2PieceSnackbox Alternate covers

 Some rabbit-holes should remain unexplored...

Now, what exactly is an 'alternate cover' you might ask. Well, that is very simple within the context of gaming and even here; you see how most physical games come in your standard package of a plastic case with an image shoved into a sleeve? Well what if you changed that image? Similar to how the day-one edition of Mass Effect 3 featured a unique switchable sleeve that had Male Shepard on the front and FemShep on the inverse, except that was an official grift to encourage people to pick up the expensive early copies of that game. (Which I fell for: Hook, line and sinker.) What we're talking about today is a company that generates their very own image box art and sells it off for a neat profit for the benefit of people who are too lazy to just use a printer.

Now to be fair, this is quite a nice idea for a business model that I never really envisioned before. I mean think about it: high quality pieces of custom art work to slide into the plastic wallets of your favourite games, further exemplifying your adoration for the increasingly fading world of physical game resources. And to disparage my own point about being 'too lazy to use a printer', these alternative covers do come pre-stamped with all the studio and console logos that you would expect and even the back blurbs for some reason, even though I think those are the ugliest part of box covers; but it would seem that's just me. Now the further question we must ask ourselves is thus: Why on earth am I sitting here talking about this if it's just a nice and wholesome artist's outlet on EBay? We don't do wholesome here! Well... as you can guess it's not exactly wholesome...

I mean, not always. There have been times, fleeting though they may be, when the group have put together a piece of box art that isn't just an alternate image of a title character nabbed from promotional materials, but a genuinely visually appealing composite! Such as the image of the Sonic Mania gang plastered over the European cartridge cover for the original Sonic collection games. That's a great idea that looks genuinely fun and creative. Of course, the actual assets are still borrowed from here and there, but the creator mounted the ingenuity to bring these decades separated pieces of media together and smoosh them up onto a single cover. That's cool! And if they were doing just cool ideas like that, I probably wouldn't be shining a spotlight on them. Then again, if they were doing that I probably wouldn't have caught sight of one of their 'variation covers' out of the corner of my eye and do a double take so hard I nearly snapped my head clean off.

So, Resident Evil 3 Remake. A fine enough game. I was disappointed with the paired back zombie generation technology, but I understand the sacrifices that had to be made in order for the increased number of on-screen zombies. I wonder what our visionaries over at 2PieceSnackbox had in mind for changing up that boxart? Oh... OH... Yeah, I'm not posting that on my blog, you can look it up on your own. Yes... to describe what I've seen here would be perhaps a bit crass... I guess, it is the Jill Valentine character as modelled by Sasha Zotova, just like on the original cover, but this Jill is... well, let's just say that 3d model is not from the base game. In fact, I suspect that someone might have perused some of the darker, more libidinous, corners of the internet and procured an 'erotic' image to appeal to the lowest common denominator. And there the shoe drops.

If you were brave enough to put that on your search history, you'll likely have also noticed that this RE3 Remake was by no means the company's only foray into... 'coomer bait', to be frank. The Bayonetta cover replacement is just a lewd, the Resident Evil 8 cover appears to be a severely under-dressed Lady Dimitrescu without her signature hat or grey coloured skin, which is wrong on several levels, and worst of all- they've made a pre-emptive cover for the Resident Evil 4 Remake on Switch. Where do I start? RE4R hasn't been announced for Switch, and I'd be very surprised if that changed; it's labelled 'Resident Evil 4 V2' which isn't the naming convention of this new franchise of games at all, and the cover image is another lewd picture of Sasha Zotova's Jill! Excuse the heck out of me- since when did Jill Valentine feature in Resident Evil 4? Last I checked she goes AWOL in 'Code Veronica' and pops up again in 5! Yes, this is what I'm upset about for some reason, excuse me and my twisted priorities!

Now of course, it's probably a little unethical to go around capitalising on the sex-appeal of various scantily clad characters in order to sell print-jobs, probably about as morally dubious as it is to actually buy them. But you know what else it is? Asking for a lawsuit. I can't speak for Capcom and how they want to go about handling their properties, I don't even know if Capcom realises there is a world outside their studio doors considering how little they interact with any of their loyal fans in a one-on-one capacity or respond to community fan pleas. But 2PieceSnackbox did mess up. How, you ask? Well they got a little comfortable, rode the seas long enough to assume they would be unendingly docile, and released one of their lewd alternative covers for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild featuring a lewdified Zelda. (Let us please host a minute of silence for the soon-to-be-removed company.)

What were they possibly thinking! Are these people insane, stupid, or some unholy sludge-like mix of the two extremes? Nintendo would have gone after these idiots even if the artwork was tasteful, they'll probably hire a cartel hit squad to visit them for this violation upon the sanctity of their beloved characters. Nintendo do not allow for fan modifications upon their image, even in the most docile sense. Do you remember when Nintendo clamped down on some internal marketing streamers for daring to propose a 'Nuzzlocke' challenge stream, simply because the prospect of playing a Pokemon game not to the exact parameters that the designers intended offended the gathered executives to their very core? Now imagine if those same streamers proposed to do that in Sexy Misty and Ash Ketchup outfits? We would never have heard of their story because their missing posters would still be in circulation on milk cartons.

I'm all for guerrilla marketing techniques, and going places where your competitors won't in order to get ahead. But lewding the protagonists? That's kinda weird, first off, and it's not really needed. The guys who do this are capable of making some really fancy and well designed alternate covers, albeit usually by mixing about existing assets rather than making something wholly new but you have to work with what you've got, right? I'm just primarily surprised and impressed about another seedy and vaguely degenerate part of our little industry that I totally brushed by until very recently. I wonder how well this catches on in the future. Who knows, we may be able to one-day custom order a new cover for the Switch copy of Skyrim Anniversary Edition with the Imperial Dragon emboss replaced with the Royal Thomas The Tank Engine seal in it's place. (We can but dream of such a day.)

Delays

Rescheduling conflicts 

As we have much to celebrate when it comes to gaming in this fine year, so too do we have cause to mourn; for that which was once on our doorstep has been shoved back into obscurity. Such is the consequence of 'delays'. That which was imminent becomes far, and that which is immediate is then immaterial. And we'd all be liars were we to insist that the wounds don't sting a little each time our upcoming hype trains take an unscheduled hiatus. Yet it's generally accepted etiquette nowadays to be understanding and patient in times such as these, as most tend to evoke that old Miyamoto Quote that I abuse worse than a Jamaican dominoes set. "A delayed game is eventually good but a rushed game is forever bad." What's that? Nintendo Life say the quote was never coined by him and instead belongs to some dude called Jason Schreiber? Look, Nintendo Life- no one's looking to have you ruin their fun, 'kay? I'm going to carry on attributing it to industry legend Shigeru Miyamoto and we'll hear nothing more about it!

Yet recently, with the sheer amount of game delays that just seem to pour out of the industry with every new release, sometimes I can't help but slip out of that meditative stoicism, stamp my feet a little and say: "what is going on?" It seems like the only games which come out when they say they're going to anymore are the uninspired yearly reiteration franchises; and it's so far in their best interest that they don't miss their own deadlines that they're willing to release cobbled together yawn generators rather than push back a release by even a couple of days. But with Breath of the Wild 2 being delayed, Baldur's Gate III being delayed, God of War: Ragnarok delayed twice; one starts asking questions like: is there any big game which hasn't been delayed?

