r/gaming • u/BigCommieMachine • 9d ago
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom ‘was delayed by over a year for polish’ | VGC
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-was-delayed-by-over-a-year-for-polish/Please take note other developers. If you take your time to make sure a game is good, it will be good.
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u/ShoddyPreparation 9d ago
Damn. Poland got a game delayed a entire year.
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u/oneandonlysteven 9d ago
Cyberpunk’s delays were just the beginning...
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u/NargWielki 9d ago
And were not enough, sadly.
I remember an interview with Phil Spencer regarding Redfall where he said something in the lines of "No amount of delays would have accomplished the vision this game had"
Really puts things into perspective.
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u/acedelgado 9d ago
See: Star Citizen. That game will never be released. It'll persist in alpha as the development team retires, one by one, taken up by a new generation of devs. The Game of Theseus
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u/kitddylies 9d ago
Scope creep is insane. I honestly don't buy it, and haven't for a while. I think they've decided that being in alpha forever is more profitable than a release would be.
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u/Wallofcans 9d ago
They sell jpegs of ships to people for thousands of dollars. Absolutely no need to finish the game.
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u/LueyTheWrench 9d ago
Haven’t played, really want to play it, but I get the feeling it’s a tech demo with monetisation.
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u/Darth_Nibbles 9d ago
I played it around a decade ago and it was fine at the time. They could have built and released a decent game based on what they had then
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u/wranglingmonkies 9d ago
Holy fuck a decade??
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u/Darth_Nibbles 9d ago
Why do you think its supporters catch so much flak? Let's put it this way, we stopped making fun of them last decade. At this point it's just sad.
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u/TheOneTonWanton 9d ago
I remember hearing about the game for the first time and thinking that I couldn't wait for the release so I could play it as I'm so very picky about buying early-access games. Pretty sure that was about 7 years ago.
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u/CapWasRight 9d ago
And it had still been long enough that even while you were first hearing of it, some people were already giving up on it entirely.
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u/ashenblade 9d ago edited 9d ago
At the Kickstarter I was skeptical about their claims so I decided I would wait until Squadron 42 released. It was supposed to release in 2014.
At this point I've given up
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u/kingofnopants1 9d ago
What you said is Pretty much the best way to explain what it became. I watch my friends play it from time to time. They genuinely are working on, and have implemented, a lot of interesting (and often mostly worthless such as with their 'bedsheet deformation' physics) technology. But they make so much money they have no actual reason to finish the game.
It's effectively this live-service model where they just get to screw around making cool but useless shit forever and people will throw money at them
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u/alexo2802 9d ago
And tbh if they would be more honest about it I'd be fine with it, Star Citizen is a fun game and gets better by the updates, if they just went silent for a year, released a patch with no new features, but a stable 60+fps for all reasonable configuration, and from there kept updating the game for as long as people throw money at it, it'd be amazing, just gotta stop getting people hooked on the dream of a game that will extremely likely never release in its full glory.
Basically the same as tarkov.
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u/Akitz 9d ago
I feel like Tarkov is more of a classic "keep it in early access forever so you can't be criticized for unfinished content or bugs".
Way better than Star Citizen, like at least there's a full game to play.
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u/sennbat 9d ago
Star Citizen's problem is less scope creep and more a combination of starting with an overly ambitious scope and lacking the technical ability to execute even a reasonably scoped game anyway. So they pivoted and focused on milking the hype, which they were better at than building the game.
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u/SunnyAndHot 9d ago
Star Citizens problem is Chris Roberts milking insane whales for hundreds of millions of dollars over spaceship jpgs for over a decade.
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u/Ask_if_im_an_alien 9d ago
7 Days to Die is on Alpha 22. It's been in alpha development for 10 years.
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u/Kuraeshin 9d ago
But every iteration brings changes that seem to, overall, make the game more accessible.
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Unlike Star Citizen though its still a game that is actually playable for prolonged periods of time and is... fun.
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u/CDHmajora Switch 9d ago
But as an Arkane fan, I have to ask. What was Redfalls “vision”?
Dishonored was clearly a refined version of the thief franchise with a morality system that actually had consequence.
