Should Breath of the Wild 2 focus on open world more or go back to semi-linear design?

Go back to the old style or I'll be skipping it. BOTW had one of the most boring open worlds I've ever experienced in any game.

I would enjoy both. I would love a more dungeon focused one... but playing BotW on Master Mode was awesome. I guess to change it up, I hope there are more legit dungeons in this one... however the two designs are almost incompatible. So that would come at a cost, I'm aware.

focus on the open world.

The old zelda way was perfected with Twilight princess basically...but it's been done to death now.

BOTW, though excellent, still has a lot of room to grow and expand and explore from a gameplay standpoint.

I mean a basic thing they could look at for BOTW2 is rebuilding hyrule from the ruin it was in BOTW. rumour has it that they are re-using the BOTW1 map in BOTW2 which seems lazy initially but if they are going back to really flesh it out it could really pay off. they also have the basics of being able to let the player change the world within the games engine so that could be greatly expanded upon.

i dont see any reason why they can't have more big dungeons in it too but i dont want them to go back to the more structured setup of old zelda games.

The former, botw was dog shit, back with the old weapon system while their at it too.

You can basically treat any open-world game and play it in semi-linear. Just don't fall for the trap and by that, doing a bunch of fetch/side quest and stick to the main quest. As for the question, I'll take both and since this poll lacks "both" options, can't vote one over the other.

Focus on the open ended aspects I say.

The way Breath of the Wild tackled the open world was nothing short of genius. That sense of wonder and excitement is something I hadn't felt in a video game since I was young and full of imagination. If they can take what they did with the first game and build upon it, I may be lost in there forever.

I'm fine with open world, but I want my dungeons back

BOTW was one of the worst games ever made. Bland boring open world with weapons breaking after 2 hits.

They would have to do a complete overhaul of the open world and we know Nintendo is too cheap, lazy and incompetent to do that. They are so lazy they are cutting/pasting the BOTW map into the second game.

They are better off going back to a linear design without weapon breaking because at least then...the game won’t completely suck.

Nintendo doesn’t make high budget games. Nintendo doing open world is a bad idea because they refuse to put the resources into making an excellent open world.

They will never drop $100 Million+ With a 1000 people working on it to make an awesome game even though they could easily afford it.

No. They are scum and seek maximum profit which means barebones open world, 4 tiny dungeons and collecting 999 deku seeds to be rewarded with trash at the end of collecting them.

But reviewers and fanboys still gave it 11/10’s because “Zelda”.

BotW with more traditional Zelda dungeons would be amazing. They could have something like shrine challenges, but I want bigger dungeons as well.

Definitely go back to the more linear style... I couldn't get into BOTW mainly because of its open world design. I just found it too big and empty.

But sadly, I think Ninty will stick with the open world design :(

I’d be fine with either/or myself. BotW was a fantastic game and I had a great time playing through it twice, once on normal and the other in Master Mode. I also love the more linear Zelda games like Twilight Princess as well.

open world

Do you think Nintendo can accomplish both without making sacrifices on either side?

As much as I loved BotW, i'd love something a little tighter. The open world was fucking excellent, but the return of dungeons would be brilliant.

A middle-ground. They should continue building on the BOTW template, but maybe make the world a bit smaller and more tightly designed like old-school Zelda.

I didn't mind the open design but I wish they would give it more of the traditional dungeons.

this+maybe better engine

Build on the foundations laid down by BotW. They showed how well BotW's foundations could work. Now go wild with the idea.

Zelda was always somewhat open, but the conventions held it back all these years while other franchises just got bigger. It needs to be open, and for that matter, completely huge. Just realise the potential.

More of the same except proper dungeons, more world content, and let me build a farm or community somewhere.

Open world. Going back to the old formula is such a step backwards. I want that freedom of gameplay, not chasing macguffins that act as a key to open another part of the world. Come on, now.

The perfect game is literally just BOTW but drop weapon damage and figure out how to make dungeons work. The real ones, not the half-assed divine beast dungeons and torn apart shrines. Real, meaty, maze exploration with atmosphere and meaningful puzzle solving could easily be done with the engine.

Definitely go again with an open-world, BoTW had one of the very best open-world map ever put in a game so working on improving it even further is the logical next step.

Open world all the way. Zelda does open world's best.

They need dungeon regions, like Hyrule Castle.

Dungeons but play your way, explore your way. No more OOT formula.

How do you feel about the open world chests (rewards) and the breaking system/monsters dropping weapons?

My idea was that they keep monsters dropping weapons into the game, but once you hold/use a weapon for the first time you get its 'recipe' and you can fix it/craft a new one out of combat(!) with the right materials.

This preserves the need to switch weapons a lot, but also makes it so you don't have to worry as much about losing a cool weapon that you found. With a tighter open world it may be easier to assume people run into certain chests and have some of them contain unique weapons or some such.

I think this is a reasonably elegant solution because on MasterMode some of the coolest moments I had was due to weapons breaking mid-combat. (The DLC bosses in particular.) So it would be a shame if that system completely disappears.

Open world with less shrines, no divine beasts, and actual zelda style dungeons for me.

I'd like to see weapons last longer, but be far more rare too.

Weapons breaking was cool, it reminded me of ammo in an FPS. Doom would be kinda lame if you could just BFG through the hwole game.

That is not a bad idea. But I would also combine it with greater mob drops, to make players feel more encouraged to fight mobs rather than run away.