Now of course one must be attentive of the times we live in. And of course with work at home and all the disruptions that has manifested in the industry over the past couple of years, there's going to be some hold-ups in the production line. And of course no one is going to gripe on the STALKER 2 devs for pushing that game into indefinite holding on account of the simply sickening disaster their home country is being forcibly subjected to currently. But this pattern of developers announcing big games and then changing course, sometimes at the last minute, hasn't been unique to these last two years either. It's almost an expectation that the industry has adopted in the last console age that has just carried itself on to this one. And I wish to speculate on why that is and could be.

The first time I really was shocked by a delay, it was all the back in 2012 with the bait-and-switch of Grand Theft Auto V which was surprise pushed back half a year. That was easily the biggest game of the year, what would go on to become an industry definer, just getting casually punted into next year on the verge of release. And by 'verge' I'm perhaps talking a couple of months out, but that's still  dangerously close to pull something like this. And whatsomore, given how long the delay was for, it almost seems like this was a decision that had been already pre-made. If I want to give the company the benefit of the doubt, I suppose I could try and interpret this as Rockstar's moment of integrity crisis; maybe they were behind on the project right up until the last 10 weeks and had to really sit down and ask themselves whether it was better to release a broken game today or delay out of their financial year. A crisis of faiths that lasted a little too long, perhaps; but one which ultimately scoured us a 10/10 masterpiece. (If only more modern titles would have learned from such a decision.)

On the other end of the spectrum we have the Cyberpunk delay. Not the first half dozen, but the delay which pushed the game from April of the year so that it would drop into the late Autumnal drifts- all on the eve of freakin' March! That's- just insane. They definitely had made that decision weeks beforehand and were too cowardly to let everyone down at once. Whatsmore, given the pathetically broken state the game ended up launching in anyway, one can just imagine the disaster which everyone in the team was staring at in March. Perhaps, and this is very much speculation, they looked at the state of the game back then and realised that they had utterly failed in making the game they wanted to, but figured the next six months could work to polish it into a fine game in it's own right.

What really gets to me is the way that I knew this delay was coming, it was obvious. Why? Because there was no marketing material whatsoever to even advertise this thing in the leading months. They weren't even getting TV spots yet, let alone the extended gameplay previews that I, and others, were expecting. Of course CDPR would end up going overboard, spending months hyping the dream of a game which at that point they had to mostly all know was going to disappoint; but at least at that point the name of the game was getting out there. Who were they fooling that April ever was looking like a release vector? I doubt they even prepared a single marketing graphic for that fake date. And yet, inexplicably, they maintained the false hood until the last possible moment! Bizarre.

Breath of the Wild 2, I don't even know the title yet, was delayed out of 2022, and that's something we're all trying to get to terms with. This game has been an enigma upon enigmas, with but a couple intentionally detail sparse trailers to feed us vague dregs about what this title might contain. Heck, it was only during this delay announcement that we got to even see the Master Sword for the first time in order to spot how mangled and broken it was. We hadn't even seen that series stable in the regular marketing yet! Yet this is a more understandable and forgivable delay. Made nearly an entire half year before the prospective release, not too many more months thrown on top, and clearly just a question of needing more polish time. No one is so wound up that they can't forgive a first delay like that.

When you're on your third delay, however; people can get disgruntled. Baldur's Gate III has been rubbing nerves with it's latest delay out of 2022, and it's pretty easy to see why. This title has been in early access for a year and a half, and though this is obviously the biggest project that Larian has ever worked on, one might start to question whether or not this undertaking might have been bigger than they anticipated. I love getting little teases into the gameplay, UI and classes of the main game; of course I do, but I'd much more love a complete and polished adventure to go through which doesn't leave me blue-balled before the wrap up of act 1. Delays have come timely, and kept a respectful distance, but they've also been grating after all of this time in active development. One has to wonder how drastically Early Access is holding things up and whether the game would have been better off without this period! Not having played the full thing, no one outside of their offices can really say yet.

Personally, I can take the wait. I think there's too many big games flying this way and that any given day and a little bit of spacing things out isn't going to kill us. But by that same merit, making dates is a promise and breaking that promise kind of sucks. It hurts my trust in the product and the company handling it, as I'm forced to ask if literally anyone has a good handling on the project and the work going into it. (I'm still wondering if Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 is happening. That game is literally as old as this blog, please don't let me outlive the first game I spoke about here!) Maybe we'd all be better off if developers waited a bit longer, for the project to be a bit more fully formed, before slapping dates and getting hopes up. Else we all end up like that one guy who booked his holidays off-work time for the Cyberpunk release under the explicit promise by the Cyberpunk marketing team that the game would hit it's current release, only for a delay. (It made for a funny tweet, but please let's not make that a habit.)

Hyrule Warriors: Back to the Calamity

 Where it all began

I was never a fan of Dynasty Warrior style games back in the day, so as you can imagine Hyrule Warriors was already a bit of a tough sale. On paper it sounds exactly like my cup-of-tea, large-scale sweeping and dramatic battles that have the potential to shape the fate of entire nations, who doesn't want to be involved in something that cool? But it was execution that always rubbed me the wrong way. In my mind, the appeal of simulating big epic battles comes in standing shoulder to shoulder with your allies and being that one cog in the larger machine that decides the shape of the battle. In a way it's the apparent insignificance of your contribution that highlights the importance of your actions, you aren't special in anyway, just another solider on the front lines; but it's the combined sacrifice of so many that forms the very front lines you're fighting for. Sounds somewhat epic, right? Well if you've any familiarity with the style of Dynasty Warriors then you'll see my initial gripe right away.

Early Dynasty Warriors titles have this sort of style to them wherein the battles around you were merely backdrop for the player's 'One-man-army' style rampage through historic battles. Now admittedly this wasn't totally out of left field as these games did portray a purposefully stylised and overly dramatic version of historic and legendary battles, but it still didn't suit my personal style for the lord of the manor to go strutting out into the battlefield with a halberd and start slaying entire regiments with a single strike. (It just came across as odd.) Plus, I was never a fan of the way that in those games the player character and enemy lords were about 8 foot tall when compared to everyone else on the field, it made everything look like a child's playset with mismatched toys in the fray. So if all that's mostly the case, then why am I so excited for 'Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity'?

I'd say that a big part of that comes from 'Breath of the Wild' itself, the game who's cannon 'Age of Calamity' proposes to elucidate on, because that was a Zelda game that just perfectly hit everything I was looking for in that property. 'Breath of the Wild' was an open-world action adventure RPG title that delighted in showing players a beautiful world as much as it did letting players mess around in it. Quite simply it was an escapist's dream and sold it's premise beautifully with a mastery of world design that I'd say even rivals Rockstar in some ways. More than any other Zelda before it, 'Breath of the Wild' felt like a game for me, that perfectly wiggled itself into my preferences and everything I would want. Therefore when a game comes along threatening to expand upon the story of that specific Zelda world then you can bet I'm all in for it.

Thus I was ready and eager when I first heard about the demo for Hyrule Warriors which was headed our way and decided to give it a shot. (Whereas I never got the chance to try the original Hyrule Warriors, because of the whole 'Wii U being an abject failure that only 3 people and their dog bought' debacle) And right away I can say that the basics of Hyrule Warriors really do fix some of my gripes about Dynasty Warriors. Yes, you are still basically playing the one man army who does everything by themselves, but you are at least of a similar height to your fellow compatriots so you don't look absolutely ridiculous. (Although Link does do that 'anime protagonist' thing of being the only solider with his helmet off. That's just bad uniform maintenance, my man.) But what about the meat of the game itself?

