The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild was a point of emphasis in the Nintendo Switch reveal trailer, but the game honestly didn’t have its best showing. Based on the new footage, here are five reasons why the new hardware might hurt this game.
1) It May Be Delaying Development: The Great Plateau truly wowed us when it debuted during E3 2016, but it’s a bit strange that we haven’t seen any other part of the game’s map in the past 10 months. Yes, we got new footage that samples day-night cycles and a King Moblin boss, but it’s all within the same general portion of the experience.
Last year, the issue was that we hadn’t seen enough Breath Of The Wild footage at all, but now we’re seeing too much of the same. While secrecy is good, both of these scenarios can also be read as signs that those other chunks of the game aren’t ready to show. A lack of details preceded a delay last time, but will it happen again? Honestly, we wouldn’t be surprised if this is not a launch game like popularly assumed. Is the new hardware responsible for holding things up?
2) Framerate Dips: The Switch reveal trailer showed us that Breath Of The Wild can be played in the home and on the go, but, especially in the latter case, the footage shown during those moments appeared to have obvious framerate dips into the low teens at times. We’re not the first Nintendo reporters to point out this apparent choppiness either. Trusted analysts like GameXplain mentioned it in their reactions too.
Superfans might say that Link was slowing down time in those sequences, but it could also be a few other things. At worse, does a huge game like Breath Of The Wild not perform well on the Switch hardware? Is the tablet clocked at a lower speed when used in portable mode? It certainly raises a question or two. We are looking at a game that’s still in the thick of development, but none of the other teased titles seemed to be struggling as much.
3) Battery Life Impact: This is admittedly a concern for the Nintendo Switch itself, but it’s just as uniquely relevant to The Legend Of Zelda. Without question, Breath Of The Wild appears to be the single largest and most ambitious project shown in the reveal trailer. We saw glimpses of what looked like Skyrim too, but, even remastered, that game is five years old. Link’s next quest is an expansive experience full of totally new assets.
We mentioned that performance seemed to buckle in the trailer, so what might that imply about battery life? The thought of having a full Zelda game on the go is a dream come true, but only if it can carry through a semi-lengthy session. If the hardware is pushed to the limit constantly, the battery may not last long enough to be worth it. Talk about taking the wind out of the sails of an awesome idea.
4) It Could Be Missing Wii U Features: One of the more quizzical aspects of the Nintendo Switch detail rollout are the obvious questions that its maker refuses to answer: Is the tablet a touch screen? Will there be gyroscope functionality in any of the controllers? While we think the answer to both of those questions is probably yes, we can’t say for sure because Nintendo isn’t talking.
As a result, there’s a very real possibility that Breath Of The Wild on Switch could be missing features that were featured in the Wii U. Most notably is how motion was used to manipulate the magnet powerup at E3. If the Joy-Con or new Pro controllers don’t have motion, that cool benefit will be scrapped. That’s far from a deal breaker, obviously, but it’d be weird for a next-gen version to lack anything its last-gen counterpart did not.
5) A Steep Cost Of Entry: We’ve mentioned this in our other analyses before, but, now that we know a lot more about the Nintendo Switch, we can speak about it with more certainty. The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild truly does appear to be a hardcore gamer’s game whether you’re playing on Switch or Wii U. It’s got a huge open world, complex button mapping and enough promised content to keep us on the couch for hours.
That being said, those tiny little Joy-Con controllers aren’t going to cut it beyond portable play. The Joy-Con Grip makes things slightly more bearable, but we don’t even know if it comes in the box. As a result, this premiere Switch game will not only cost several hundred dollars for the base hardware but also the price of a Pro Controller or possible Grip. It’s a lot of cash to part with up front and that’s never good.
The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild comes to Nintendo Switch and Wii U in 2017.
What did you think of Breath Of The Wild on the Switch? Are some of our worries valid? Tell us in the comments section!
