
A Chat with the Directors of the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - duck
http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/11/14881076/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild-nintendo-interview
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danielbln
I hope this marks a turn in the trend of ridiculous handholding, drawn out
tutorial sections and checklists upon checklists that have become so prevalent
in open world games.

BotW is doing an amazing job of just letting me explore and figure out stuff
out on my own, without spoon feeding me content like I'm a 6 year old who's
using a controller for the first time, or shoving a billion achievements/map
markers in my face.

I look forward seeing to what other devs learn from BotW and incorporate in
their own games.

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xeonoex
Agreed. For a period of time I had found that single player games were
becoming very easy, repetitive, and became stale after a few hours. They were
also getting shorter and started charging for DLC, even when the game could be
completed in less than 10 hours when released. I think appealing to casual
gamers was a factor, along with profit. I started mostly just playing more
competitive multiplayer games.

Now, it seems that games are trending back to being more challenging and
rewarding. Dark Souls restored my hope for single player games. It was
challenging, deep, and the combat system was very fun and flexible. I rarely
replay single player games. Before Dark Souls, the last single player game I
played through multiple times was Resident Evil 4. I probably spent 100 hours
playing Dark Souls. BOTW isn't Dark Souls, but there are a lot of
similarities.

I now have a backlog of newer single player games I need to beat, but
unfortunately it's a lot harder to find the time now. I really hope the trend
continues.

I wonder if casual gamers moving migrating to mobile platforms had something
to do with the trend change.

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tarr11
My favorite part of BOTW is the villages. I recognize this isn't really
something new to the franchise, but with the recipe system, it adds a new
dimension.

I play with my kids, and my daughter loves to wander around and talk to
villagers, discover side quests, look at items in the shops and cook new
items.

My son mostly skips past them and roams around solving big quests and fighting
enemies.

I think the weakest part of the game is the Hyrule Compendium, which doesn't
really feel very well integrated into the game, and feels like it was added at
a late stage, based on the success of Pokemon Go.

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EtienneK
The compendium is very helpful when grinding for certain ingredients. Without
it, I would have never been able to upgrade some of my armour sets.