Well from the demo it seems that the heart of Dynasty games remains untouched. The majority of the game revolves around felling large squadrons of enemies with little effort between slightly larger enemies who require more strategy and planning. I was worried going in that BoTW's slightly rudimentary combat system (which relied a lot more on ingenuity with resources rather than robust button combos) would have trouble shaping up but the team seems to have done a great job making that worry more than moot. Simple combos have been built into the game which, similar to Smash Bros, elude to the abilities in the main game (such as gliding, shield surfing and spin attacks) whereas the strategic part of player's arsenals come with the Sheikah slate which operates as a slightly more martial mirror of the original game's one. This makes for a surprisingly well thought-out system that had me working with different abilities more than I would in the few traditional dynasty warriors games that I played, (wherein in those I had to switch characters to feel diverse in combat) so I'm liking the gameplay a lot more than I thought I would.

Of course, me being me the thing that's really appealing to the ol' sensibilities is the way in which different characters are being bought to the forefront of the gameplay. Impa, who served as mostly a loremaster in Breath of the Wild, is playable as a incredibly fun-to-control ninja who's main abilities revolve around managing a sort of Shadow-jitsu that's every bit as badass as it sounds. Even Link, who's powers are mostly what you'd expect, seems to be tuned up to 11 in every attack in a manner that sort of reveals how rusty he really was after that 100 year nap. (I can only imagine how badly I'd react to stumbling into a Lizalfos den in BoTW, whereas here it's hardly an inconvenience at all.) Huge points go to the team in making it so that every single Sheikah Slate attack is handled different depending on the character in control, really driving home the need to mix and match characters for the right situation.

I see real potential for this game throughout the length of it's campaign, especially if the trailers are anything to go by. Letting us see the way that Link carves his place out amidst the legendary heroes of the ballads is enticing enough, but actually having the chance to play as these people who we've been but teased about up until now is exciting. Whatsmore, there'll even be some moments where the Divine Beasts will be under our control for the first time ever, really showcasing what these war platforms where capable of. Yes, a lot of what we've seen is huge fanservice, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that when it promises to be this cool and interesting to try out.

Obviously the majority of my, and everyone else's, excitement is fuelled by what this game represents. By going back and showing us the great war, 'Age of Calamity' is closing the book on the story of Breath of the Wild and leaving no lingering questions, perfectly opening up the way for a new story to launch in Breath of the Wild 2, or whatever it's going to be called. This is very much a stepping stone on the journey to part 2 and I want to be there for every second of it. I'm just glad we're seeing all this first hand in a game that's actually pretty fun rather than spending an entire game watching flashbacks about it. (I really wasn't a fan of the 'flashback' storytelling, I really hope it doesn't make a return)

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

So is Breath of the Wild a brand now?

I don't think I've really ever been invested enough to really pay attention to the sheer rate of Nintendo announcements before now, but I have to say: They move at crazy speed. First there was the Pokemon DLC reveal event which literally happened less than two weeks before launch, then 'The Origami King' which was less than a month out, and now a full blown prequel to a game we only thought was getting a sequel. I thought the whole 'announce the day before you go gold' strategy was Bethesda's patented routine. (But then again, since saying that we've only seen their main team release one bad Fallout game, so maybe their example isn't one to ever be lauded.) Either way, I must say that this is the most exciting announcement I've heard this year out of Nintendo and that's because Nintendo are heading my favourite among their brands, Zelda, to my personal 'best' of it's iterations, Breath of the Wild, to flesh out important events in this prequel: 'Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity'.

The Hyrule Warriors franchise (As I guess that's what it is now) goes back to that forgone relic of history known as the 'Wii U'. (Archaeologists still argue over what exactly that piece of antiquated tech was to this day.) Then it was an attempt to supplant the world of Zelda and transpose it into the same sort of game type as a typical Dynasty Warriors title, with their patented '1000 vs 1' gameplay that they go on about ad nauseam. Basically that means gameplay wound up being a hero unit turning around battles through the grace of their sweeping attacks and clever utilisation of magical powers. Honestly, this always did ring hollow for me whenever I played the Dynasty games, because I never liked the way that the sacrifice of hundreds constantly got whittled down to the efforts of one 8 foot man. (Never understood why the generals had to be so oversized either.) In the world of Zelda, however, this does make a lot more sense given the nature of Moblins and the heroes who defended the nature, so I honestly shocked to say that Hyrule Warriors does the genre better than it's namesake. (Unfortunately not many got a chance to play it because it was on the Wii U.)

Age of Calamity hopes to replicate that, but instead of use it as the grounds to tell a unique self-contained story, (which I think fit into the 'Twilight Princess' timeline if I recall correctly) this promises to go back and tell the climatic events of 100 years prior to Breath of the Wild; and I for one couldn't be more enthused. The legacy of Zelda is always played out as a reiteration upon the same formula with the reincarnations of the same people. Link and Zelda are reborn as different versions of the same characters destined to relive events for all eternity. (Or until Zelda gets her act together and disintegrates Ganon's primal form.) Now while this works great for being accessible, it does make it hard to build up a journey and development over multiple adventures because the characters always end-up invariably getting reset. What Age of Calamity, along with the upcoming Breath of the Wild Sequel, portend is a change upon that formula where this one Zelda and Link will go on multiple adventures and grow as they do, making for more satisfying arcs in the tales to come.

For those that can't quite remember Breath of the Wild's plot; that game took place 100 years after an event known as The Great Calamity wherein the kingdom of Hyrule was invaded by the ethereal force known as Calamity Ganon, who turned the might of the Sheikah technology against the heroes and used it to take over the kingdom. This ended with Link being severely hurt trying to protect Zelda and thus having to be stuck in a rejuvenation chamber for a whole century. (Damn, who made this chamber? Naminé?) The war was a time of heroes across all the nations coming together to fight for time as their Princess struggled to meet her destiny, (In vain, as it just so happens, because she would take another 100 years to get there) and the battles they fought against the armies of Ganon must have been legendary. Thus to get the chance at experiencing those legends is truly something to be excited for. (I so am.)

But with that excitement comes a little bit of bittersweet uncertainty, because I must stop and wonder if the very existence of this Age of Calamity doesn't invalidate the entire narrative of Breath of the Wild. One of the weakest parts of that masterpiece was it's plot and the way that Nintendo chose to tell it, not because it didn't have depth but because it focused itself on telling the events of 100 years prior thus robbing the present moment of urgency. It's only really once you face off against Calamity Ganon himself that you enter into the moment and feel like you're fighting for something, but that's literally at the end of the game. The mystery of uncovering the past was, then, the draw of the narrative, but if there's due to be an entire game living in that past then this plotline becomes redundant in about 2 months. (Perhaps evidence that it was weak plotline to put their weight on to begin with.)

