Is The Legend of Zelda Series Ready To Be Open World?

Power Up Gaming writes - When the trailer for the new Legend of Zelda game appeared, most people got pretty hyped pretty quickly. Not only was the game visually stunning, with some fantastic action and environment design, it also promised to be bigger, more open world, in this case. For people who were fans of the vast exploration qualities of open world games such as The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Dark Souls, and others, this was news that made that hype a thousand times better. However, it does beg the question: is The Legend of Zelda ready to become an open world experience?

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

*Facepalm*

The Legend of Zelda STARTED as an open-world game back on the NES.
So I'd say it's not really about whether Zelda's "ready to become open world".
It's more about whether Zelda is "ready to return to being more open world, like the first game was."

[nevin1]

Isn't Ocarina of Time open-world?

[EcoSos3]

Nope it only felt that way because you travel to one side to the other and you could do some events out of order. But you still had to do the temples in order except for like two of them, ALBW was more open world the only thing only holding you back was the money to buy the items.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

Only in the sense that you can travel across Hyrule in full 3D.
The structure of it, however, is a lot more linear.
There's a set order to the dungeons, and the only real way to do any of them out-of-order, is to go into the latest one, grab the key item from it, then abandon doing it early.
And that doesn't always work.
When people think "open world", it is usually implying a game where you can go where you want and do what you want, in almost any order, outside of set instances where areas are locked behind story or won't open without specific items.
Think Skyrim; you could go anywhere and do almost anything. You didn't need to visit the majority of the areas in the game at any set specific time; you could go early or late, and barring areas tied to specific items or bits of story or progression, you weren't really limited in what you could see and do at any point.

Same with Xenoblade Chronicles X; anywhere you could see, you could most likely travel, outside of specific instances or if it was too high up and you didn't have a flight-capable robot.

[NotEvenMyFinalForm]

It's not like in games like GTA, Fallout or Skyrim you can jump straight to the end, do whatever and beat the game. You still have to follow an order, met some conditions and go from point A to B.

Most of the time, if not always, the progression in open-world games it's actually very repetitive and boring tho. Because in order to allow you some freedom what they tend to do it's give you a list of quests that as you go beating them new more difficult ones appear, but most of the time more than half the quests are just pointless fetch quests. Meanwhile the main quests and the quests with big rewards always require you to follow an order and meet conditions.

[clouds5]

Yes it basically is. It has its limitations because of the hardware at the time but other than that it's as open world as games get. What people tend to forget, most story based open world games are still very linear.

[NukaCola]

All Zelda games are open world but Hyrule is a hub for the spokes of dungeons and subworlds in the kingdom and you can see that in titles like ocarina of Time which is one of the most "closed worlds". But Zelda started fully open world on NES and continued that this whole time. I don't know fi they mean that this new Zelda will have more content all around this time with abundant "side missions" which is something Zelda games aren't filled with like other RPGs.

[LOL_WUT]

They seriously need to give these characters a voice ;)

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

Excuse me, princess.
*Mic drop*

[SavageFlamingo]

I'm not too sure about that. I like leaving the voices of the character to the imagination. Kinda feels like reading a book for me.

[gamerb6]

The characters are all having voices apart from link. Have you been living under a rock or something?

[_-EDMIX-_]

Agreed if anyone knows Nintendo IP's it's this man .

The Zelda series has always been open world it is one of the pioneer open world games and for someone to write an article questioning if the series should go open world is truly a shame. if you're going to write about games at least know the damn history of them for someone to write an article saying something so stupid they should get their gamer card revoked!!!

All someone has to do is just read it Wiki on Zelda to know of its history of being open world. If you take the first to Zelda's and put them into 3D exactly what do you think you'll get? Are you guys seriously joking?

[Germany7]

Exactly.
Next!

[343_Guilty_Spark]

I hope not. Open world doesn't automatically make things better.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

True, but at the same time, the original Legend of Zelda on the NES was an open world game.
Didn't hurt it any.
If anything, it set a standard that only grew from there, for many other IP's.

[Segata]

huh? Zelda NES is open world. WW was open. Many of the handheld versions.

[Sly-Lupin]

Depends on how strict you define "open world." Defined strictly, I can't think of a single "open world" game that's 100% fully open-world. Even LoZ transitions the player between segregate areas that don't exist on the same map--that there's no big loading screen at the bifurcation is irrelevant. Same for the subsequent top-down Zeldas that pan the camera from small area to small area.

A truly open world would be like... imagine if The Witcher 3 was just Velen/Novigrad. No other areas. All of the interior and exterior environments seamlessly cohered.

It's more appropriate to say that Zelda games have--from day one--very deliberately worked very hard to sustain the illusion of an open-world environment. In fact, I'd call that the single defining trait of the series.

[Segata]

I define it by literal definition. Wind Waker you could go anywhere. Zelda NES same thing but tackle dungeons in any order. There is Regional World games like Xenoblade Wii and Dragon Age Inquisition. Big World games like Zelda Twilight Princess.

[_-EDMIX-_]

"A truly open world would be like... imagine if The Witcher 3"

? You can be open to a degree yes, but open world, is open world. No matter the degree of.

Zelda is one of the pioneer series to even do the open world layout. I've heard folks say "linear" or "non linear" all those are pretty irrelevant.

Open world again just means just that....an open world setting, structure isn't really THAT much defined in open world for us to really say something like " interior and exterior environments seamlessly cohered. " lol

Do you not get that by you're logic Open world then is only a small amount of game to ever release? I don't think its that exact and I think the author needs to read up on some gaming history.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

A better example might be Xenoblade Chronicles X.

The only time there's any sort of loading screen is when teleporting; other than that, the barracks, the very last area that you can only enter once, and cut-scenes, every single location in the game is transition-free, even when traveling between entirely different continents.

[Sly-Lupin]

...Yes, I do realize that "by my logic" only a small number of games are truly open world. Congratulations: you cleverly discovered the point I was making.

...Yet somehow missed the *other* point that "open world" is not a strictly defined term, and encompasses a great many games that only approximate open worlds (like the original Zelda).

[Sly-Lupin]

This is even dumber than the supposed fans questioning whether or not Zelda is "ready" to become an RPG. Since day one, folks. Since day one.

[gamerb6]

Is the pope catholic?

[KentBenMei]

This is one series which can definitely be better with open world. LoZ was arguably an open-world game, so it fits to go back that way. I hate when it is tacked onto a series like Metal Gear and Final Fantasy, though.

[Aquietguy]

I think Zelda has more than enough openness to it. The games have always been about exploring dungeons. To change that is to change the very nature of what Zelda is. Create another IP if need be but leave Zelda to what it is.