Prey was the spiritual successor to system shock that bioshock could only dream of being (bioshock is still a classic however, but Prey is far better as a system shock successor than bioshock was).
Deathloop took the concept of Groundhog Day and took it to the logical extreme that only a game experience could capture.
Redfall is… Urm… boarderlands mixed with Agents of Mayhem? Does it offer anything unique to itself to Warren its existence? What did they want it to be? A massive online looter shooter in a wacky scenario that doesn’t have anything unique at all outside of throwing together the ideas of every major PvE online game ever made? Many of which were commercial failures btw.
Arkane we’re my favourite western studio for their risks in regards to the games they release. An Arkane game always felt like a unique experience (even though they clearly took inspiration from old franchises, but practically every game does these days…). Red fall looks… boring. Like so many games of its genre (agents of mayhem, wolfenstein Youngblood) and will be forgotten about within 6 months :/
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u/We_need_pop_control 9d ago
I agree with all of that, but let's not write Arkane off.
One failure is, hopefully, a lesson learned. All the other games you mentioned are phenomenal, and there's no reason their next game can't join those ranks.
Blizzard, on the other hand.. holy shit, that company has been a slap in the face of gaming over the past decade or so now.
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u/Jackalodeath 9d ago
I've just recently been playing the Dishonored series. I'm loving it, but I have pretty lax "standards" so don't know if it means much coming from me.
That said; the mission in that mansion where you have to look into/warp through time to "solve" getting through it in the second one? Most fucking fun I've had in a good while.
It reminded me so much of Soul Reaver's Material/Spectral Realm mechanics, just way better since the enemies persisted and the world mutated as you went along.
I want nothing more than to have an honest-to-goodness continuation of Nosgoth's clusterfuck of a timeline before I finally kick the bucket; but I think that mission gave me a glimpse of what could be possible with today's tech.
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u/DrZaious 9d ago
I'm pretty sure the guy locked in the porta-potty, at the EDM festival, had more vision than Redfall.
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u/nonlawyer 9d ago
Look man it was a really introspective trip, I fell all the way through myself and out the other side and also literally fell into the porta-potty
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u/littlesymphonicdispl 9d ago edited 9d ago
You haven't lived until youre balls deep on LSD, sweat pouring into your eyes, trying to zip up your shorts without pinching your tackle, while the entire Porta potty shakes violently with the bass.
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u/Groovatronic 9d ago
Been there, done that. Throw in your vision shaking from being on an outrageous amount of molly in addition to the acid, and you can’t even find the zipper.
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u/MOOShoooooo 9d ago
Always remember the most important thing about taking hallucinogens, set and shitting.
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u/NetworkingJesus 9d ago
That feeling when the trip starts turning on you and you can't figure out why until you take a massive shit and then suddenly it's all rainbows and unicorns again. There is no greater relief than shitting your way out of a bad trip
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u/Tap_Z_or_R_Twice 9d ago
Yeah that's why I don't eat on mushrooms, well also because I feel like an alien but mostly so I don't shit.
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u/Galactic 9d ago
I wonder if the current version of Cyberpunk was what was released on the release date if people would think it actually lived up to the hype, because the current version is much more playable.
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u/Redlightning122 9d ago
But cyberpunk absolutely would have had enough time with the delays if they didn't insist on making it for previous gen consoles. At least to get a polished and pretty good product out the door. Heck if they just made it for PC and then worked on a console port afterwards they probably could have gotten close to what the trailers promised and the new consoles would have had time to grow their user base making the less of last gen consoles not nearly the financial blow that it would have been for a simultaneous release
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u/DarthEwok42 9d ago
Okay this took wayyy too long to click for me.
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u/KWilt 9d ago
Unrelated fun fact from personal experience: I once read a mystery book many, many years ago that involved a character that was very obviously of Polish lineage (-ski on the last name and all). Well, one of the plot points come about that said character is taking notes during the investigation, and another character gets ahold of said notes.
It's then revealed that the notes are in shorthand, but more importantly, they're in Polish shorthand. Needless to say, my young mind didn't at all pick up on the capitalization and I spent a good half the book wondering what polish (like shoe polish) shorthand was, and why it was so hard to decipher.
