The Legend of Zelda: Orb of the Ancients
Premise of the game is that Princess Zelda, having gone through the events of TotK, begins to hear voices and sees visions of what she perceives to be spirits. After an initial setup or a peak of the peaceful life she now lives post TotK, we get the lore setup of her piecing together her visions and finding that it leads her on a journey within sealed Zonai ruins in which she discovers a small mysterious that fits in the palm of her hand. The orb is black with swirls of gray. It gives off an extremely dull light initially. Her powers allow her to communicate with some sort of entity within the orb. All communication is as obfuscated and vague as you'd image. Eventually she discovers that she has the power to channel things within the orb as well as pull things she channels into it back out of it. Whenever she pulls something back out, it is in the original pristine form it was as it entered. She attempts to enter herself, only to find that she is unable to enter. Now enter's the start of the games "game" part. Obviously, she gets Link to agree to enter the orb just to see what the heck is going on. He is brave an courageous enough to just go with it. Link enters the orb and is transferred to a gray and lifeless land. What he discovers is the Zonai race living within the orb itself; however, they are obviously in such a harsh decline that their extinction seems imminent. It is explained that these Zonai were faced with having to retreat from the world as their lives in the sky/heavens was coming to an end long before the founding of Hyrule by the Zonia and Hylians. A majority of the Zonai decided to design and live within their own magical paradise in a realm locked away from the land as to not interfere with the evolution and progress of life on the surface. A majority of the Zonia went to live in this separate realm whilst a select few were charged with protecting the orb on the surface, which would ultimately help lead to the formation of Hyrule.
The gameplay / story loop of the game has the player traveling back and forth between the Orb Realm to help restore life to the land within the orb so that the Zonai can remain to live in peace. The Hyrule from BotW and TotK will still be traversable; however, mobility is limited only to horse riding and climbing; however, the emphasis of the gameplay is not on traversing and exploring Hyrule. The games world will be there but it will mostly be there for you to experience a side of Hyrule that correlates to a cozy genre game. Hyrule is actually at peace. The towns are flourishing, it is largely rebuilt and much more highly populated. A bulk of the game world is used for you to live out a daily peaceful life as Link and to see how Zelda lives as a ruler. There will be some life sim type gameplay elements new to the Zelda series for players to get a completely new angle of what can be done in this Hyrule.
Now to the point of restoring the Orb Realm. It is lifeless and needs the power of the elements to restore life to the land. The land is dead because of some darkness (think of entities much like the creepy twili monsters from twilight princess) are what keeps the world in a state of disarray. Most of your combat is against these shadow beings that can morph into nearly any look as they want. Anyway, back to the restoration of the Relm. Zelda and the Zonai figure out that the best way to restore the Relm is to channel high levels of elemental energy (the obvious ones: earth, wind, fire, water, ice, and light) into the orb. They set up special siphoning devices around Hyrule that Link and Zelda have to journey to in order to channel the energy to restore the Relm. As they travel Hyrule, shadow monsters do escape from the orb which does lead to combat scenarios within Hyrule; however, these shadow monsters are not a threat to the people of Hyrule; they only want to stop Link and Zelda from channeling the elements and restoring the Relm. As you complete big gameplay segments to channel elements, it revitalizes the Orb Relm and adds those elements to the world one by one. By doing so, you are unlocking more of the Relm to explore and this is where the dungeons/temples become available within the Relm in order to solve the origins and bring about the eradication of the shadows that are threatening the survival of the Zonai.
That is the central set up of the games story and structure. I will give some rapid ideas that I thought up of:
- Zelda is not a damsel in distress. When in Hyrule, she fights along side Link with her traditional light powers. Zelda is unable to enter the Orb, but keep in mind that she is able to channel things into the Orb. When Link is in the Orb, Zelda is the arbiter of "his" powers. It plays out like the powers in botw an TotK; however, this time they are elemental themed and as you use your powers to solve puzzles or within combat, the powers come firing down from the sky to cause the changes or devastation since it is Zelda channeling the elements into the Orb herself. This makes Zelda the holder of all of the power in the game. When you are in an "in-door" or underground area, you lose access to these specific powers but link will have tools of his own to handle these areas.
- What is the story twist within the game? The twist is that this game solves the history of the Zonai and it is also discovered that the Zonai also brought the Triforce into the Orb Relm with them. This gives us the context that this is the representation of the Sacred Relm for this new branch in zelda story telling started with BotW. The game will end with the shadow beings being so overwhelmingly powerful that the only way to truly save the Zonai is to use the power of the triforce to transport them back to the land of Hyrule and back into the sky/heavens to live out their lives peacefully again. They never go on to trifle with life in Hyrule and the people of Hyrule (with exception to Link and Zelda) know of the Zonai's reintegration into their world.
- How does the game incorporate the same Hyrule again? This time it is more of a cozy game. You can live anywhere you want. Explore anyway you want. Build up a house, a town, farm, hunt, play mini games, whatever. The land of hyrule takes on the role of a host of completely new genre gameplay ideas that have never been in the series before because this is the first time we see a Hyrule that is completely at peace and just living out their lives as a tranquil yet flourishing kingdom.
- Who is the overall villain? I have no idea. Maybe it is a cult within the Zonai that begin going by the Twili or something that is causing these issues. Maybe it is Rauru's brother who despised how his brother was chosen to be the King of the surface world and he wanted to take control of the Orb Relm for himself.
This was just a bunch of random ideas I had while I was driving to work and I figured I would spit all of them out here for you guys to digest if you so choose.