Then there's the issue that I'll admit is a lot more of a personal gripe but I still feel is valid to bring up. When that trailer for Breath of the Wild 2 first dropped, as did my bowels, there were quite a few elements that blew me and everyone else away. There was the creepy factor to it all, the backwards singing, the fiery-haired corpse, the sheer excitement of a sequel, and the fact that this was Link travelling alongside Zelda. Finally! This would be the first time we got to play as Zelda (No, those games didn't exist; shut up.) But, as you can likely deduce, Zelda will be playable in November's Age of Calamity and she has the Sheikah plate moveset from the Breath of the Wild main game. It's not a huge point by any stretch of the imagination but it does rob some of the allure from getting to play as the Goddess' heir. (Yes I know she was playable in the original Hyrule Warriors but again- Wii U. IF a game is released on a Wii U and no one was around did it ever really release at all?)

Though on the otherhand I do like the way that having this game creates a Breath of the Wild trilogy in which we'll get to experience Link and, more importantly, Zelda at ever point of the character development. Link as a young prodigy and Zelda as a failing priestess destined for greatness but unable to bridge that gap. Then Link, still as a prodigy, and Zelda at her breakthrough moment battling Calamity Ganon for a century and living up to her birth rite. And then, in the hopefully not too distant future; Link as, yet again a prodigy, and Zelda as the adventurer she always wanted to be, finally reaching her dreams. (Huh, I'm starting to think we need a 'Legend of Link' game to flesh out our silent hero. He's hitting a little one-note lately.)

Age of Calamity excites me to a frankly unreal degree right now. I shouldn't be this pumped about a prequel to a genre that I don't even like that much, but I just adore Breath of the Wild so much that I cannot help but lose my mind at the chance to experience that beautiful world once more. (I literally just started replaying the game the week before this announcement; is that serendipity or what?) I am ecstatic for the precedent this sets for the Breath of the Wild timeline, and I know this is going to ultimately just make the wait for BOTW 2 absolutely unbearable. Dammit, Nintendo! I was angry at you last week and now I'm chomping at the bit for whatever you've got ready for us... I'm too weak...(Why can't I quit you!)

My love/hate relationship with the almighty hype train

Hype, the final frontier

We've all been there; anxiously nashing their teeth in the wake of the upcoming release of the latest series of your favourite show, a new exciting movie or, to keep things on-brand, that new video game that's caught your eye and captured your imagination. In the right circumstances it can be a wondrous time where myth and legend swirl your mind as though anything can happen and you're expecting it all. Perhaps the mystery is what grabs you or perhaps you know exactly what to expect and just need it to be here now else you won't ever quite feel complete. Although it can also be a time of soared expectations and inevitable disappointments, wherein all that waiting and anticipation is doomed to result in a mediocre reception on release day, and you partially have yourself to blame for that. This, in a nutshell, is the dichotomous hype train. Toot Toot.

As one becomes ingrained in a community or a 'fandom' around a specific field of interest, it seems inevitable that you'll also catch the hype bug. In relation to gaming, if you're a fan of exploring worlds and playing new games then it's inevitable that you'll eventually hear an idea or concept for something upcoming that tickles the old taste buds. Typically, this might result in you thinking about that new title in your mind and trying to envision what secrets it might hold, where the developers might expand upon their previous works and how great it will feel to get your hands on. (Yes, I know I just defined 'Hype' to you. No, I will not apologise, I couldn't help myself.) This is good for developers and publishers, because it means that they've provided a suitable enough amount of marketing and presented it well enough to ingrain an idea into your head, and at it's most basic level that's the ultimate goal of all marketing. Hype is what allows for creatives to keep the excite for their games alive from the time of announcement to the time of launching without showcasing every little secret that game has to offer, it can make communities self perpetuating and fan-bases last decades but, as I hinted at, it can also have a negative impact too.

As Steven Spielberg was well aware of during the creation of 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind', and Chris Chibnall seemed pigheadedly unaware of during the crafting of Doctor Who season 12; the power of imagination is a story telling machine without peer. The whole expression 'less is more' is built around that truth and as such many writers and story tellers know that when it's possible it is much more effective to leave an open mystery than it is to close that gap, because nothing you can write will ever be better than what the reader can envision in their mind's eye. Unfortunately, imagination is the same fuel that 'the Hype Train' runs on, and that can lead to some substantial problems down the line. (Is the 'train' analogy getting old yet? I don't think it's old yet.) Hype forms around the mystery of the unknown, and when imagination is allowed to swell untempered, it can create an idealised expectation in someone's mind that will never be matched by the final product, leading to inevitable disappointment. For a gaming example of this just look to 'No Man's Sky' which was a title who's premise ran away with itself when the audience fell in love with it. (I mean, it didn't help that Sony were hoisting the title up as the next coming of Christ.) The Hype proved so infectious that even Hello Games caught it when crafting their trailers full of things that they hadn't yet been implemented, but the team just assumed that they'd get around to them, and their CEO Sean Murray, who went around to every single press event on the planet earth confirming features about the game that were still in the 'talks' stage. (Many of which were dropped.) And we all know what eventually happened with that game... it's kinda good now, but it took several years to get there.

Personally, I have experience with both sides of that Hype Train. (Although I'm so stingy that I rarely end up getting lumped with 'Buyer's remorse'.) Although this is likely not my actual first, the first time I remember being hopelessly caught up in hype-mania was all the way back in 2011 during the lead-up to Skyrim. Or to be accurate, in 2010 not too long after that year's E3. For reasons that would be too long to get into (Although I'd personally attribute it to the talented writing skills of Andy Farrant.) Skyrim was the first fantasy product that I really gelled with in a serious way. I read the preview about this game probably hundreds of times over and the second that I saw Bethesda's E3 presentation for that year I was wholly sold on the product. From that point onward I was literally marking down every single day until that game's release and absolutely could not function every day without it. (Which, considering that the game came out in November, likely means I knocked at least a decade off my life expectancy with all that anticipating.) On the day of the game's launch, which I had actually preordered for (Yes, that was my first Pre-order.) I ended up getting a detention in English which almost tore my soul from my body. I had waited this long, only to be held up over some missing homework? (Safe to say, I never looked that particular teacher in the eye ever again.) But when I finally got my hands on the game, at least I was satisfied. (Hell, I still play Skyrim, so the hype worked out for me I guess.)

However things don't always go that... Well? (Could that story be considered as 'going well'?) and sometimes all we are left is are products which we got our hopes up for only to have them be callously crushed by the hand of reality. For that there are so many examples off the top of my head; Watch_Dogs, Assassin's Creed: Unity, Ghost Recon Wildlands, The Di- what do you mean I'm focusing entirely on Ubisoft games? Oh right... And Fallout 76. Whilst I cannot say that I personally was sold on all of these games hook-line-and-sinker, I definitely know of certain groups of people who were and consequently were gutted when those games failed to deliver. I will say that I did have my hopes up for Wildlands, so that one honestly did get to me. (I even dared to hope for Fallout 76, fool that I am.) So with this possibility in mind the question that I'm left is simple; is the concept of 'hype' worth the fuss?

One of the things that I love about 'hype' is it's ability to unite people over the love of a shared medium and/or product. I don't go out much today, but back when I had to I found myself occasionally drawn into unexpected conversations with people that I would never typically rub shoulders with. I remember going back and forth about the possibilities of Hyrule Warriors and that exciting teaser for the game that would eventually come to be known as 'Breath of the Wild', and it was Hype which facilitated that sort of discourse. Additionally, Hype allows us to get excited about the realm of gaming even when there's nothing coming out, in fact, for the last 20-odd years gamers have only made it through Summer because of hype, with those months typically being devoid of all except that year's E3. And I think that as long as one remembers to stay realistic than there's no harm in making guesses about what a future game could hold, it's actually quite fun.