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u/scrambles667 9d ago
Fuck, me too. I was like what fucking game got delayed in Poland?...oh. haha
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u/trojanguy 9d ago
I was wondering if I was the only one who always reads polish and thinks of Poland.
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u/KingApologist 9d ago
And the game wasn't localized or even translated for Poland. WTF???
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u/Warlornn 9d ago
Have you seen the size of their sausages?
Anything is possible with the polish.
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u/Ghastion 9d ago
Why would they admit that the game was delayed a whole year specifically for just ONE country. That's so crazy. It just seems like they've opened the floodgates for bullying against Poland now. I don't want to imagine the amount of hate and xenophobia Polish people on the internet are going to receive now. It's just sad to think about.
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u/superman_squirts 9d ago edited 9d ago
I’m out of the loop on this one can you elaborate?
Edit: I’m an idiot. Thank you to those that responded.
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u/Rexssaurus 9d ago
It’s because the title says that it was delayed for polish
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u/Tommy_SVK 9d ago edited 9d ago
Well LotR: Gollum was delayed 2 years for polish and it's still a shitshow.
Also you should fix "take note developers" to "take note publishers". I have no doubt that the devs are fully aware that their games need more polish, but the higher-ups don't care, they want a release. They are the ones that should take note.
EDIT: Based on some of the responses I think I should clarify what I meant.
Delay is not a universal fix. Some games are just fundamentally bad or the devs don't have what it takes to pull off a game they want. No amount of delay will help here.
The devs aren't always to blame for a game's poor state, it's usually the fault of the publisher for not giving the devs enough time.
These are two separate points and weren't meant to be taken together. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Also I really didn't expect this to get so many responses :D
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u/pyro_in_wonderland 9d ago
As a wise man once said, "let's do stability later, first we need to deliver".
And the whole thing went to Production.
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u/elementslayer 9d ago
Wait, were you in my standup?
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u/onlyawfulnamesleft 9d ago
"It's an edge case that we don't see most players encountering"
"Wait, the first quest!?"
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u/ScruffMixHaha 9d ago
Its pretty wild to see a game get delayed and the delay was genuinely worth it. So many times shit get constantly delayed and still comes out a broken mess.
Nintendo does not fuck around with mainline Mario and Zelda games
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u/koumus 9d ago •
Same happened with BOTW, it was delayed more than once but when it came out... wow.
And that's the reason no one complained when TOTK was delayed. Sure enough, people wanted to play ASAP but we knew the wait was worth it. And they delivered!
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u/MaimedJester 9d ago
I think it was also delayed to coincide with the Switch Distribution and release. They could have released the Wii U version early but that might cannibalize their switch sales because what the hell else did Switch Launch with? It wouldn't be till like Odyssey and Pokemon Sword it had big none wii u ports.
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u/xahhfink6 9d ago
I mean, it definitely stung for WiiU owners, especially because they advertised it heavily as a reason to buy the WiiU.
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u/Mutant0401 9d ago
In the end Wii U sales of BoTW made up about 5% of the total sales. I don't think at that point in the lifespan of the Wii U Nintendo even needed to care what Wii U owners thought. Them releasing it at all for that platform was a boon. I suppose at the time they were not guaranteed a 120 million unit console, so it made sense to stick to a cross release.
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u/Saloncinx 9d ago
At least we had WWHD and TPHD to play in the mean time on the WiiU.
Speaking of that, why have those not been ported over to the Switch? I wanna play Wind Waker on the go!
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u/ryantendo 9d ago
They did Skyward Sword instead as an HD port. WW and TP are some of the last major Wii U titles not ported over. Those the Xenoblade Chronicles X.
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u/coolfangs 9d ago
The key is keeping your delays internal by not publically announcing a release date before you're sure you can make the deadline. When you wait until just months before the game is supposed to come out to announce that it's actually not even close to ready yet (or worse still claiming it's almost ready when it isn't) that's when you create all sorts of chaos.
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u/skwacky 9d ago
The Zelda team is in a unique position where they pretty much don't have to answer to anybody. If other teams were to stay radio silent on a release date for "polish", their publisher or investors would likely be up their ass about it.
And it's a bit tricky, because while stakeholders should be more forgiving about release timelines, their positive pressure is a necessity a lot of the time. As a dev, let's be honest, without threat of funding cuts you'll find elements of your game to work on until the end of time... take Silksong, for example.