Premise of the game is that Princess Zelda, having gone through the events of TotK, begins to hear voices and sees visions of what she perceives to be spirits. After an initial setup or a peak of the peaceful life she now lives post TotK, we get the lore setup of her piecing together her visions and finding that it leads her on a journey within sealed Zonai ruins in which she discovers a small mysterious that fits in the palm of her hand. The orb is black with swirls of gray. It gives off an extremely dull light initially. Her powers allow her to communicate with some sort of entity within the orb. All communication is as obfuscated and vague as you'd image. Eventually she discovers that she has the power to channel things within the orb as well as pull things she channels into it back out of it. Whenever she pulls something back out, it is in the original pristine form it was as it entered. She attempts to enter herself, only to find that she is unable to enter. Now enter's the start of the games "game" part. Obviously, she gets Link to agree to enter the orb just to see what the heck is going on. He is brave an courageous enough to just go with it. Link enters the orb and is transferred to a gray and lifeless land. What he discovers is the Zonai race living within the orb itself; however, they are obviously in such a harsh decline that their extinction seems imminent. It is explained that these Zonai were faced with having to retreat from the world as their lives in the sky/heavens was coming to an end long before the founding of Hyrule by the Zonia and Hylians. A majority of the Zonai decided to design and live within their own magical paradise in a realm locked away from the land as to not interfere with the evolution and progress of life on the surface. A majority of the Zonia went to live in this separate realm whilst a select few were charged with protecting the orb on the surface, which would ultimately help lead to the formation of Hyrule.
The gameplay / story loop of the game has the player traveling back and forth between the Orb Realm to help restore life to the land within the orb so that the Zonai can remain to live in peace. The Hyrule from BotW and TotK will still be traversable; however, mobility is limited only to horse riding and climbing; however, the emphasis of the gameplay is not on traversing and exploring Hyrule. The games world will be there but it will mostly be there for you to experience a side of Hyrule that correlates to a cozy genre game. Hyrule is actually at peace. The towns are flourishing, it is largely rebuilt and much more highly populated. A bulk of the game world is used for you to live out a daily peaceful life as Link and to see how Zelda lives as a ruler. There will be some life sim type gameplay elements new to the Zelda series for players to get a completely new angle of what can be done in this Hyrule.
Now to the point of restoring the Orb Realm. It is lifeless and needs the power of the elements to restore life to the land. The land is dead because of some darkness (think of entities much like the creepy twili monsters from twilight princess) are what keeps the world in a state of disarray. Most of your combat is against these shadow beings that can morph into nearly any look as they want. Anyway, back to the restoration of the Relm. Zelda and the Zonai figure out that the best way to restore the Relm is to channel high levels of elemental energy (the obvious ones: earth, wind, fire, water, ice, and light) into the orb. They set up special siphoning devices around Hyrule that Link and Zelda have to journey to in order to channel the energy to restore the Relm. As they travel Hyrule, shadow monsters do escape from the orb which does lead to combat scenarios within Hyrule; however, these shadow monsters are not a threat to the people of Hyrule; they only want to stop Link and Zelda from channeling the elements and restoring the Relm. As you complete big gameplay segments to channel elements, it revitalizes the Orb Relm and adds those elements to the world one by one. By doing so, you are unlocking more of the Relm to explore and this is where the dungeons/temples become available within the Relm in order to solve the origins and bring about the eradication of the shadows that are threatening the survival of the Zonai.
That is the central set up of the games story and structure. I will give some rapid ideas that I thought up of:
- Zelda is not a damsel in distress. When in Hyrule, she fights along side Link with her traditional light powers. Zelda is unable to enter the Orb, but keep in mind that she is able to channel things into the Orb. When Link is in the Orb, Zelda is the arbiter of "his" powers. It plays out like the powers in botw an TotK; however, this time they are elemental themed and as you use your powers to solve puzzles or within combat, the powers come firing down from the sky to cause the changes or devastation since it is Zelda channeling the elements into the Orb herself. This makes Zelda the holder of all of the power in the game. When you are in an "in-door" or underground area, you lose access to these specific powers but link will have tools of his own to handle these areas.
- What is the story twist within the game? The twist is that this game solves the history of the Zonai and it is also discovered that the Zonai also brought the Triforce into the Orb Relm with them. This gives us the context that this is the representation of the Sacred Relm for this new branch in zelda story telling started with BotW. The game will end with the shadow beings being so overwhelmingly powerful that the only way to truly save the Zonai is to use the power of the triforce to transport them back to the land of Hyrule and back into the sky/heavens to live out their lives peacefully again. They never go on to trifle with life in Hyrule and the people of Hyrule (with exception to Link and Zelda) know of the Zonai's reintegration into their world.
- How does the game incorporate the same Hyrule again? This time it is more of a cozy game. You can live anywhere you want. Explore anyway you want. Build up a house, a town, farm, hunt, play mini games, whatever. The land of hyrule takes on the role of a host of completely new genre gameplay ideas that have never been in the series before because this is the first time we see a Hyrule that is completely at peace and just living out their lives as a tranquil yet flourishing kingdom.
- Who is the overall villain? I have no idea. Maybe it is a cult within the Zonai that begin going by the Twili or something that is causing these issues. Maybe it is Rauru's brother who despised how his brother was chosen to be the King of the surface world and he wanted to take control of the Orb Relm for himself.
This was just a bunch of random ideas I had while I was driving to work and I figured I would spit all of them out here for you guys to digest if you so choose.
