Since the Legend of Zelda for Wii U was officially unveiled at E3 we have heard barely anything about the game. So as such this has led us to theorize about the game and the possibilities as well as consider what we want to see from the game, the little piece of game we saw from the Game Awards in 2014 gave us a bit more about the game to think about and using what I know from that I have begun thinking about what I want from the game.
Side Content
When Zelda U was announced we did find out the game was going to be quite expansive, and the Game Awards further cemented this when we saw actual footage of the game and the world. It is obvious from what we saw that the world is going to be huge, particularly when the Gamepad map presented what appears to be a big world. As cool as this seems my biggest concern is that the world is going to be barren and empty, by this I don’t mean devoid of life, or even without expansive forests or even cities. I mean barren in the sense of lack of things to do making the huge world seem pointless, when thought about the thing that made Majora’s Mask a success is the side content that filled the world with activities, following this idea I feel it would be cool to be able to go into cities or even camps and find quest givers. I don’t care if these are simple fetch quests like go to the top of Death Mountain and collect a rare object, or if these are horse races, or even being sent to fight a dragon that is attacking a forest, as long as the world is filled with things to do I will be content. They just need to ensure they provide challenge in a similar way to the Assassins Creed games and offer varying sectors of the world where some missions are easy and others are challenging just to keep it enjoyable for many hours to come and fill the world with enjoyment that lives.
A Fast Travel System
With the size of the world it is possibly going to be easy to get annoyed at having to cross over the same parts of the world recurringly. While the world may look really nice I am sure we will all get bored having to travel across familiar paths every other time and within two or three hours we will find ourselves bored by the world and no longer wowed. Because of this I think it will be important to have a fast travel system in the same vein as Twilight Princess to use meaning players can have the option to choose how they want to travel. While this could also be a good system for occasionally preventing us from traveling to certain places and on occasion to force us to travel across the world. This will just cut down repetitive travel times and will help keep us invested in the game.
Varying Environments
This is not so important and I assume this will be a given based on past Zelda titles but I would like to see a major variation in environments. Of course we are used to the forest ad field environments, the mountain, desert and even the lake or ocean. This has always worked but I think it would be nice to see these environment types spread across different sectors of the land and see them in more varying ways such as seeing deserts put across the land near the mountain or even forests. I don’t think this is too farfetched and it would even be nice to see some brand new environments to explore that continue to vary across the land.
A Busy Open World
Just like my point on filling the world with things to do, I also believe we need to fill the world with life. The footage shown at the Game Awards did prove to present some of this feeling with enemies in the forest and even wild horses roaming the field, but what about people. It is rare in past Zelda games that we ever would see people outside of a cave or town, this is something I want Zelda U to address. I think it would be nice to see people randomly wandering across the field in safe zones or even on occasion see knights off in the forest fighting enemies or cowering behind a tree. There is so much potential to use the greatly sized world to create a place that is full of life, placing builders in the world carrying wood across the field or off building houses in the field. Without going into it there is so much opportunity for this to be done and create life, sadly as cool and as nice as this idea is I doubt it will happen but I can dream of the possibilities though.
Plenty of People
I sort of covered this one in a busy open world (see above) however I can elaborate more. The wording of people does not particularly mean human, within Hyrule as presented by past games there are countless races and creatures that live in the world (this is under the assumption that the game is set in Hyrule). If the world is truly as expansive as we are being made to believe then it should not be that difficult to have people of all different races all over it, at least I don’t think it is. It would be nice to continue to make the world feel alive and even provide a chance to make use of the space provided and create a Hyrule that doesn’t just feel like it is home to only a couple of each species.
Expansive cities across the overworld
If you have played a Zelda game you will know they are not really big on creating cities to explore with most commonly only a couple added at most. This is often Hyrule Castle Town, as well as Kakoriko Village, then occasionally a small town where your character lives or grew up. Given that Zelda U is going to be set in a big world, surely, we can expect to not just see forests, but also come across a fair selection of decent sized cities to explore. Following along with the idea of many races in Hyrule it would be nice if each could have a big city in the form of their own environments which you could explore and see the species living, even go around shopping for supplies for your adventure in each one. It would be great if we could explore big cities and it would make use of the expansive environment and would work well for the world in creating busy areas in all for corners of the world. Though personally as good as it would be, I do not see this happening.
A decent story
Zelda games are not known for their stories, they are always there but play more of a sideline to the actual action and adventure of the game. Some of them have attempted stories but have quickly fallen short with the only example of decent story telling I can think of being Link’s Awakening and Skyward Sword. It is these two games that need to provide Zelda U with inspiration and present us with a well told story, of course it is a concern that the idea of a story could be lost in this bigger example of an open world Zelda game, but surely it can try. If nothing else it can at least try to connect to us in a way that Skyward Sword or Links Awakening did and help to set us on our path in a way that makes us care for the characters. I can only hope that they do manage to incorporate a story that will drive the game, though I do have my doubts that they will manage.
More item usage in the world
Thanks to the Game Awards we have already seen the bow in action and how it can be used to take out enemies in a bullet time style event. However the bow has never been the concern as it has been useful in the overworld for a long time, however just about every other item has had a fading usefulness outside of their respective dungeons, I don’t refer to the hookshot or its other forms over the years which have seen recurring use for progression. It is every other item that outside of a small section have found no usage that can be enjoyed and actually used to enhance your experience with the game. While it does not have to be major I would love to be able to use all my acquired items on my travels through the world for varying tasks, even to an extent being able to use them as part of the aforementioned side content I want, just imagine it getting the gust bellows from Skyward Sword and having to use it for a mission in the desert in order to find a lost dungeon. There are countless possibilities for the item usage and hopefully they will follow along by creating some interesting uses for the items that improve the game.
There are some stuff I want to see in Zelda U that I do feel very unlikely, but others I do feel are possible. I can only hope that I see what I think would be nice to have in Zelda U and that is basically the point, I just think the inclusions would do well with the game, and even play nicely with what we the idea of an open world in the game. I just hope they do make some of these inclusions which will add some life and interest to the game.