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u/Dirty_Dragons 9d ago
Its pretty wild to see a game get delayed and the delay was genuinely worth it. So many times shit get constantly delayed and still comes out a broken mess.
Thats absolutely it. Everybody here is acting like delaying a game guarantees it will be great.
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u/kianwion 9d ago
Metroid Prime 4 too. They scrapped the entire thing to start all over again because it wasn’t shaping up be the game they wanted. Years of work gone just because it didn’t meet their standard. That’s insane, and admirable.
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u/Dull_Half_6107 9d ago
Only other time I remember of that being done is the Doom 2016 remake.
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u/DoublePelix 9d ago
And it fucking shows. I haven’t noticed any glitches despite the complexity of systems in this game
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u/KillerConfetti 9d ago
Right? And the glitches that did exist weren't easy to comeby naturally. As of today they've patched, they've already patched them out as well. This team has done some incredible work, I hope they're eating well.
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u/SmoothJazzRayner 9d ago
I hope they're eating well
Konbini foods all day.
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u/Draaxus 9d ago
I mean Japanese konbini food seems healthier than any fast food in the west at least
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u/StarWaas 9d ago
It isn't fancy by any means but for cheap food it's really good. I loved the 7-11 curry chicken buns and zaru soba plates when I was there.
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u/Ecksplisit 9d ago
If that’s not fancy then what are my McDonald’s fried up blobs of mystery chicken meat.
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u/BlackSocks88 9d ago
If you build something sturdy, you deserve all the Rice Balls.
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u/WtfDidIDo2DeserveDis 9d ago
I think the one thing that I’d like improved is for the sages’ powers to a be a little more accessible than chasing them down and pressing a button to interact with them. Yunobo is great for digging out caves with lots of destructible rock but it takes me extra time to chase him down or wait for him to appear in a cramped cave (if he does.). Riju also is amazing for powering up your ranged attacks but she’s always closest to the target so it’s kinda moot to chase her down in a difficult battle. Tulin is perfect, and Sidon suffers less from some of the same problems as the first two, but I lean on him less.
Of course, this is arguably by design so you’re not leaning on the sages’ powers that often. Either way, that’s the one gripe I have about the game.
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u/m0rphyG 9d ago
The horse whistle summons them to your side during combat, I haven't tried it with more than 1 shade yet but it might help.
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u/AmbitionSpecialist 9d ago
I got sick and was stuck at home the week after release, I have over 100 hours into it, not one single glitch.
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u/willempiekip 9d ago
I think a lot of people were ‘sick’ that week
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u/tehvolcanic 9d ago
Guy at my work was out release day and the following Monday. He didn't specify why he was out but he does have a Triforce tattoo on his arm.
Probably a coincidence
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u/Itendtodisagreee 9d ago
Surprised the entire economy didn't collapse from people calling out of work to play that game.
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u/The_Northern_Light 9d ago
two people on my team and a friend had pre-planned sick time on launch day lol
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u/obaterista93 9d ago
I've been absolutely astounded by that.
With as crazy as things get via ultrahand/recall/etc, it's absolutely insane that the game isn't completely broken.
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u/L3m0n0p0ly 9d ago
Im only a handful of hours into it and i am astounded by it. The amount of random stuff you can do in the game is almost seamless and i havent even unlocked the whole selection wheel yet.
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u/spekulol 9d ago
And a game like cyberpunk already breaks if you get into a car
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u/Triverine 9d ago
And the AI in TOTK vs a game like cyberpunk. I remember when they announced that every NPC in Cyberpunk will have an entire day cycle. Now you can't go 10 feet without seeing clones. Hateno Village is much more livelier.
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u/Jrmcjr 9d ago
There's even small interactions like wearing a certain evil armor set causes the NPCs to cower in fear when you get near them. I was very confused the first time this happened and then realized it was bc of my new flashy armor set.
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u/SimSamurai13 9d ago
Best one is the Tingle outfit
They are terrified of the creature
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u/Top_Lengthy 9d ago
Not to mention TofK managed a world 2.5x the size of BotW, with a beautiful stylized graphics with good draw distance and decent performance from a handheld console. Sure, a couple times frame rate has dropped but it's steady 30 the vast majority of the time.
