The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

[Below2D]

Not sure why there isn't a thread about this game? Sure, it's not pushing any graphical boundaries but the physics and interactivity are quite mind-blowing, especially considering the limited hardware. It's closer to something like Teardown and Minecraft which in my opinion we need more of. From an ex Naughty Dog developer:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1658185746958929920

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1658189298192244736

Anyone else playing it? I'm a couple of hours in and thoroughly enjoying myself.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It's easy to do when a developer cares more about gameplay than graphics which can't be said for most PS and Xbox developers.

Regards,
SB

 

[iroboto]

It's easy to do when a developer cares more about gameplay than graphics which can't be said for most PS and Xbox developers.

Regards,
SB

No. This is hella hard dude. Lol

Reminds me when we had the rope physics discussion and TLOU2 came up
Take that and amp it up several times.

What they accomplished with such a weak CPU is impressive. The fact that you can have such physics based interaction in an open world is insane. Just think about all the intersections calculations you have to check for

The other challenge of course is the graphical portion. Having this amount of random interactivity requires a very robust graphical system as well if you don’t want graphics that look cell shaded. You are going to need something a little more nuanced. But you are right most of that cpu is being put towards graphics instead of gameplay.

 

[iroboto]

Not sure why there isn't a thread about this game? Sure, it's not pushing any graphical boundaries but the physics and interactivity are quite mind-blowing, especially considering the limited hardware. It's closer to something like Teardown and Minecraft which in my opinion we need more of. From an ex Naughty Dog developer:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1658185746958929920

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1658189298192244736

Anyone else playing it? I'm a couple of hours in and thoroughly enjoying myself.

Ahh I will get it eventually. Just stuck on wanting to play Diablo. This looks incredible though.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

No. This is hella hard dude. Lol

Reminds me when we had the rope physics discussion and TLOU2 came up
Take that and amp it up several times.

What they accomplished with such a weak CPU is impressive. The fact that you can have such physics based interaction in an open world is insane. Just think about all the intersections calculations you have to check for

The other challenge of course is the graphical portion. Having this amount of random interactivity requires a very robust graphical system as well if you don’t want graphics that look cell shaded. You are going to need something a little more nuanced. But you are right most of that cpu is being put towards graphics instead of gameplay.

And yet despite that physics based gameplay was far more prevalent on weaker CPUs (PS3/X360 generation) than it is on modern CPU based consoles.

Physics based gameplay is far more common and far more expansive in the indie developer scene and runs on far weaker CPUs than what is in the current gen consoles. We have entire games whose entire gameplay loop and world building is physics based. And they are all capable of running well on far weaker CPUs than the current gen consoles.

Anything even remotely similar is non-existent in PS/Xbox AAA games. Why? Because AAA games are sold based on how they look, not how they play. Thus physics isn't really something that any AAA game developer for PS or Xbox can afford to dedicate much time to except for maybe Sony and MS studios, but even they are far more focused on graphics and only do minor improvements to gameplay systems over 3rd party developers.

If they focused less on graphics and more on gameplay systems, something like what is in the new Legend of Zelda game would be fairly common. The Legend of Zelda developers have the luxury of their first and most important focus being on gameplay and gameplay systems. Graphics are then tailored to whatever gameplay systems they decide to implement. That's a complete 180 from PS and Xbox game development where graphics is the most important focus and then you try to get gameplay to work within the graphics focus of the game.

And thus you can see how modern AAA games do so many less interesting things WRT gameplay than the PS3/X360 generation. Until that hyper focus on graphics changes in the AAA space on PS and Xbox, you'll never see anything remotely like what we got in the latest Legend of Zelda made by any PS or Xbox AAA developer no matter how powerful of a CPU they get access to.

Regards,
SB

 

[DSoup]

I bought and played Breath of the Wild on Switch's launch and couldn't get into it. It's a technical marvel for the hardware, but I'm in a minority who couldn't get into the game. As John Linneman said in a recent DF Direct, the game often feels a bit aimless. I played BoTW enough to free Vah Ruta, grab the Master Sword, buy and kit out my house and get the Bokoblin Mask.

I may try Tears of the Kingdom but I'm in no rush.

 

[Below2D]

I bought and played Breath of the Wild on Switch's launch and couldn't get into it. It's a technical marvel for the hardware, but I'm in a minority who couldn't get into the game. As John Linneman said in a recent DF Direct, the game often feels a bit aimless. I played BoTW enough to free Vah Ruta, grab the Master Sword, buy and kit out my house and get the Bokoblin Mask.

I may try Tears of the Kingdom but I'm in no rush.

Lots of people feel this way. The game does feel a bit...empty and aimless at times where you just wander around for hours looking for something to do. It's not like say, Elden Ring where there is something interest every couple of dozens of meters.

This game does remedy a lot of that though. It feels fuller than BOTW.

 

[Pressure]

I'm already 100+ hours into the game ... damn the scope alone compared to BOTW is mind breaking! Without going into spoilers I thought it was great they finally had caves again but holy f...!

The exploration alone is worth the price of admission and that's just barely scratching the surface

The world also seems much more alive with a lot more NPCs having purpose and many not just being stationary.

I'm incapable of following a single quest as I am getting distracted all the time.