Particularly when applied to the upcoming Zelda title on the Wii U.
When Eiji Aonuma revealed the new Zelda for the Wii U, the most celebrated piece of information was the new level of freedom promised. The idea was for the new Zelda to be a return to the ‘open’ nature of the first game, which allowed players far more freedom to explore. The term ‘open world’ was tossed around, leading many fans to wonder if the new Zelda would have more in common with Skyrim than, say, Skyward Sword.
According to Miyamoto, that remains a goal for the new Zelda, but we should be careful with how we use the term ‘open world’
“I prefer not to use the generally used term “open world” when developing software,” he explained, “but we used this term in order to make it easier for consumers to understand. This term means that there is a large world in which players can do numerous things daily. In the traditional “The Legend of Zelda” series, the player would play one dungeon at a time. For example, if there are eight dungeons, at the fourth dungeon, some players may think, “I’m already halfway through the game,” while other players may think, “I still have half of the game to play.” We are trying to gradually break down such mechanism and develop a game style in which you can enjoy “The Legend of Zelda” freely in a vast world, whenever you find the time to do so.”
It’s an interesting distinction to make even if, at first glance, it seems like splitting hairs. I think most gamers, particularly Zelda fans, understand that the new Zelda won’t be open world to the scale of certain RPGs like The Elder Scrolls series. I think what most of us are hoping for is a little less handholding, and a little more freedom to find our own path. Not quite Dark Souls, but not a slow grind of tutorials like the kind seen in Skyward Sword either.
Personally, I saw A Link Between Worlds as a small step forward. Just having the freedom to tackle certain dungeons in any order you chose was a breath of fresh air. Can’t wait to see what lessons have been learned from that little experiment.
Via VG247
Comments
23 responses to “Miyamoto Doesn’t Like The Term ‘Open World’”
Zelda with Dark Souls combat and difficulty ploz
No offence, but that’s f*cking retarded and you know it.
Dark Souls difficulty works because the setting and mechanics of the game reward that kind of play by not punishing you too much for dying and by rewarding the grind.
Even an exact replica of Dark Souls mechanics set in the Zelda universe would in all likelihood come across and cruel, unusual and ultimately frustrating.
Putting Dark Souls style difficult in anything like the existing Zelda mechanics would make for one of the most infuriating, monotonous grinds in gaming history.
I disagree. Gimme a hard Zelda game with difficult and rewarding combat. Even if it’s a super hard mode unlocked after you beat the game. Nothing but water temples.
Hard puzzles and hard combat (Dark Souls style) are two very difficult things.
The Water Temple did a lot of heads in, but spending 20 minutes trying to pass the first Deku Bush is going to make people very f*cking angry.
The games are too different in theme and structure to make the difficulties interchangeable.
I’m cool with a harder Zelda game, or even an ‘impossible’ bonus mode or something similar, but cranking it up to Dark Souls levels and structuring the core game around it would ruin everything.
I’m surprised by your reaction. I’d agree with the point that it’s the wrong direction for the Zelda IP, as it would be out of character. You raise some points about it being difficult or monotonous, but you’re forgetting the context of the suggestion was asking for a game of Dark Souls difficulty from Nintendo – it wouldn’t have those design problems. IMO Zelda’s design really isn’t a far cry from that of Dark Souls and, with some design concessions, a difficult Zelda could be fantastic.
I’d say Dark Souls difficulty works more because it lets a bunch of people who think they’re real good at video games stroke their epeens all day, which is what they want. Although normal people will likely stop playing because they will recognize it for the storyless grindfest with no real difficulty curve – which is just bad game design.
This post is almost criminally incorrect.
lel the first half is true as all heck, the second is subjective obviously but you hit the nail on the head for a alot of souls fans, read: nerd losers
Miyamoto doesn’t like the term ’21st century’.
Nintendo doesn’t like being compared to other video game companies, because they only know how to make the same thing over and over again with a higher resolution.
