Eiji Aonuma teases surprise twist on open-world in Zelda U, talks about fan feedback

I'd love to play a Souls-style Zelda game. A bit easier Souls with a colourful, whimsical artstyle, more focus on story and that Nintendo level of polish would be pretty damn great. Unfortunately from the footage we have, the open world looks a lot more like Skyrim or something.
 
are they able to finally end the fetch quest nonsense that plague open world games?

I don't think so, to be honest, since there will surely be classic trade sequence quest.
Or not; I haven't seen it for a while.
And Spirit Tracks featured both fetch and escort quests...
 
I think the twist will be more puzzles, making exploration more of a metroidvania type affair.

Ie. needing an item to cut down a tree to fall across a raging river being the only way you can access that new area.
 
Imagine if you saw the world but it had invisible warps that brought you to various places :lol
 
I've been thinking what could be a good addition to the open world formula but also help with some shortcoming the Zelda games have.

One thing that comes to mind is helpful microtransactions where you can buy rupees and bottles for real money. In every Zelda game I've ever played, slashing grass and breaking pots to get no more than 1 or 5 rupees is one of the most unsatisfying feelings in gaming. Seriously, picking up 1 rupee is so unsatisfying, especially when you're going for a 500, 200 or even a 100 rupee item. So, something like:
$9.99 - 100 rupees
$19.99 - 200 rupees
$29.99 - 500 rupees
Collecting empty bottles is also often unsatisfactory. Give me an option to buy 4 empty bottles from the start so I don't have to bother with that for the rest of the game.

The other one is invasions. Links can invade other links. The flow of time is distorted in Hyrule and you can easily find yourself in another player's world. It would also spice up the timeline discussions quite a bit. You can really get crazy with this. Other players will want to kill your Link and get his resources (proposal: maybe you lose half your money). However, you can also prepare your Hyrule, so to speak. Hyrule could be made into the ultimate sandbox playground and you can mold it to your liking to some extent. For example, you can chop trees and collect materials to craft bear traps, pits, etc.
Or they can also implement a perk system. Let's say you choose a stealth perk for Link where he can go invisible for 30 seconds. So you sneak behind the invading Link and spray him with a horse attracting spray. Now, when you turn visible again, you run through some horses, and when he chases after you, they get attracted to him and start chasing him, and potentially the stampede kills him.

So I guess my suggestion is make Hyrule the ultimate sandbox and really streamline the boring stuff that's a staple of the Zelda series, like rupee collecting and empty bottles.
 
I've been thinking what could be a good addition to the open world formula but also help with some shortcoming the Zelda games have.

One thing that comes to mind is helpful microtransactions where you can buy rupees and bottles for real money. In every Zelda game I've ever played, slashing grass and breaking pots to get no more than 1 or 5 rupees is one of the most unsatisfying feelings in gaming. Seriously, picking up 1 rupee is so unsatisfying, especially when you're going for a 500, 200 or even a 100 rupee item. So, something like:
$9.99 - 100 rupees
$19.99 - 200 rupees
$29.99 - 500 rupees
Collecting empty bottles is also often unsatisfactory. Give me an option to buy 4 empty bottles from the start so I don't have to bother with that for the rest of the game.

this is sarcasm, right? please?
 
Option to play as female Link confirmed. You heard it here first.

please let it be true!

Haven't they already said Link is a male, several times? I'd be okay with a female Link, heck, make a character creator. But I feel like this gender-begging is starting to be as annoying as port-begging.
 
I can already see the interviews in 2020+.

"We actually had some feedback from the last Zelda game, where people were saying, 'This is not exactly the open world I was looking for'" Aonuma told IGN.
 
I've been thinking what could be a good addition to the open world formula but also help with some shortcoming the Zelda games have.

One thing that comes to mind is helpful microtransactions where you can buy rupees and bottles for real money. In every Zelda game I've ever played, slashing grass and breaking pots to get no more than 1 or 5 rupees is one of the most unsatisfying feelings in gaming. Seriously, picking up 1 rupee is so unsatisfying, especially when you're going for a 500, 200 or even a 100 rupee item. So, something like:
$9.99 - 100 rupees
$19.99 - 200 rupees
$29.99 - 500 rupees
Collecting empty bottles is also often unsatisfactory. Give me an option to buy 4 empty bottles from the start so I don't have to bother with that for the rest of the game.