But by that same merit it is all too easy for hype to descend into something less healthy once it becomes an obsession. Games which are announced too early or which fall into a development nightmare are often infamous for relying purely on hype to keep things alive, which can be a huge detriment in the long run. Fans find themselves building up their idealised version of the game to the point where they become irrational and inconsolable. Just look at Disney's tenure with the Star Wars franchise. They piggybacked off of the original trilogy of films which, by that point, was nearly 40 years old. Logically, there was no way they could continue that story in any way that could be satisfactory so the quality of the next two titles were practically inevitable. (One could argue how that's no excuse for how bad they ultimately were, but that's neither here nor there.) Some games are still stuck on that hype train and have a army of fans following them that have practically been driven to the limits of their sanity because of it, just look at the Star Citizen community. Those people truly believe that Cloud Imperium is on the verge of delivering the next gaming revolution despite all evidence to the contrary, and at this point it feels like those folk are too far gone to consider otherwise. They invested so much themselves, whether that be emotionally or financially, that they can't fathom looking at the dumpster fire that they've jumped into else they'll realise that they wasted all of that investment.

So is the 'Hype Train' good for the gaming world? Yes and No. I'd argue that a little bit of hype is great for any upcoming project, and half of the fun of creating a cool name game is figuring out how to inspire the imagination of your audience with it, so no harm no foul. However, just like with all things in life, over exposure leads to dependence and that is a relationship that is ultimately beneficial to no one. As you can see, I find it hard to come down on one side of this issue and that just might be the point; how could you possibly do anything about the concept of people getting excited, even if it is ultimately wrong? Well, you could do a 'Lena Luthor' and strip everyone of emotions that you consider to be 'unhealthy' through Project Non Nocere, (Jesus Christ, I just made a 'Supergirl' reference. Please kill me.) or you could just except that hype happens and just search for a way to come to terms with that. Either way, I won't stop hyping up Resident Evil 3 next month and the Internet won't stop hyping up Cyberpunk this October, so we all better just suck it up.

Building in games

Building buildings here!

In the right hands, the power to create can be a limitless gift. In video games, player-shaped creation is a big step in allowing players to personalize the game which they are playing. There are countless ways in which this can achieved from something as grand as creation tools to something as tiny as the ability to name your weapons. It narrows the vast abyss between the developers and the players in a way that endears them to the product. Allow people the chance to create a little ounce of rapport with their game world you'll find their response to be all the greater for it.

The philosophy behind this particular topic is rather hefty so I intend to condense it down into little bite-sized installments. First, as the title suggests, I want to talk about the ability to build in games. Whether as a token gesture or a full blown, realized, game mechanic; I believe that when the player is tasked with staking a claim in the gameworld it establishes a tight bond with the player. They say that the task of creating something can be like tearing out a piece of your own heart to serve as the dough, transpose that ideal into the world of games and it can be easy to see why players go nuts for these sorts of mechanics. They are so popular, in fact, that some games have built their entire premise around the concept of building.

Kinda like Minecraft has. Everyone and their mother has heard about the infinite replayability of Mojang's Minecraft and it's limitless appeal. Adults and children find fulfillment in the game in such a way that few other entertainment products capture. This is due to many factors; the low minimum requirements allowing lower-end systems to run some form of the game, blocky timeless pixel graphics that kids and adults can enjoy, and the key focus on the concept of creativity (A virtue that I maintain everyone harbours in themselves to some degree.)

When playing Minecraft, players are presented with an expansive, never ending, world which is entirely at the mercy of their creative wit. Tree's can be cut down, land can be upturned, stone can be dug up and water can be displaced. Nothing in the world is permanent and everything can be reshaped into whatever form you so please. Players can build houses, mansions, castles, towns, cities, Death Stars, Full scale replicas of the Enterprise-D and giant floating islands in the sky. You have no limit to your work beyond that which you can imagine. Even after 10 years of constant updates, Mojang still recognize how this freedom is the heart of their game and seek to improve upon world generation or exploration whenever possible. Minecraft is the purest possible example of game-ified building mechanics.

Minecraft met with such fame and success when it first released that some games pivoted their entire design to ape the juggernaut. Just look at Fortnite. Back during their first gameplay presentation, Epic relied heavily on the building mechanics to demonstrate to people how their experience was distinct from any other tower defence game. Some even went so far as to invoke the name of Minecraft whilst describing the rudimentary building tools, despite their apparent crippling rigidness. The issue with the base game was not that players were disappointed with the fact that the game couldn't live up to Minecraft's promise of freedom, just that they felt belittled by the company attempting to equate the two. You could even see this as a contributing factor to Fortnite's initial lack in sales.

When 'Fortnite: Battle Royale' hit, everything changed. Now people were comparing this game to the other big battle royale of the time: Player Unknown's Battlegrounds. Suddenly the building aspect of Fortnite was a significant gameplay differentiator that transformed the product as a whole. Players who had got used the slow, methodical, crawl of PUBG matches were now met with an entirely new meta-game experience, one of charging the enemy and building as they go. I think history proves which game's approach ultimately won that ideological clash. Fortnite's building may not have been as robust as what Minecraft offered but it wasn't until Fortnite found it legs that people realized, it really didn't need to be. For a fast paced Battle Royale a simpled, streamlined building mechanic is necessary and appreciated, and that is what Fortnite specialized in. No one will spend their time building something semi-permanent with those tools, (Outside of the dedicated 'build mode') but the quick-build structures were enough to endear people to the game. It allowed players to make the battlefield their own in a way no other competitive shooter had managed before.

For a structurally linear experience it can be hard to imagine how a game like Assassin Creed could have building mechanics, but they do, just in a completely different way to those other two games. With both Minecraft and Fortnite, their building was founded on the ground of free-placement items. No such luck in Ubisoft's story-centric, historical stab-athon franchise. But that doesn't mean the games couldn't fit some sort of building in there, or rather 'renovation'. Ever since Assassin's Creed 2 there has been some sort of building metagame that varies in narrative relevance; but it is always there so that Ubisoft's open-world department managers can tick off that box on their clipboard list sheet. In Assassin Creed 2, Ezio was tasked with renovating Monteriggioni, Brotherhood and Revelations had him fixing up large portions of Rome and Constantinople respectively, Connor worked on an entire town project in 3 and Kenway built up the entire Caribbean in Black Flag.

The effect this has on the player differs from entry to entry but it is always noteworthy. In Assassin Creed 2, 4, and Unity, the player is working on their own hub space as they go through renovations. Having somewhere to call home goes a long way to grounding that player in their world and helps the audience to immerse themselves . (Even if no Assassins Creed has managed to come up with a worthwhile reason why the player ever needs to consistent go back home.) In Brotherhood and Revelations, the player is playing landlord with an entire city, so the mechanic is less there for grounding purposes and more just to institute one of those 'hands-off' gameplay loops that Ubisoft loved doing for a time. I never was a huge fan of these systems, they always seem built to reward you for not playing the game, which just appears a tad shortsighted. Then there is Assassins Creed 3's homestead which ties in significant character driven narrative progression into an optional build-a-town-questline. And yes, you heard me right. I said 'Optional'. People who complain that AC3's Conner Kenway is entirely unlikeable often never took the time to trough through this questline (Which spans the full length of the entire game.) in order to see Connor's character growth up close with the community he built. I'm not saying that it saves the character or anything, but it helps you see one more side to the stoney-faced snooze-inducer that he is for the rest of the game.