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u/Rollow 9d ago
I found a single rock that doesnt have a texture on one side!
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u/phillyeagle99 9d ago
Jokes on you, that’s a korok puzzle, you just didn’t know it yet! (I think Im kidding, don’t go back to the rock trying to puzzle :P)
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u/Rollow 9d ago
While i see their far reaching creativity in korok puzzles, seeing through the wall to the next room seems like not one :p
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u/phillyeagle99 9d ago
Nah nah nah, it’s just that you need to shove a korok through the hole… but the korok is also invisible!
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u/tcadams18 9d ago
I did run i to an issue, not sure if it really a glitch though. I was stacking logs for the quest where the guy needs 15 logs (leaving vague to avoid spoilers). I was fusing the logs together in a stack, and it slid off a cliff and landed around me. The logs were fused, standing on end and I was stuck in the middle. It took me a few minutes to get the thing targeted to use recall, but eventually I got it back on the ledge and moved away.
I’ve also noticed a lot of camera issues when in close to big enemies. Like trying to climb a Talus, the camera is t sure where to go and you often are seeing through the talus. I’ve seen it with all the large enemies I’ve found so far
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u/FILTER_OUT_T_D 9d ago edited 9d ago
The camera thing happens to me a lot also. Sometimes I feel like link refuses to take input from the directional stick for a second or two and I’ve turned and fallen off stuff because of his unwillingness to move inches at a time and the camera randomly switching to weird angles.
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u/Undecided_Furry 9d ago
I don’t think this is a spoiler? But I think this might because they want you to use the ascend skill more than we maybe even realize. Use ascend on Talus, I wonder if it works on the giants too
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u/TalnOnBraize 9d ago
I've only seen two things since playing 50 hours:
- Some pop-in, but very seldom.
- Frame drops probably once every hour, but never last more than 3-5 seconds.
Both of those I attribute to playing on a 6-year-old handheld. Otherwise, it's solid!
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u/DoublePelix 9d ago
Yeah I wouldn’t call those glitches so much as performance issues.
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u/xStealthxUk 9d ago
Performance issues still fall under "polish" tho. But ye abitious game for super old hardware its to be expected
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u/Cy41995 9d ago
Even for an ambitious game on older hardware, the degree of performance that they managed is stellar.
Compare to any other "big" release from a triple A publisher these days. Anything more than a year old tends to chug.
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u/FILTER_OUT_T_D 9d ago
The Monoliftsoft team did a great job optimizing the game for the hardware. Like, truly impressive to think about.
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u/zeldazigzag 9d ago
The only glitch I have noticed occured when I falling down through one of the chasms. The game actually paused briefly at the threshold between the chasm tunnel and the "sky" of the Depths. Must have been a sudden bottleneck loading the Depths. But other than that... nothing!
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u/Dual_Sport_Dork 9d ago
There are definitely loading zones. You can encounter them skydiving from the sky islands as well, as the game loads in the higher detail terrain for whichever region you're about to drop into. I believe this happens if you jump out over one region but glide far enough to cross over into another before hitting the altitude threshold. But I don't have the code in front of me, so I can't 100% prove the conditions.
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u/tsukubasteve27 9d ago
Yeah maybe if you hold zr to dive it's too fast for the artificial loading screen.
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u/akennelley 9d ago
I got hit by a falling chunk of sky island and it pinned me underwater. I had to fast travel to get out. I'm pretty sure that isn't intended.
(In the jungle area, theres a quest involving 3 big bads on top of waterfalls, there are little squares set in place that are designed to catch the falling chunks and allow you to time reverse up on them. I glided down there and saw the square and jumped in to check for a korok seed and the damned chunk landed on me!)
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u/DoublePelix 9d ago
Lmao they sky piece falling on you is hilarious. I attribute this to sandbox gameplay
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u/Quintingent 9d ago
There definitely are a couple. People have discovered multiple duplication glitches (though at least one of those has already been patched afaik). But the only gameplay-affecting glitch I've seen so far is a sidequest NPC failing to spawn for me (it was the sign one. His sign was there, but he wasn't)
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u/hardgeeklife 9d ago
people have been testing the latest patch from yesterday; looks like it's eliminated all the dupe exploits known so far.
