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@Fenbops heh, I've been doing the same and I don't even have an XBox 😂
I just freaking love controllers lol 😃

@InterceptorAlpha yeah the Anthem comparison seems quite apt, let's hope the end result is different though lol

Personally I don't play a lot of multiplayer games so I'm not the right person to judge their value as I don't know them very well, but the ones I really like are Splatoon 2 and Titanfall 2, as they're fast, quite simple to grasp, and let me have fun even though I'm terrible at playing them lol

@NEStalgia ahahahah that's right, my bad 😂

To be honest I was so underwhelmed with that reveal I kinda zoned out and I just remember it as this bland mass of buzzwords, compared to what Arkane usually delivers lol

You gotta love the video game industry.

Management: "so this Arkane studio we have, what are they good at?"

"They usually create outstanding single player immersive sims with deep lore and worldbuilding, not the kind of explosion-heavy blockbuster that sells 10+ million copies, but a more nuanced experience that enthusiasts cannot get enough of"

"What is popular now?"

"Eeeeehhhh....zombies, I guess? Or maybe not anymore? Anyway, 4-player shooty stuff with zombies I think..."

"Shooting is in. Make a market analysis, see if zombies are still popular.
Otherwise, throw some vampires or something in there, I don't care."

Back to BOTW, the physics engine is so bonkers they claim to have a chemistry engine in there, and there's some truth to that.
Everything in the game is systemic, which means everything can and will interact with everything else, whether with your input or without.
Metal attracting lightning, fire being spread by wind, fire creating updrafts, electricity interacting with water, rain making rock slippery, Link being freaking colder or hotter whether you stand in direct sun or in the shadow, a few centimeters apart. Equipping fire weapons also raises Link's body temperature, and vice versa for ice weapons.
These are some examples off the top of my head, but I haven't played it in a while and I'm sure I left out some systems wholesale.
All of this is why it's so fun to experiment with the world and the elements of this game 😃

The freeform climbing, while certainly not a first, is another big one, and it loops back on the world design and the focus on verticality and freeform exploration.
Side quests are not exceptional, they're pretty basic in fact, but they were mostly worth it for me because they usually don't boil down to "follow a road/teleport to a map marker", but often give you an image or a description of the place you need to find.
Isn't that why more interesting than mindlessly going through the motions?

And lastly, the story.
Yeah, it's a weird one and if you don't like it, I totally get it.
I'm not a big fan myself, but as I said, story isn't very important to me in a Zelda game.
What is really interesting and innovative about it is the fact that you can access it at your own pace and in any order, just like everything else in the game.
That is what sets it apart from conventional open world stories.
Open worlds should be all about exploring, and BOTW is, so it's cool to stumble upon story moments just like you would a shrine, or an enemy camp, or whatever.
Again, the story itself is nothing special and I get why some people don't like it and even how it's told, but the way it's delivered is perfectly harmonious with how the whole game is structured, as opposed to being a linear one spread around a huge map.

All this is not to say BOTW is perfect, far from it.
What it does well, though, it does in a way no other game does, and I hope the open world games devs take note and finally deliver some interesting world to actually explore.
Hope I could answer your curiosity, I'm curious to know what you think about it 😃

@BlueOcean #29 yeah OOT has a perfectly serviceable story, I'm not criticizing it in the slightest; it's just that I wouldn't say it's the centerpiece of the game, and what made it the revolutionary masterpiece it was/is, nor is it in any game of the series (except for Majora's Mask probably).

#33 basically everything, to be honest.
The handcrafted layout of the world, which generates some kind of question/intrigue behind pretty much every corner; in other worlds it's one of the few games where running around is actually fun and not just following a line on a minimap for a stretch of nothing in between markers, because planning a road to the objective and getting constantly sidetracked by little things that pique my curiosity is exactly the kind of fun that exploration done well delivers to me.

On the topic of map markers, well, you make your own by reaching high ground, spotting something interesting, and "pinning" it yourself.
The towers don't give you a load of meaningless chores, they simply give you a better understanding of your surroundings, which ties in with the glider that we've seen now pop up all over the place in open world games, and for good reason.
Blindly riving a car or riding a horse for minutes at a time until the next quest just isn't fun to me, it's not engaging.
Flying is even more boring, as it's an even straighter line.
That's why I prefer games like inFamous, Sunset Overdrive and Saints Row 4, because they all follow the same formulaic, boring structure, but at least they have some actually interesting gameplay in the traversal.

Part 2 below, it's a long one lol
Hope the mods don't mind 😉

@LtSarge I completely disagree.
Just like no other open world has managed the same level of physics and interaction as BOTW, none has found a way to integrate the story into the structure. Outer Wilds is the other one and managed it way better than BOTW, but that's understandable cause story is everything in that game.
You may not like how BOTW handled it, but it's the only way anyone has made a narrative that fits the open world format to a T.
Every other open world is a linear story with a bunch of copypasted markers spread around a huge map, that's it.