Even Bethesda got in on the 'linear house building' craze with Skyrim's second DLC Hearthfire. Those who partook are offered the ability to build their own homestead on Skyrim's icy tundras. (An alternative to the perfectly functional, if small, vanilla player homes.) The only catch, you have to build it all yourself. And it is no simple task. Hearthfire was a DLC built for the sole purpose of bolstering role playing potential in Skyrim and helping root immersion. Players went through the struggle of acquiring copious amounts of building material and then were given a small range of design choices as they crafted a prefab house. After it was all said and done, players could sit and back and bask in the glory of the hard day's work. (Or, as is more likely, a hard months work.) A lot of The Elder Scrolls' systems are created for roleplaying potential and build-able player houses were no exception.

Therefore it should come as no surprise that something similar should pop up in another game that champions immersion and roleplay potential. (Although not, perhaps, with as much of an all-encompassing approach as Bethesda does.) 'The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild' features one linear 'Build-a-house' system that is so optional that I, along with many other gamers, didn't even know it existed in our initial playthrough. In Hateno Village the player can come across a small run down shack which they can then convert into their cool little home. The house itself is limited in actual beneficial function, offering you little more than a place to sleep and a display case for some of your items; but the mere novelty of having a home to return to helps lend to that 'world grounding' I was talking about earlier. Although I will say, BoTW's Link looks more at home sleeping rough than any other video game character ever.

If Skyrim was the point that Bethesda were experimenting with 'house building' mechanics, then Fallout 4 would certainly be the beta stage. Borrowing the core concept from Elderwind's popular Fallout: New Vegas mod, 'Wasteland Defence', Bethesda sought to implement a settlement crafting system into Fallout 4. But this wasn't with the linear pick-an-option approach that they tried with Skyrim, but a rudimentary manual placement system more akin to Fortnite. Players had to build up the living space for an entire town of mostly interaction-less NPC's and then defend them from endless waves of bullet fodder. Fallout 4's building didn't exact lean to the calm and serene role playing potential that Hearthfire did, but more the quick action-oriented approach that the rest of the game adopted. This was slightly marred by the building tools themselves. Just restrictive enough not inspire the imagination like Minecraft did and just liberating enough to require real effort in order to make something remotely presentable.

Fallout 76 was when Bethesda's building mechanics were really ready for market. Instead of building settlements, players were given the ability to build a home, only this time they had no restrictions on foundations and could build anywhere. The actual building tools themselves were improved to make the act of building much more intuitive and forgiving. With a map as huge as Fallout 76's, being told to go out and make a house almost feels like staking your claim in the old west. That old junkyard house you eventually put together is representative of the blood sweat and tears you put into gathering the material to assemble it. (And your patience for persisting through all the server issues.)

The prevalence of 'building mechanics' in modern games is indicative of the appeal of creative outlets in games. There will always be an audience for mindless action experiences and tactical real-time strategy games, but sometimes people just want to settle down and let their creativity flow. I have always been a huge fan of these kind of features, even if I've never been much an architect myself'; I find the drive to create something that I am proud of often trumps the desire to push forward to the end. Sometimes I find myself becoming hopeless dedicated to games that don't completely deserve it in order to perfect something that doesn't really have any concrete criteria for perfection. I become my own taskmaster and I'm not the only player to fall into the similar habits. I guess it just goes to show; tell the player to build a house and they'll try to make a home.

In defense of: Item degredation.

I got knives for days.

Have you ever been in a position where you've heard someone rant and rave about how a particular thing is worst ever, or the example of all things bad in the world? I have. It is hard when it seems that the entire gaming community is in agreement over how terrible something is and you are the lone voice of 'but I liked it!' It's isolating. It makes you feel detached from the rest of your kin. Therefore I've decided that whenever such a thing comes to my mind, in relation to gaming of course, I will share it here in hopes of getting it off my chest and perhaps connecting with someone else who shares my point of view or has a similar story of going against the grain. My first order of business: degradable equipment in Video Games.

We've all been there at least once; you've made it to the end of the dungeon and are caught in bloody battle with the dungeon boss. The tide is starting to shift, he has exhausted all his minions and now nothing stands in the way of you beating his ugly face into a bloody pulp. You start allowing your mind to wander, idly postulating and what new and wonderful loot might await you on his corpse. Then, out of blue, you hear the sound of dropped equipment and your weapon is automatically discarded. Panic starts to build. You didn't prepare for this, that was your only weapon, you're not trained in hand to hand. Your stomach lurches as you are forced to come to a grim reality. You've bottled it, your only recourse now is to retreat, recuperate and come back sharper, more world weary and, hopefully, better equipped.

That is the effect of weapon degradation in video games, and you know what, I love it. Yeah, I know what you're thinking 'Everything you just described is a negative, wasting your time and effort only to realise that you have to retreat is the worst!' Sure, but hear me out. For me, video games are not about playing some superhero who achieves everything with no amount of effort thrown at them. Every you achieve is done so through some amount of effort, whether it be the application of brute force, wisdom or general acumen. In order to provide a solution, there has to be a problem. In the solving of that problem comes the greatest of rewards: Satisfaction. I am explaining adversity in video gaming at, perhaps, it's most basic form. That is why games like 'Dark Souls' have reached the level of cultural proliferation they have; they provide a challenge that they player has to apply effort in order to surmount and which is satisfying once done so. Call it, the 'Rule of Adversity' . Just look at 'Getting Over it with Bennett Foddy'. Or rather, just listen to 'Getting over it', the narrator actually touches on this topic at some point in his annoying ramblings.

You can likely see where I'm going with this. I see weapon degradation (And item degradation in general) as an extension of this 'Rule of Adversity'. A small layer added onto the top of combat that requires the player to enter a whole new level of thought when planning to clear a hostile area in a video game. Now, players are not just considering the power of their main weapon, but bringing a backup weapon in case of emergencies or packing 'repair kits' for on-the-go maintenance. The layer of planning is now added onto your combat strategy, just because of the addition of one new system to the game mechanics. But how do you ensure a mechanic like this is challenging but not annoying? Well, like all things in game design, it all comes down to implementation and balancing. No one wants their sword breaking every two seconds, it'd make the weapon's feel flimsy; and no one wants to be stuck in a scenario where they cannot continue playing the game because their only weapon was scuppered. The issue of balance is a nuanced one and there is one 'one size fits all' solution for solving it; developers have to look at the mechanics they have implemented and see if the concept of weapon degradation fits their game and their world. I have complied a few examples of those who have, I believe, struck this balance well and thus are examples to the industry.

The Elder Scrolls is the darling franchise of Bethesda, saving their company from bankruptcy back in 2002 and netting them near universal critical acclaim since. In both 2002's Morrowind and 2006's Oblivion, there were weapon degradation mechanics implemented in the game before being stripped in Skyrim along with many of their more complex mechanics. I won't address Morrowind here, as that game has sinned to the art of video game combat in a manner deserving it's own blog, but rather I choose to focus on Oblivion. As in any open world Bethesda game, Oblivion's weapons and armours are in no way way hard to come by. You can pick them off the floor of any dungeon, buy them at any weapons smith or loot them off any downed foe. It is within Bethesda's dedication to immersion that they endeavour to allow the player to interact with anything in the world that they should be able to react with. This is handy when coupled with the weapon and armour degradation that Oblivion features.