The other one is invasions. Links can invade other links. The flow of time is distorted in Hyrule and you can easily find yourself in another player's world. It would also spice up the timeline discussions quite a bit. You can really get crazy with this. Other players will want to kill your Link and get his resources (proposal: maybe you lose half your money). However, you can also prepare your Hyrule, so to speak. Hyrule could be made into the ultimate sandbox playground and you can mold it to your liking to some extent. For example, you can chop trees and collect materials to craft bear traps, pits, etc.
Or they can also implement a perk system. Let's say you choose a stealth perk for Link where he can go invisible for 30 seconds. So you sneak behind the invading Link and spray him with a horse attracting spray. Now, when you turn visible again, you run through some horses, and when he chases after you, they get attracted to him and start chasing him, and potentially the stampede kills him.

So I guess my suggestion is make Hyrule the ultimate sandbox and really streamline the boring stuff that's a staple of the Zelda series, like rupee collecting and empty bottles.

You're forgetting Special Rupee insurance to prevent other Links invading your world

Also a multitude of added quests built into every character's backstory, conveniently listed in a massive, infinitely scrolling quest database
 
There's an immense underground world that's interconnected by a cave complex. Wormholes scattered around the world send you to dungeons that are located in distant galaxies.
 
It's probably going to feel a lot like MGS: V's open world. Beautiful, but barren. Maybe they'll be able to pack a lot of mystery into the world? Kinda make you question why things are the way they are, like Shadow of the Colossus or something?
 
I hope they don't ditch the Skyward Sword type of areas completely. You can have open world sections connecting the more concentrated and gameplay-based ones.
 
Is it me or at the e3 reveal 2014, Aonouma said that one of the conventions he wanted to change was the fact that you play alone (aka single player) ?
 
I think you're setting yourself up for disappointment. LBW (and, by extension, LttP) featured one of the most compact overworlds in the series. Walk any direction for 20 seconds, and you were bound to find something interesting to do. The console games haven't been like that in a long, long time.

We just had Skyward Sword going exactly in that direction with the world under the clouds. It's obvious that the negative feedback they got from it being too linear and cramped is now pushing them in the opposite direction.
 
Haven't they already said Link is a male, several times? I'd be okay with a female Link, heck, make a character creator. But I feel like this gender-begging is starting to be as annoying as port-begging.
The whole reason for the "Link" name is because he's supposed to be the link between player and game. The character is already mute so additional headaches a-la Mass Effect where they have to record everything twice will not be an issue. Go full "link" by giving a gender option. That's my opinion.

I hope the rumored Female Link apparat wince for Hyrule Warrios on 3DS is true.
 
Polite way of saying. If we put everything in that fans say they want, the game will turn out shit. And he's correct.

I've been saying that for years, though not politely. If he listened to even a small fraction of fan requests this series would become a shambling abomination.
 
Would mostly like to see some combat system/enemy improvements. Not to be the 100th person to reference Souls, but it did prove you can make really interesting tactical combat without going into overly complicated spectacle fighter territory.
 
I'm glad they mentioned they aren't approaching open world games like other developers have been in recent years.
I'm tired of looking at maps that look like this:
acunity_sidemissions.png
 
Pokemon GO is clearly going to do well enough, so integrating that sort of system into this Zelda is a fairly reasonable idea, especially since they've shifted development from Wii U to iOS and Android.

I would give Zelda GO a try, but I think it's pretty incorrect to say that they've "shifted development from Wii U to iOS and Android." We know that Wii U development is winding down. We know that Nintendo is making mobile games with outside help. We also know that Nintendo is working on a new console(s) called NX, so they're probably also working on games for that/those system(s).


Twist: They just got Skyward Sword's open world and made it fifteen times bigger with even less to do in it.

Did you play Skyward Sword?

I've been thinking what could be a good addition to the open world formula but also help with some shortcoming the Zelda games have.

One thing that comes to mind is helpful microtransactions where you can buy rupees and bottles for real money. In every Zelda game I've ever played, slashing grass and breaking pots to get no more than 1 or 5 rupees is one of the most unsatisfying feelings in gaming. Seriously, picking up 1 rupee is so unsatisfying, especially when you're going for a 500, 200 or even a 100 rupee item. So, something like:
$9.99 - 100 rupees
$19.99 - 200 rupees
$29.99 - 500 rupees
Collecting empty bottles is also often unsatisfactory. Give me an option to buy 4 empty bottles from the start so I don't have to bother with that for the rest of the game.

Is it April Fool's Day?
 
When I was younger I probably wanted devs to listen to fan feedback more. Now I'm not so sure because for the maybe 5% that give good suggestions, the rest is all nonsense. Especially from Zelda fans.

I'm also still apprehensive about this open world in a Zelda game. Not necessarily something I felt like I needed, the 3D Zeldas always felt like open worlds to me?
 
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