The Legend of Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma has again commented on the possibility of revisiting the style of past entries in the series – but there are no plans as of now. Speaking with RTL Nieuws, Aonuma said that games like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were possible because of what came before them. However,...
This is actually a solved problem and it’s kind of a bummer neither open world Zelda went for it.
In the 2008 Prince of Persia game, there were four major zones themed around the four secondary antagonists that you were allowed to complete in any order. Each one had a special kind of hazard in their zone that would make platforming harder, such as the Alchemist who created poison clouds you had to rush quickly through before suffocating. Once you defeat the Alchemist and purify his region of the world, every region that’s still corrupted now adds his poison clouds to its list of hazards. So as you progress through the game, the remaining portions of it steadily intensify how hostile they are to navigate. You have a steady platforming difficulty curve no matter which order you progress in.
So let’s imagine Breath of the Wild with a similar system. Drive the Windblight out from Medoh and now the rest of the world integrates cannons and drones, drive the Fireblight out of Rudania and now the rest of the world integrates flaming weapons magical barriers, drive the Waterblight out of Ruta and the rest of the world integrates ice hazards and throwing spears, drive the Thunderblight out of Naboris and now the rest of the world integrates teleportation and lightning rods. With each defeated Blight Ganon, their essence is reabsorbed into Calamity Ganon who distributes their knowledge and skills throughout his robot and monster armies and, most importantly, the remaining Divine Beasts and Hyrule Castle.
On the creative end, it means design every level with the assumption of being the full complexity version and then remove puzzles and challenges that don’t apply. It’s a bigger challenge than designing each as the minimum complexity version as they did but I believe they’re up for it and it’s not like there are many levels to begin with.
This is actually a solved problem and it’s kind of a bummer neither open world Zelda went for it.
In the 2008 Prince of Persia game, there were four major zones themed around the four secondary antagonists that you were allowed to complete in any order. Each one had a special kind of hazard in their zone that would make platforming harder, such as the Alchemist who created poison clouds you had to rush quickly through before suffocating. Once you defeat the Alchemist and purify his region of the world, every region that’s still corrupted now adds his poison clouds to its list of hazards. So as you progress through the game, the remaining portions of it steadily intensify how hostile they are to navigate. You have a steady platforming difficulty curve no matter which order you progress in.
So let’s imagine Breath of the Wild with a similar system. Drive the Windblight out from Medoh and now the rest of the world integrates cannons and drones, drive the Fireblight out of Rudania and now the rest of the world integrates flaming weapons magical barriers, drive the Waterblight out of Ruta and the rest of the world integrates ice hazards and throwing spears, drive the Thunderblight out of Naboris and now the rest of the world integrates teleportation and lightning rods. With each defeated Blight Ganon, their essence is reabsorbed into Calamity Ganon who distributes their knowledge and skills throughout his robot and monster armies and, most importantly, the remaining Divine Beasts and Hyrule Castle.
On the creative end, it means design every level with the assumption of being the full complexity version and then remove puzzles and challenges that don’t apply. It’s a bigger challenge than designing each as the minimum complexity version as they did but I believe they’re up for it and it’s not like there are many levels to begin with.