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u/Akira_427 9d ago
The duplication glitch isn’t something you discover while playing. I personally haven’t experienced anything outside of the dog for the misko quest needing to take like 20 foods to start moving
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u/trafficante 9d ago
That damn dog would follow me right up to the cave entrance and then nope out back to the tent. Didn’t matter what I fed him or how often.
Fortunately this is a BotW sequel, so I treated it like a shrine puzzle and brute forced the solution instead of using the dog.
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u/CobaltMonkey 9d ago
When he didn't move by the 4th steak, I just went into the cave and started opening chests. Got it on like the 5th one.
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u/Rufert 9d ago
Bethesda hates this one simple trick.
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u/mauri9998 9d ago
Fun fact starfield also got delayed for over a year
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u/HippiesHeadspace 9d ago
This also feels like a dig on Bethesda due to Redfalls flop, yet Bethsda was simple the publisher for that title.
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u/magiccupcakecomputer 9d ago
Zenimax owns both bethesda and arkane, so not quite.
Which is now all owned by Microsoft.
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u/mauri9998 9d ago
redfall was also delayed from 2022 to 2023
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u/DZLars 9d ago
It should have been delayed till after my death
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u/Gobi310 9d ago
I doubt a couple more months would've made much of a difference.
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u/RikiSanchez 9d ago
Gaming executives: "Oh, I don't think I will."
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u/Ozzie_the_tiger_cat 9d ago
Also gaming execs: well, we know what they really want.
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u/hxh05g 9d ago
The improved load times over BoTW are my favorite QoL improvement. The item management when getting something out of a chest is my second favorite. I’m in love with what they took and made better from BoTW. But with that said, this game is marvelous on multiple fronts. I still sit there in awe as I skydive from high in the sky all the way through to the depths fluidly. Incredible. I play most non-Nintendo games on my PS5, so it’s a big deal for me when I play something on my Switch OLED and never think “I sure wish I could play this on my PS5.” From a numbers standpoint I’m sure it would be “better” on there, but not once have those thoughts entered my mind while actually playing. I thought BoTW was special. This is…just off all the charts. It’s something very special. I didn’t think they could pull off the level of quality and true wonder you experience with BoTW a second time. They absolutely went above and beyond it in every direction I can think of. If ever a game was worth $70, this is it. This is one I will argue is worth full price.
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u/THUG_TEARS 9d ago
You're definitely right about the load times. I can barely read 1 or 2 of the gaming tips before the screen leaves
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u/InvaderDJ 9d ago
It definitely shows. The scale of the game’s world and systems are honestly overwhelming, it runs on a very underpowered system compared to current consoles, and it does it all extremely well. It looks good, it’s performance is fairly stable, and all the crazy systems work together as they should despite probably thousands of different ways the devs would have to account for.
The dev team ought to be very proud.
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u/Tedders19 9d ago
Nintendo has an insanely consistent track record for polish. Especially on their flagship releases. It’s super admirable, especially in the current AAA games landscape.
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u/futurespacecadet 9d ago
it also helps sales. no one remembers the delays as much as they do remember the brand image, and a nintendo product of their core characters is always going to be high quality
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u/asunamyag 9d ago
Yeah, Zelda is their premier prestige franchise, one of the most consistent brand names in video games for almost 40 years. The last game made the Switch into a success all on its own. They’re not going to piss that away.
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u/Additional_Rough_588 9d ago
I’ve been playing Zelda since the beginning, yeah yeah yeah, I took my multivitamin today… but was thinking last night while playing totk that Zelda and Mario really are the greatest video game series of all time. And it’s not even close. The fact that Nintendo has put out such consistent bangers for each series going on nearly 40 years now really is amazing.
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u/McGuirk808 9d ago
Zelda and Mario really are the greatest video game series of all time.
Truth. I have other game series that were more impactful to me personally, but none have been so consistently high-quality across so many generations. It's really incredible, especially compared to some other long-standing franchises. I'm primarily a PC gamer, but I will honestly buy every Nintendo console just for Zelda; Mario is an added bonus.