We're just going to complain either way. Just do the game well.

open world

BOTW is a solid game but the world was dead and uninspired.]

Whatever it does, it needs to go back to focusing on larger dungeons. Four simply was not enough.

Majora's Mask was my game of my life alongside Deus Ex and Goldeneye. I have yet to play as I don't want and dont have a switch. Will play on PC at some point. So over Open World just like after BLOPS 2 with FPS. I am actually sick of third person as well Uncharted, Horizon, God of War, Spiderman. Someone needs to step it up with a new genre or something.

Open world.

People get all panic-y whenever a game series does anything different, but it's not like they can't eventually make new games more similar to the older ones. I think BotW was a proven success, and a refreshing improvement to the series, and frankly I'd like to see the development team continue to expand on the ideas they introduced with that game. The younger developers took the reins with that game, and had so many ambitious ideas in mind that many of them couldn't even make it into the first game, hence why they jumped right into a sequel.

I would be fine with the game reusing the first map or being set somewhere other than Hyrule. Or even doing a little of both.

If the game does use the BotW map again, it would be interesting because they can show everything that has changed since the events of the first game. Or they could even do like a light world/dark world thing ala ALttP, OoS, OoA or OoT. Or up-heave the game play with reused assets similar to how they did in MM.

I love what everyone is saying about the dungeons, and I couldn't agree more. Shrines were fun for what they were in BotW, but one of the big things missing from the game were big dungeons with lots of rooms and puzzles, different kinds of monsters and bosses, and a brand new tool or weapon that Link could use. I can almost see Link and Zelda going spelunking and searching through ancient ruins on the outskirts of Hyrule in this one, based off of the teaser trailer. Maybe they would find ancient dungeons that way.

I also really think that, in addition to bringing back things like weapon durability, stamina, open-world exploration, cooking and different armors, this game could really add new gameplay features on top of what's there. I have been convinced that this game will feature both Link and Zelda as dual protagonists since the unveiling, and maybe playing as Zelda will open up different abilities or ways to play. I also imagine the game containing deep underwater exploration zones, or poisonous, dark, foggy areas that you can only explore for so long before being overcome by them, and needing to carry potions or build up a separate kind of stamina to survive in longer.

One thing I am almost certain we will see some greater focus on in BotW2 is story. BotW was a bit light on story, even by Zelda standards. I think, especially if Zelda is tagging along or starring in the game, we will see more communication and explanation for things.

They should work on making the weapons stronger than twigs. That would be a good start.

Agreed.

There were no "tactics" involved, your weapons would just break, you'd have to pause mid fight breaking the flow and switch over to an unbroken one.

Exciting.

Ain't that the truth. Either way, I'll play the game whatever route Nintendo takes it. All we ask is, do the game justice.

Open world for sure... I actually see them using the same map. But add about 7 more dungeons like Hyrule Castle with specialized items. This would give it a nice blend of new and traditional feel to it.

That would be interesting. Yea, I think that would be a good combination.

If it isn't even open world, that would be a major disappointment. The old Zeldas were great in their time, but now linear, walled in games feel archaic.

I think they should stick with the open world. BotW is just about the only open world game I have ever played that is actually better for being open world.

I tried getting into Breath of the Wild and played it for a good 10-12 hours before ultimately just not seeing what all the fuss was about. Which is why I chose keep it open world but make it better. Honestly, the game wasn't bad, it just got a little repetitive for me, and for that reason it kind of fell into a realm of mediocrity and got lost in a sea of other games that do the same.

I mean, the puzzles in the shrines were fun and all, but everything just looked a little too samey and played out after doing it for the 20th time and knowing a couple hundred more were laying around waiting. If they would have changed color palettes, textures, or something maybe it would have held my interest longer. I'm not saying I'm done with the game, but it's on a shelf with a couple thousand other "I'll get back to it someday" games.

Until that day arrives, my personal feelings albeit a short amount of play time will remain that the game is over rated. Who knows though, upon a revisit I may get that spark and see something I just didn't see before. It wouldn't be the first time.

For now A Link to the Past still holds my all time favorite Zelda game title, and I hope that they release a game that I can say I feel truly surpasses that. Whether it be open world or not.

If anything, I would say the majority of Zelda games are more open world than linear. In fact, on console they were some of the first games to do so on such a scale, but they were limited to space on the chips and worked with what they had at the time.

No going back. OPEN WORLD WAHOO!!!

Breath of the Wild was a nice change of pace. But the dungeons/divine beasts were really bad and need the most attention. As soon as the sense of discovery/open world was uncovered fully, the game has nothing else to show for it.

I actually really liked Wind waker.

Why though? Bigger isn't always better. There's no point making a massive open world game that is lifeless and empty (which a lot of BOTW was to me). If Nintendo shrunk that world by a third (or even a quarter), it'd have been a much better game and a lot more focused in my opinion.

As I get older, I just can't play games that don't respect your time. Running around mostly empty worlds in games just isn't appealing to me. That's me, anyway.

Breath of the Wild is one of the greatest open world games I've ever played ... But I'm not in a hurry to get back to it after playing the game for so many hours so I wouldn't mind a more plot focused game on the BOTW universe ...

I don't know that it should necessarily be more linear, but it's core gameplay loop should be different from BotW. It should be the Majora's Mask to BotW's Ocarina of Time.

Don't follow the BotW template again until the Switch successor comes out.