Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom ‘was delayed by over a year for polish’

The game wasn't released in 2022 because Nintendo wanted 'to make sure everything was 100 percent to our standards'

[lukasmain]

Well done Nintendo. I applaud you.

MS could have done that with Redfall but no... Phil wanted to push an unfinished mediocre game out, charge gamers $70 for it, apologize for it and then announce a new Xbox showcase. All in the same week. He knew full well it wasn't up to scratch. He just dangled a shiny new showcase carrot in front of everyone. He acts like he cares, but I have a feeling that he just knows how to manipulate the masses in regards to stuff like this. He's done it before. Sony isn't perfect either and niether is Nintendo. But this recent Redfall fiasco really opened a lot of people's eyes.

It's good to know that Nintendo will go to every length to make sure their 1st party games will release in as best shape as they can. Well done

[__SteakDeck__]

TBF. MS did delay Starfield by a year.

[lukasmain]

Yes very true. But why not Redfall? I know what Phil said, but they have the moeny to delay something and at least release it in the bests shape possible. I mean come on... Not even 60 fps, still working on removing the online only for single player? Clearly the game needed more time. Phil can say whatever he wants, but he F'ed the Xbox faithful on that one. Why not just delay it more like Starfield? Just a sad state of affairs.

I do have faith in Starfield though. I would be shocked if that game released in a bad way.

[I_am_Batman]

Goes to show how much passion there was for this game at Nintendo. Let this be a lesson for other publishers.

[jznrpg]

Many games get delayed for the same reason but turn out crappy.

Nintendo does a good job overall but it will be harder for them as they delve into higher end graphics ,AI, physics and just overall bigger games. ToTK is 18.2 GB . Most of my PS5 games are triple that and some close to ten times that.

It may take 2 more generations for them to get their if they are going to skip console only.

But with MS all but bowing out of the console business maybe they go handheld and console seperate again.

A delayed game isn’t necessarily a good game as MS has proven more than a few times.

Hopefully Nintendo keeps doing a good job as they go into higher tech.

[lio_convoy]

Higher res textures and more MP3 files for audio take up a huge chunk of that "triple the size". Coding is coding. The text files that the coding is, really isn't that large. It's the assets themselves.

[Tapani]

While I agree it will take time for Nintendo to get up to speed to have their games graphically at around PS4 standards with their next console, I do also wonder which is harder: Making a game like TotK with a robust physics engine running on Switch or leveling up in general the graphics to a whole new level.

I'd say they are about the same in terms of difficulty. I also think that Nintendo is holding back with some of the higher res assets already at this stage.

By simply bumping up the fps from 30 to 60, resolution from 720p to 1080p handheld / 1080p upscaled to 4K docked mode, utilizing the higher res internal assets, and finally after that making games have a bit more overall graphical fidelity and complexity, they should be already maxing out their next Tegra chip. If they combine that with an OLED screen, the overall experience would be already phenomenal for a handheld.

[--Onilink--]

In terms of making games more complex games, physics, interactivity, etc, Nintendo is already way ahead almost everyone in the AAA space with TOTK, even when running on the pocket calculator called the Switch CPU, so I’m not really worried there. Its honestly crazy just how many CPU related systems they have working in conjunction on top of their existing physics and elemental systems, while remaining incredibly consistent and error free

Yes, it might take them a while to catch up on graphical stuff and update their engines, but on everything else they seem pretty well setup.

One thing I do wonder while playing TOTK is just how much of this is possible design wise in much more robust graphical environments? Yes, many things will look that much better, but a lot of the discovery, exploration and “invisible handholding” that Nintendo has in their world design somewhat relies on the simplicity of the graphics allowing the player to more easily see those desired points of interest, its probably not a coincidence that other games on more modern consoles have had to rely on coloring interactive stuff or using “detective vision” and the like. Its going to be interesting to see how Nintendo solves that in the future

[I_am_Batman]

"Many games get delayed for the same reason but turn out crappy."

No amount of delays will help a soulless project, that was created by focus testing rather than genuine passion about an original idea. That is part of the lesson that other publishers can learn from this. You can have all the analytics in the world and determine that on paper a particular type of game should hit the Zeitgeist and have a high likelyhood of success, but if the people working on the game are not excited about the project, you can't expect a good result.

There is a process from the inception of an idea, to a shipped product that had to go right in this case and everyone involved had to be on the same page and understand what they had on their hands.

If a publisher doesn't have it's priorities in order and has no intuition on which projects to greenlight, doesn't understand how to cultivate high standards and aid developers to achive those standards, we are talking about much deeper problems than simply giving a potentially great game a little more time in the oven.

But sadly, even games that have the potential to be great are rushed out in an unfinished state, when just a couple more months of polish could've turned a rough diamond into a masterpiece. Granted, the increasing complexity of games makes the QA process more complicated, but there are ways to deal with that. Launching an early access version as a full retail version of the game is not one of them.

[Imalwaysright]

Higher end physics? BoTW and TotK embarrass most games on far more powerful consoles when it comes to physics.

[lio_convoy]

Kinda wish Pokemon Violet would've been too...

[Imalwaysright]

Pokemon games are developed by Game Freak and the IP is owned by 3 companies: Game Freak, Nintendo and Creatures. If Nintendo had full control over Pokemon games I'm sure that they would have higher standards.

[FalcorMononoke]

Honestly, this is the level of pride and dignity I expect to see exhibited by Nintendo. None of the games from the Wii and earlier eras were anything less than perfectly polished. The WiiU was when things started to struggle a bit and 90% of their Switch releases have been totally on point.

[Chard]

It seems pretty great so far. I’m not far in but even just getting to the Wind Temple felt more memorable than anything from the last three Zelda games

[HyperMoused]

What do the Polish have to do with Zelda this is crazy talk.

[merlox]

The game needs more work. The games video is jittery in places to where it can be unplayable. The frame rate can also be horrible at times. Just quit giving Nintendo a pass on games that need more work or are sub par.

[lucian229]

Yet it's still a blurry mess and runs poorly lmao

[Nintentional]

Says the guy that’s never played it.

[lucian229]

says the guy with the name Nintendo in it; yes i played BOTW and beat it; pathetically easy game with poor enemy variety. rest of game was fun but what i saw with totk the visuals are the same

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Good stuff nintendo.