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u/gahlo 9d ago
I to this day stand by the statement that if BotW was the only game that ever came out on the Switch it would have justified the purchase for me.
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u/WereAllThrowaways 9d ago
Yeah, Zelda is their premier prestige franchise< <
Uhhh are we sure that's their premier prestige franchise?
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u/DoublePelix 9d ago
It was also so nice to just pop and game In and play
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u/Royal_ish 9d ago
I was mentally preparing myself for a 30+ minute day-one update, I was playing in about 2 minutes lol.
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u/Kwerqs 9d ago
And the way it began without sending you to the main menu was so cool.
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u/HarmlessSnack 9d ago
TotK doesn’t even have a menu screen the first time you load in, they just drop you straight into the game.
I thought this was such an incredible touch from an immersion standpoint. They just quietly put you in a cave, following Zelda. No hand holding, no menus, you’re just in it, right from the start. Title card doesn’t drop until your falling through the clouds.
What a fucking game.
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u/robbierottenisbae 9d ago
That half hour or so in the cave is my favorite intro of any Zelda game. It was so fucking well done. Seeing a full power Link traveling with Zelda, getting all the typical opening exposition lore through Zelda's excited narration, and ofc the whole creepy vibe of the sequence leading up to the corpse awakening. The shot where Link swings the Master Sword at the gloom and a little piece comes up and flies through the corpse's cheek is just badass in a way you don't really see from the series.
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u/LionFox 9d ago
Twilight Princess (Wii version) launched with a game-breaking glitch. I remember it because of how much of the exception it was.
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u/Geiri94 9d ago
Take notes, Gollum. And Redfall. Forspoken. Pokémon Scarlet. Jedi: Survivor
It's really sad when a polished game feels like something unique rather than the standard
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u/BigCommieMachine 9d ago
It is unfair to put Gollum in that group. That appears to be not an issue of polish as much as a lack of an actual game.
Those other games at least have a solid core underneath that could be great with some QA, listening to feedback, and polish.
Gollum is just explosive diarrhea that was still going to be a turd no matter how much polish it had.
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u/Geiri94 9d ago
Gollum seems to be an absolute shitshow, and no amount of polishing is going to change that. But bad or not, it's still an unpolished game. The developers knew beforehand how shitty it would perform, but chose to publish it anyway. Developers and publisher should at least have the decency to make sure a game runs smoothly with as few bugs as possible, even if the game is kinda shitty. It's all about the money, I know, but they aren't selling a bad product, they are selling a broken product. That's worse
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u/HolypenguinHere 9d ago
Pokemon Scarlet broke records so I don't think it's cost-effective for them to put extra work into it. The game will be eaten up like candy regardless.
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u/ThaUnderboss 9d ago
Polish wouldn't help Gollum. It's a generational bad game kinda like Ride to Hell.
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u/qutaaa666 9d ago
Some of these games aren’t only not polished, they are just bad. Gollum with a few less bugs and better optimisation wouldn’t make it comparable to the new Zelda.
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u/lordraiden007 9d ago
So well performing that even emulators got good performance day 1
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u/PageOthePaige 9d ago
Notably, those emulators showed massive jumps in performance in the prior weeks. BotW and TotK were targeted for improvement. Good thing, too!
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u/3to20CharactersSucks 9d ago
It really helped that the emulator devs probably had the game a week before it leaked, which was already two weeks before it released. But absolutely, huge credit to the developers for making such accurate and efficient emulators - somehow two of them - that consistently play games on launch.
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u/Ok_Pension_6795 9d ago
This is the proper way to make and release a game. No crunch up to the deadline to release a mess. Take all the time necessary for polish
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u/alexnedea 9d ago
So many people in the comments confuse delaying for a good game. You can delay a good game to polish it further and make it a great game. You cant delay a bad game and make it good. If the systems are bad, the gameplay loop is bad, story is bad, you can really delay it that much to fix such huge problems.
Zelda was probably already really good a year ago and they just added more content probably and polished more bugs. But the core mechanics were already thought out and implemented.