Not to say that merely being lousy with weapons is enough to offset the issue of them breaking, found weapons are often pre-worn and close to being scuppered. You are unlikely to find a replacement for your best broadsword if the thing breaks on you in the middle of combat, however the ready availability does mean that you are unlikely to find yourself in a position with no weapons to wield. Also, Bethesda planned ahead enough to dedicate one of the many skills you learn in the game to the art of repairing your gear, allowing for you to forgo a trip to your local smith as long as you have the tools available. This allows them to have the layer of depth to strategy that weapon degradation issues whilst also providing the savvy player with the tools and means to solve the presented complication. Like with any good problem, they had a good solution.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is another game with such mechanics and, you'll likely not be shocked to hear, they balance it incredibly deftly. Breath of the Wild was the first game in the Zelda franchise to realise an expansive open world with the level of freedom that AAA open world games offer. As such, Breath of the Wild adopted many new mechanics such as the ability to pick and use items dropped by enemies that you have slain, and that you find around Hyrule. Every item was fitted with a durability bar and so would break before too long. (except the Master Sword, which had other limitations.) This time, however, usable and breakable items were no longer limited to weapons and armour (Indeed Breath of the Wild's armour doesn't actually break.) but expanded to makeshift tools like sticks, leaves and the severed, but still animated hand of an undead skeleton.

This all married up with Breath of the Wild's approach to hostile encounters. This was not a game that was designed to be a hack-and-slash-athon, but rather they planned from the ground up to promote ingenuity and atypical stratagems. So whilst there may be a comprehensive combat system, you are not limited to use only that. In many instances, Nintendo expect to you come at problems from a completely different angle. Perhaps you could roll this rock down that hill to crush the Bokoblin camp or set fire to this patch of grass knowing that the spread of fire will reach those sleeping Moblins. Making weapons temporary was a subtle way for the developers to push players towards the making use of the world around them to solve the problems they were presented with, without shoehorning them into it. Leaving freedom of gameplay in the hands of the player, like a true adventurous experience.

Back we go to Bethesda and another landmark RPG, Fallout. It seems Bethesda had a style for open worlds as both Fallout 3 and, the Obsidian developed, Fallout: New Vegas shared many of the hall marks of The Elder Scrolls franchise. Both Fallouts had complete interactivity with an inexhaustive amount of weaponry and a weapon degradation system to boot. Obviously, degradation fits the universe of Fallout like a glove seeing as how the series takes place in a post-apocalyptic world; however, that doesn't mean they did the bare minimum in implementation. Leaning on another trope of the post-apocalyptic setting, the need to be resourceful, Fallout 3/New Vegas made sure that all those excess weapons your character picked up were actually useful, by allowing you to use their parts in the restoration of your favourite weapons.

Fallout also added events to highlight the effects of degradation without becoming impairing. In The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, when weapons reached low durability they would actually lessen their damage output, as though the blade itself was dulling with each strike (Even when we're talking about blunt weapons). This was frustrating because it pressured the player to forever keep their weapons at full durability, tilting the weapon degradation system from a meaningful addition to combat strategy into the realm of becoming a hindrance. Fallout, however, fixed this issue without scrapping the concept or it's authenticity entirely. In Fallout, for the majority of your weapon's durability you suffered no ill effects; the moment your weapon's condition entered a danger zone (One which New Vegas clearly marked.) you would start to notice that the weapon would jam on reloads. A small detail that hammered home the need to repair, without turning your weapon into an oversized toothpick.

Lastly I want to bring you back to a game I bought up earlier, Dark Souls. You see, Dark Souls differs from those previous games in that From Software didn't need to implement weapon degradation in order to cement the authenticity of their world, or add any layer upon combat or promote outside-the-box thinking. The themes of decay are meticulously seeped into Dark Souls in such a way as to be unmistakable and the Dark Souls' combat doesn't require any more layers of complexity or alternative solutions to be sublime. The only barrier to mastering Dark Souls' combat is to master your own patience and that is a truth that can't be reinforced with gimmicks or subversions. From Software embraces weapon degradation as it matches the identity of their game.

What do I mean by 'identity'? I'm referring to a concept similar to themes but living outside of 'the magic box'. (A term to refer to everything that exists within the universe of the game.) The 'identity' of the game is the way it is recognized by the audience irregardless of it's lore or the ideas it espouses. 'Identity' is concrete and tangible, bought to life in the execution of the game rather than in the writing for it. For Dark Souls that 'identity' is of being at the utmost bottom of the food chain throughout the entire game. Having the entire world against you and weighing down on you from start to finish. Persevering not by becoming some godly figure but by becoming the bare minimum to succeed and struggling along the way. That includes pushing yourself and your equipment past your limits to achieve further. This may sound like a stretch or even abstract, but if any game is the perfect embodiment of the 'Rule of Adversity' it is Dark Souls. Nothing is achieved without effort. Even if "your wings... burn in anguish, time and time again".

Perhaps I make too big a deal about the inclusion of a little green bar underneath weapons in video games, but I am a firm believer in the power of the little details. A fantastic gaming experience is built up of thousands of small mechanics all shaking hands with each other and coming together in a coherent manner. 'Weapon degredation' shouldn't be a dirty word any more than 'Minigame' should be. (More on that later.) Just as with any game mechanic, there are poor examples that reflect badly but there are also great examples that elevate the final product. No one ever gets it perfect, but if we care enough, we will perpetually improve.

Unfortunately, it seems that in recent years many games have dropped off on the practice. Whether in response to the, seemingly wide spread, disdain for item degradation or simply a redirection to a simpler experience in order to make their product more accessible; Games in general have shed their item degradation systems. Fallout and Skyrim both lost theirs, even when the consequence was being dumped with numerous pointless items. I can only assume that millions of discarded steel swords and 10mm pistols now dot their virtual landscape. From Software still persist as they have a reputation to keep and we can only assume that Breath of the Wild's sequel still has the core mechanics of the last game. However, no high profile upcoming game has mentioned any system like this. None of them at all. Does this mean that weapon degradation in gaming is dead? Probably. At least for the near future. And whilst I remain the lone person calling out their love for this mechanic, it's likely to stay that way.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Sequel!

Oh, What's that? You don't think I can write extensively about a 1 and a half minute teaser? How little you know me...

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was one of the best games of 2017 and easily one the greatest open world video games ever. It is masterclass in game design in so many aspects, the meaningful architecture of the world, the seeding of worthwhile exploration and the integration of a slew of mechanics that fit together like clockwork. Like an exercise in abundance and restraint, Breath of the Wild gives its players a world teeming with things to see and places to go without clogging itself down with the useless and the perfunctory.

Since it's inception back in 1986, Zelda has always been a franchise that attempted to capture the essence of adventure and child-like wonder. It's well known now how much the legendary game director Shigeru Miyamoto drew from his own childhood in the forming of the Legend of Zelda. Whilst it is true, since then, that Zelda has adopted many themes and story elements that elevate it from that original simplicity; Breath of the Wild demonstrated that none of it took away from the core, timeless vision that Miyamoto founded the games on.

