A reader suggests Nintendos new Zelda sequel should be an open world multiplayer game that takes influence from Apex Legends.
Like many I was very excited to hear the news about the new Zelda game this week, and while its not yet clear whether its a sequel or a spin-off the involvement of Monolith Soft, suggests its something pretty major and probably a mainline game. The logical assumption would be that its a follow-up to Breath Of The Wild and while itll surely add a whole bunch of new ideas and features the huge success of the last game – much more than any other modern day Zelda – means the most sensible thing to do is more of the same.
Except this is Nintendo, and they never like to do the obvious thing. Sometimes thats to their benefit and sometimes not but Im sure theyll be able to cook up some inventive twist on the newly established formula. And I know what I want it to be: multiplayer.
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All the mainline Zelda games have been single-player only games but there have been experiments before, with games like Four Swords Adventures and Tri Force Heroes. Both of these games worked very well, I thought, although their biggest problem was the difficulty in getting enough people together to play it, as neither supported online play.
What Im imagining would be though. And while the previous games have focused primarily on puzzle-solving, something set in a Breath Of The Wild style open world could be a lot more varied. Imagine exploring the world with your own friends, sharing recipes and items, competing in races, helping out in fights, and completing puzzles that you could never have done on your own.
Even rock-climbing would be more fun with friends, since thats never something youd do on your own, while stealth would suddenly become a lot more tense as you have to rely on the nerves of others as well as just yourself.
Ill ignore the technical issues with this, because I dont know (or care) what they are, but on a basic level weve seen things like this plenty of times, with Ghost Recon: Wildlands being perhaps the best comparison. I dont think theres any obvious reason why something like this couldnt be done on the Switch and since it wouldnt necessarily need a lot of players at a time Im going to assume that side of things is fine.
The problem, and I think this is one of the big reasons why Nintendo has never done something like this before, is how people act online. Nintendo is only ever one tabloid headline away from disaster when it comes to kids being subjected to the worst extremes of Internet behaviour and I dont blame them at all for trying to avoid it as best they can.
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They cant stop people acting like idiots but they can stop them talking like them, which has meant no voice chat in any of their major games. That would make what Im suggesting for Zelda impossible, except we do now have a good example from another game for them to follow. And that game is Apex Legends.
The Ping communication system is one of the unsung heroes of Apex Legends success, allowing you to communicate with other people in a fair amount of detail without voice chat or typing. This is exactly what a multiplayer Zelda would need and Im sure Nintendo would be able to put a spin on it where it was some kind of story element and not just in-game chat.
Nintendo has already done games as a service reaRead More – Source