For redfall for example, the game is just fucking ass. The gameplay is mid, the map design is mid, the skill design is mid, the upgrades are mid and the "looter shooter" items are fucking f tier. That shit could not be delayed for a year and be a good game. It needed like 3 years to just make it a new game. At that point its not even a delay
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u/kytheon 9d ago
Bold strategy, let's see if it works out.
record breaking sales
Ah ok, good. Are you watching, Rockstar?
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u/Lollystok 9d ago
Besides the buggy gta trilogy rockstar takes their time to release complete games tho
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u/hectorduenas86 9d ago
Yeah they have been working on 6 for over 12 years now. /s
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u/NeedSpareGME 9d ago
No they worked on rdr2, a very well polished game. Only after abandoning rdro have they started on 6.
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u/WrongSubFools 9d ago
Rockstar, really? The developer who now releases 2 games a decade, that's who you're calling out for rushing games?
I guess you're thinking of that trilogy remaster, but Rockstar didn't make that.
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u/Master470 9d ago
It's really easy to talk shit about Rockstar for the remastered trilogy, but they have been releasing some of the best games of the last 20 years.
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u/texasred2022 9d ago
I thought it was some other company that remastered the trilogy?
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u/Nithish1998 PC 9d ago
Yep. It was Grove Street Games.
Seeing the name I thought it was some studio put together by Rockstar but apparently the name was based of on their headquarters location.
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u/OG_Hash 9d ago
What are you talking about? Rockstar delays games all the time to ensure they are ready to go. GTA IV, RDR, GTA V and RDR2 were all delayed.
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u/bucky133 9d ago
I'm pretty sure the reason they gave when they delayed GTAV was for polish also.
That's what separates the average Ubisoft/EA titles from the greats IMO. The developers enthusiasm for the game they're creating ends up coming across in the final product.
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u/BigCommieMachine 9d ago
Rockstar?
It has literally been almost 10 YEARS since GTAV came out. And based on the leaks, the next game seems mostly finished and that was almost a year ago with no release date in sight.
My best guess is maybe we’ll see a official trailer this summer with no release until next holiday.
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u/SirVer51 9d ago
record breaking sales
I mean, Zelda is a powerhouse IP and Breath of the Wild is the bestselling title of the franchise, so this likely would've happened regardless - Pokemon Scarlet and Violet also sold incredibly well despite all the issues. Plus, knowing that people will buy and prioritise this game regardless of when they release it or what comes out alongside it probably gives management a lot more confidence to delay it if necessary.
This game may be polished as hell (haven't played it), but that has almost nothing to do with why it's selling well.
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u/Semanticss 9d ago
I mean GTA 5 was the most profitable piece of media in history.
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u/shadowblade945 9d ago
It shows. I may not like the way Nintendo treats their community a lot of the time but credit where it's due in this case. TotK has been great so far and I have not had any issues other than occasional framerate drops
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u/mangetouttoutmange 9d ago
Nintendo know their absolute biggest asset is their IP. The mario and zelda IPs are immensely strong because they're family friendly and they are products of the absolute highest quality. Remember, Nintendo were one of the reasons for the recovery from the video game crash in the 80s, and the reason they emerged from it and revitalised an entire industry is because fundamentally mario and zelda were the best games money could buy and of much beter quality than the shit that came before on home consoles. Nintendo know that if they cashed in on their IP and released a mario platformer or zelda game every 6-12 months (like fifa or call of duty), they might make some short-term money but the quality would suffer and in the long run people would switch off from the games and it would weaken the IP. Maintaining the level of quality they have since the 80s by releasing an immense and industry-pushing game once every few years is why they are still around while the likes of atari, sega, commodore etc. of the past don't have the same presence anymore.
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u/GeorgeStamper 9d ago
As much as Nintendo frustrates the living hell out of me at times, their AAA releases always perform flawlessly at launch.
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u/ninjupX 9d ago
Apparently the new Final Fantasy has been feature complete for a while, but had a comparable delay for polish. Went gold three months ago and there is no day 1 patch planned. Hoping this is an industry trend…
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u/chetradley 9d ago
Also, ahead of release, rather than spoiling features of the game to generate hype, or promising things that wouldn't actually be in the game, they hid gigantic features and areas of the game so they'd be a huge surprise for people playing for the first time.
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u/Bleiz_Stirling 9d ago
Game Freak: "I'll ignore that"