Those who participated in the saturated marketplace that was open world games in the 2010's, could probably recall how often it was that a high budget title would launch with a lifeless world tacked on pointlessly. It became standard practice in the AAA landscape for a while to cram your gameplay atop tundras of wasted space and time in order to balloon playtime and tick the 'open world' box. That is not to say that there were no worthwhile open world experiences at this time, but rather to say that those games were mostly made by studios who were learned in doing so, because they had being doing making these worlds for years; I'm referring to Bethesda, Rockstar, CD Projekt Red etc.

Breath of the Wild was seemingly the first Zelda game to feature an 'open world' as the concept exists in modern gaming: As an expansive game space built to give room for the player's curiosity to take centre stage. However, in truth, The Legend of Zelda is perhaps the progenitor of the whole open world genre. Even the 1986 original in its simple top-down, pixel-form glory; was built to allow freedom of movement across the game world, as Link travelled in his quest to conquer its 9 dungeons and assemble the Triforce. That game was so expansive for the time that Nintendo had to pioneer the 'data saving' system in order to make the adventure manageable. Therefore whilst I do very much respect Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, I must disagree with his assertions that Breath of the Wild was the idealised form of their game model. Sure, Ubisoft patented the rinse and repeat approach to open world games but Nintendo very much birthed the curiosity driven open world that defines the Legend of Zelda.

Curiosity was the main tool that the Breath of the Wild developers exploited for the purpose of making exploration worthwhile without resorting to filling the world up with collectibles and side quests. When making the world, the team used terrain in order to manipulate perspective and ensure that there was no one point from which the player could make out all the that lies before them. If you wanted to discover what the other side of this valley looks like, you have to trek around this mountain or through this river. The Sheikah Slate was another useful tool to guide adventurers, giving players a rough hint on the location of secrets whilst expecting them to use the tools and skills at their disposal to find their prize. These ideas were even built into the combat system, which utilised breakable equipment in order to encourage players to either search around for backup weaponry or figure out which system they can exploit to either find another way to deal with the enemy or some way to avoid them altogether.

In its very foundations Breath of the Wild is both simple and ingenious. It is arguably as close to perfection as a multi-faceted multimillion doller production can get. Perfectly balanced gameplay, world and mechanics all cement the legendary status that the game is destined to hold. Although, I will admit I would have preferred a more hands-on approach to the story telling, (I've never been a fan of the distance that the story-told-through-flashbacks approach, fosters between protagonists and key story elements.) I cannot judge the game for what it isn't over what it is. For my money, Breath of the Wild is an easy 10/10, if I were the score giving type.

Yet despite my adoration (or perhaps because of it), I find myself approaching news of a potential Sequel with mixed feelings. On one hand, Breath of the Wild has become my favourite Zelda title seconded by my former favourite: Majora's Mask. On the other hand, Breath of the Wild was so good because it didn't overstay its welcome and become boring. It offered as much game as you were willing to handle and no more. Will a sequel throw that into jeopardy? At this point I suppose only time will tell.

At the moment, sequel details are obviously light. The high ups at Nintendo haven't even deemed as worthy to know the title of the game yet. Perhaps there isn't one. All we have to go on is the aforementioned minute and a half trailer and the information contained within. Luckily, this trailer does provide a fair few details of its own.

Firstly, the most exciting element of this new trailer for me; The tone. Look at reactions online and the first thing everyone points out about the trailer is how creepy it feels. From the dark, dingy cavern that Link and Zelda are travelling through to the backwards sing/chanting that emanates from the darkness. And, of course,  the dessicated corpse of someone that appears to be Ganondorf. There hasn't been a Legend of Zelda game that immediately seemed this unsettling since Majora's Mask, and I just let you know how much I adore that game. The quick turn around of this new Zelda game also seems to echo Majora's Mask from back in the day; at which time the team re purposed a lot of Ocarina of Time's assets in order to piece together that nightmarish reshuffle. (Nightmarish in all the best ways!) Will this new Zelda game follow the same strategy? Likely. Although will it have anything nearly as off putting as Majora's Moon in the game? Well, that is the real question, isn't it?

Another detail that fans have picked up on, is the way that Zelda and Link seem to be adventuring together, almost like equals. For me, this means that we will get a story with a lot more immediate investment then BotW, as key characters will actually be there alongside you. Some have extrapolated on the scene, however, to conclude that it indicates Zelda will be playable in the game, perhaps as a second player. This idea really does intrigue me; wouldn't be amazing if Zelda and Link were finally both playable in the same game? ('Hyrule Warriors' hardly counts and he CDi games definitely don't count!) That being said, I do hope that if Zelda is playable then she is more than just a reskin of Link. Link famously trained night and day for years to become the warrior that he is so the pursuit narrative cohesion would support Zelda's talents manifesting itself in a completely different way. Does that mean she'll be some sort of warlock spellcaster? That may be my fantasy brain getting ahead of itself, but I sure hope so!

The most enduring part of any teaser, however, is the mystery. Here the trailer excels with two big ones that probably won't be solved until the final product comes out. First would be the purpose of, The Hand. When we first see this disembodied hand it is lodged into the chest cavity of a long dead corpse; it appears to seep a swirling trail of green energy that forms itself into strings of strange runes. (Perhaps Hylian? I'm no expert.) Though it seems obvious that The Hand seems to be sealing some entity, with the body itself imbuing torrents of that same dark substance that ruled Hyrule in BotW, the big question is: what exactly is The Hand sealing? That leads me to the second big mystery of the trailer, who is that corpse that snaps to life at the end?

The obvious answer is Ganon, given his plume of crimson hair and necklace featuring the Crest of Gerudo. However, this doesn't really make narrative sense. Out of all the many deaths that the dark lord Ganon has suffered, none were more final than his death in Breath of the Wild. That game saw Ganon abandon reincarnation in order to assume his true form as a being of hatred incarnate. He attempted to lay waste to all of Hyrule before Zelda destroyed his form with a display of her highest potential of power, completing her arch as a character. Ganon didn't just die. He die died. Like Albert Wesker being shot in head with two rocket launchers whilst standing in the middle of an active volcano, some things you don't just walk off.

So then, who is the body that they find in this cave that appears to be underneath Castle Hyrule? Well, I've heard some speculation that this is actually Demise from Skyward Sword. Skyward Sword is the earliest game in the Zelda Canon and tells the tale of the first Link defeating the demon lord Demise. After this victory, Demise curses Link and Zelda telling them that his hatred will be forever reborn and that they too will reincarnate in order to feel his wrath, kicking off the Legend of Zelda series.The rumors go that now, at the end of his spree of carnage, Demise has returned once again. Though whether to finish things once and for all, again, or to kick off a whole new era of Zelda stories is yet to be seen. For my part it does slightly upset me that this story is following Ganon once more. Some of my favourite Zelda games have been the ones in which the games have expanded the world and gone beyond the go-to villain, such as Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess. However, maybe this eery direction will be fresh enough to keep the plot from feeling stale. Afterall, I've never had reason to doubt the Zelda team before.

Ultimately all of this is just guess work, nothing has been confirmed about the title as of yet. All that we know for sure is that Nintendo have some incredibly big boots to fill whenever this game finally comes around. Nintendo do have the reputation for knocking it out the park time and time again, but even so, this is Breath of the Wild we are talking about! This is like trying to redo the Sistine chapel, it's going to take a lot of work. Although if anyone can get it done and surprise the gaming world once again it is Nintendo. Maybe CDPR as well. But mostly only Nintendo.