Which is a perfectly fine business model because they are not trying to sell games to you, they would probably rather you didn’t buy their games, because they have always been about selling games to children. They are an ageless corporate entity selling products to a never ending stream of juvenile humans, as long as the gameplay is fresh from the perspective of a noob they succeed.
Yeah it’s not like Naughty Dog (Uncharted/ Last of US) would do that, or Santa Monica Studios (God of War collection), Microsoft (Halo Xbox One collection), Square Enix (Final Fantasy) Capcom (Street Fighter and Resident Evil), UBI Soft (Assassins Creed, Far Cry), Rockstar (GTA), Polyphony Digital (GT), Guerrilla Games (Killzone) or Crytek (Crysis) would do anything like that.
Look around you and understand that just about every games company is doing that and to point out only Nintendo for doing it makes you look like an ass.
I wouldn’t consider ‘New Super Mario Bros WiiU’ to be as legitimate a sequel as games such as Uncharted 4, MGS5, Grand Theft Auto 5 or Assassins Creed 5.
Why? Because YOU don’t like playing it? Well that’s fine, you don’t have to – there are plenty of others that do and love it.
More like, because they are narritive based games, and not the exact same storyless game with nicer graphics.
New Super Mario Bros Wii U belongs in the family of 2d Mario games, Super Mario 1, 2, 3 and Super Mario World, it’s a sequel (or evolution, four player game play) to those games.
For just about three generations Nintendo made only 3D entry’s in the Mario series on there main consoles, N64 (Mario 64), Game Cube (Mario Sunshine), Wii (Mario galaxy 1 and 2) it wasn’t until late in the Wii’s life cycle that they made New Super Mario Bros, it’s not like they were making 2D Mario games every generation on there home consoles.
Either way, HD remasters / upgrades, sequels and milking of franchises, just about every game company out there today does it, and just to point out one of them and criticize them for doing it is just being short sighted and close minded.
SOme of those games are story based though… so it isn’t quite the same as a rehashed graphics upgrade every 2 years.
I wish Nintendo would stop talking about video games
Oh man, the number of downvotes in this thread is hilarious. All because some people dare criticise Nintendo.
It’s not because they dare to criticize, it’s because there criticisms are poor.
And you listing a bunch of other games companies that don’t innovate either is a poor argument as well. Especially when some of them are series that already deservedly cop a lot of flak, like Assassin’s Creed.
Stagnation and a focus on sequels and remakes is a curse on the modern games industry. Nintendo deserve to be criticised for it (as do most publishers), but they do tend to cop it a bit more due to the fact their core business model is built on it (SSB, Mario/Mario Kart, Zelda).
I’ll give Nintendo a lot of credit for some of their innovative new hardware. Look at the Wii (the Wii U notwithstanding). But their software doesn’t really follow suit. The problem is compounded when basically no third party developers want to make titles for Nintendo systems.
Also, I’d like to mention that I rarely see downvotes in other threads that criticise a game/system, unless those comments are much worse than what I see here. It’s quite funny seeing such vigorous defense of Nintendo.
For what it’s worth, my two first consoles were the SNES and N64 and I loved them, so I’m not a “hater”.
Really?
rivan said.
I simply pointed out that they are not the only ones that do that.
Yes they do, but to make a comment targeting only them and willfully pretending that the rest of the game industry does not participate in the same bullshit is just flat out wrong, which is what people who bash Nintendo do.
They are the only company that comes out with a new controller each generation to try and change the way we play games, Sony and Microsoft have not changed there core controller design for many generations, most people would say “if it ain’t broken why fix it” to me that just a cop out, we need different input devices to change the way we play games and to inspire new ideas, which game developers are sorely in need of.
Did you play any Wii games? there are heaps that used the Wii mote in creative and interesting ways.
When given the option of doing something new and creative or churning out generic fps / tps 257, which do you think the third party’s will choose? and which do you think will sell on a Nintendo console?
That’s because most of the negative comments about Nintendo are pathetic and ill informed.
He doesn’t want to use the term “Open World” because it’s going to be the same format as every other Zelda game, just got to accept that. I’m not going to get my hopes up on this one…