I haven't played Horizon so maybe it isn't like that, but from what I've seen it seems to work pretty much like TW3, Skyrim, inFamous, GTA, Sunset Overdrive, etc. etc..

Regarding story, I don't know, Zelda stories have always been super simple and generic, save for Link's Awakening and Majora's Mask, the only two that actually did something different from the usual setup.
But OOT isn't regarded as well as it is for its story, as is the series in general. Skyward Sword had a good one for Zelda standards, but that's it.

Nintendo has never been interested in telling stories, and I don't expect them to ever change that, at least in their tentpole franchises.
They have Fire Emblem and Xenoblade for that 😃

@LtSarge there wasn't for BOTW either.
You may not like the story (which is certainly not BOTW's strongest point, but was never the focus in Zelda games to begin with), but how is it compromised? It was clearly intentionally set up that way to better fir the open world structure of the game, as opposed to a linear one.

But again, you're talking hardware compromises but story is a weird one to pick, since it has nothing to do with the hardware, and in this specifically case there was no compromise whatsoever, especially considering that BOTW's physics engine is leagues ahead any other open world game out there, and it runs on a glorified toaster.
So no, Guerrilla wouldn't have made it better, considering Horizon isn't nowhere near as innovative as BOTW.

I mean, it's sad cause he seems like a very honest and kind person even when he should be promoting his game, but such an unmitigated disaster just can't be ignored.
I'd be pretty p*ssed too, if I'd hired a legendary senior dev and he came up with this.

Ah, I didn't notice that!
But hey, knowing those trolls at Devolver I would wager it's just a joke...I don't wanna get my hopes too high 😃

Also I'm not sure, but I seem to remember that the creators said HM was done after the second one wrapped the story up.
Hope they change their minds lol

It's so ironic how the only DOOM game you can play with M+KB is the only one that was console exclusive ahahahah

Everytime Sonic enters the conversation, I'm always surprised by how many and how loyal his fans are.

@AFCC ahahahah don't worry, it would've been fine either way 😃 have a good one!

Shoot I completely forgot! I wanted to jump in and have my arse handed to me lol
I'm absolute crap at multiplayer games and I usually don't have much fun with them, but TF2 is really really fun.

@Acksaw @AFCC multiplayer yes, but it's got nothing on DOOM Eternal if we're talking single player 😃

@BAMozzy yes I know, and I absolutely agree with what you said.
I know devs are more often than not super passionate and perfectionists, and that the blame for botched launches, predatory monetization and such falls squarely on the management; but since all management sees and cares about is revenue, that many sales regardless of everything that went down is all that matters.
I'm sure CDPR devs would've loved to delay the game and deliver the best possible product, but until a broken mess sells 13+ million copies in 21 days I don't see shareholders of big companies all over the world changing their modus operandi anytime soon.

@BAMozzy agreed.
I'm waiting for it to be thoroughly patched before buying it on my PC (or maybe a new console, if I get one sooner than I'm planning to at the moment), since I usually play games way after they come out, and I can be patient.

The only thing I think is an absolute shame is that a lot of people, like you said, probably splashed the cash but are waiting to play it, and that encourages CDPR to put out broken stuff. I mean, they don't care too much if we play it or not, or even how many out of those 13+ million people will. Those people have already forked out their money, mission accomplished for CDPR.

P.S.: Idk if it's a mission name or whatever, but New Dawn Fades is a very good song.

@NEStalgia ahahahah I wouldn't put it past them to give us something nobody asked for once again

They're finally doing something with Rare's IP's?
Cause that would be more than cool, since they bought a company and kept it and its IP's pretty much under ice for 20 years.
C'mon you cowards, give us a new Banjo!

@gingataisen of course it's doesn't make the games any less fun to play, come on.
Probably I didn't explain myself well, but come on, don't be so antagonistic.

What I was trying to say is that such projects feel a bit out of place in the overall franchise, given its overall quality and impact, that's all.
That's the same as a bad movie in an otherwise good franchise, or a bad finale to a good series, or whatever; although not to the same degree, I'll concede.
I'd feel the same about a Zelda mobile cash grab, for example.
Hope it's clearer now, have a good one 👍🏻

@gingataisen I'm not talking monetary value, of course that will go up with mobile games raking in the whale cash; I was talking about historical value in the eyes of enthusiasts like myself.
Just like those two bad Hollywood flicks, a game like this only cheapens the overall DOOM brand in my eyes.

You gotta love seeing such pillars of entertainment get reduced down the minimum common denominator of cash grabbing, mind numbing "gameplay".
To each their own, I'm sure many will enjoy it, but I cannot help feeling like it devalues the brand.

@JoakimZ yeah those on the left are DOOM (above) and Prey (below), and I guess the gray one is TES.

That DOOM one is amazing!