation of Link taking the fur off a wolf to get to the meat, instead they'll just make the wolf explode in a puff of smoke and turn into a steak that you can instantly use. And yeah, surely the fiber of the meat in your game looks much better, BUT CAN YOU FREEZE IT AND SHIELDSURF ON IT?


Galgavias said:
I do like how many game devs are scratching their heads at how Nintendo managed what they did with TOTK, when part of the answer lies in them not relying on a revolving door of contractors and instead having a large talent pool of long time, experienced employees familiar with the system and software. I know not every game is going to have the luxury of time that Nintendo can afford TOTK, but it does demonstrate that if you create a good working environment for which your best and brightest wish to stick around, it does pay dividends. Hiring and firing will only get you so far.
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Nintendo also have a huuuuuuge library of ideas, prototypes and systems. When they are going to develop a new Mario, they have a catalogue of 40 years of ideas and things that they couldn't put into previous games; Some times it may have been because the ideas were not good enough, but they surely have a lot of great ones that they just had to leave out to control the scope of the game. So if you have the people with the knowledge + this huge catalog you're starting from a much better place than a 10 year-old studio that just had 50% of their workforce replaced.
 
Galgavias said:
I do like how many game devs are scratching their heads at how Nintendo managed what they did with TOTK, when part of the answer lies in them not relying on a revolving door of contractors and instead having a large talent pool of long time, experienced employees familiar with the system and software
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It's astonishing how many companies still don't take measures against brain drain. I've worked in a few places and almost all of them are awful at retaining their talent. Always trying "to keep costs down" as if they have never heard of the concept of investment. Funnily enough, these places almost always spend more on new hires that still have to be trained, than if they had raised the salaries of the workers that already had experience. Just a shitshow all around.
 
Imagine what would have happened if Nintendo did layoffs in 2013. That would have destroyed the company honestly.

Instead Iwata took a pay cut, kept everyone on board, and then focused on swinging out with the Switch
 
Kreese said:
The developer praise for this game is real and justified... developmental wizardry. I would imagine Nintendo's Japanese studio's hold secrets akin to Area 51 lore.
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In the industry in question I'd say "retaining talent, treating them well, and giving them time to work" is probably on the same level as Area 51, yeah 😅
 
HockeyBird said:
Came across this video from Polygon. It's a brief explanation as to why the physics engine in TOTK is so...well mindblowing. They have a game producer and a game software engineer to talk about it from the perspective of people that work in the industry.



Interestingly, the producer points to two things reasons why Nintendo was able to pull off such a feat: 1) Time to polish the game and 2) having senior level staff that have been with the company for a long time. She says the industry has a contractor problem and that for one game she was working on, she had to hire a bunch of contractors whose contracts only lasted 18 months. Thought it was an interesting point. As we know from Halo Infinite which had a similar contractor problem, if you are continuously turning over people during the development of a game, it's gonna bite you in the ass.
Click to expand...



Crunch happens when you work under these deadlines. Deadlines of contracts being up and the deadlines for launching games. If you renew contractors there goes more of the budget and we know these publishers care a lot about revenue and profit margins
 
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