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[Lethal01]

Tunes of the Kingdom: Evolving Physics and Sounds for 'The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom'

Developers of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom discuss structuring an expanded Hyrule around physics-based gameplay and evolved sound design! Join the game's Technical Director Takuhiro Dohta, Lead Physics Programmer Takahiro Takayama,...

gdcvault.com

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Developers of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom discuss structuring an expanded Hyrule around physics-based gameplay and evolved sound design! Join the game's Technical Director Takuhiro Dohta, Lead Physics Programmer Takahiro Takayama, and Lead Sound Engineer Junya Osada as they explore challenges their teams faced when approaching this sequel. They will share insights on Link's new abilities, composing Hyrule's expanded sound design and music, and how these go hand-in-(Ultra)hand to create a new experience for players. By the end of Mr. Dohta, Mr. Takayama, and Mr. Osada's talk, they aim to give attendees and players everywhere new perspective on the world of Tears of the Kingdom and -the innovations within.
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Developers still haven't made an open world better than breath of the wild so hopefully they will take the time to learn when Nintendo explains how they outdid themselves with ToTK, since nobody else could.

 

[TVexperto]

i always expected them to make it more than a gimmick when i played it...they didnt really do much with it after the beginning of the game

 

[TintoConCasera]

I miss classic 3D Zelda like you wouldn't believe.

 

[GigaBowser]

best phisics all time TOTKS GOTG

 

[alucard0712_rus]

Wow! Thanks a lot for that! It's fun even on first minute, lol.
And it's working on fucking toaster. No one whining that there is no enough "power".

 

[Hugare]

Developers still haven't made an open world better than breath of the wild so hopefully they will take the time to learn when Nintendo explains how they outdid themselves with ToTK, since nobody else could.

Maybe they had other priorities, like developing the main quest, side quests, dungeons, dialogue ...

Pretty much everything that was undercooked in BOTW/TOTK

I enjoyed TOTK a lot, but a 10/10 it was not.

It had the blueprint for one of the best games of all time, but it didnt excell in all fronts. Far from it.

Anyway, physics is something that the game excelled at, so I'll definitely watch it

 

[peronmls]

Twilight princess and OOT are still so much better. Zelda’s now are too bright and cheery now. Not gloomy anymore. That being said I do miss Eiji Aonuma direction of Zelda.

 

[daclynk]

This is how gameplay evolution happens. Cant wait too see what they do with even Newer Tech like RT and features for NXT GEN.

 

[Gaiff]

Twilight princess and OOT are still so much better. Zelda’s now are too bright and cheery now. Not gloomy anymore. That being said I do miss Eiji Aonuma direction of Zelda.

TP is the most padded Zelda game next to WW.

 

[Danjin44]

I amazed what they able to achieve even in under power system like Switch, I had fucking blast playing TOTK.

 

[SirTerry-T]

Nintendo to other open world Devs .."school is now in session"

 

[bender]

Twilight princess and OOT are still so much better.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Twilight princess and OOT are still so much better.

Indeed they are! They beat the newest games big time when it comes to story, items/mechanics, level design and music. Man do I miss having actual dungeons.

BOTW and TOTK have their appeal too ofc, they have a nice sense of adventure and freedom, but I think they lost part of the charm along the way.

 

[Hudo]

FInally! I've been waiting for this talk and the Super Mario Bros. Wonder one for forever

 

[amigastar]

I miss classic 3D Zelda like you wouldn't believe.

Agreed, Zelda A link between worlds was so awesome. Give me more such gems.
Or are you talking about Zelda OoT, then yes i would also like to return to it.

 

[Spyxos]

Great game, spent so much time there.

 

[Lethal01]

I enjoyed TOTK a lot, but a 10/10 it was not.

11/10 then, what it excelled are the most importnat things in an open world.

 

[BlackTron]

I agree that modern Zelda are great games but they leave nothing to fill the shoes left behind by old 3D Zelda which sucks. They could do a better job representing the gameplay of Zelda in the current entries, or release smaller sister games, or something.

Sadly N seems content to rely completely on remakes and remasters to fulfill this itch.

 

[FoxMcChief]

TP is the most padded Zelda game next to WW.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

I loved Tears of the Kingdom but would also love a traditional zelda game in the vein of OoT or TP. In TotK I found the entrance to the spirit temple super early in the game and was so hyped. I thought, oh snap there's gonna be a final dungeon to go through before the end. Alas, it wasn't meant to be and ended up being the biggest disappointment of the game for me. It would have been like a final wow moment that so many past zelda games have had. Don't get me wrong, I still really enjoyed TotK but that was a huge missed opportunity in my opinion.

 

[alucard0712_rus]

I enjoyed TOTK a lot, but a 10/10 it was not.

You will be never happy. Enjoy life for what it is.

 

[RCU005]

I miss classic 3D Zelda like you wouldn't believe.

The new format could work flawlessly if they incorporated classic features. They went all in in the open world that they completely disregarded everything else.

- Zelda must have dungeons, it's in its DNA, and both times having 4 ridiculous attempt of something and be copy-paste of each other really harmed the game as a Zelda game.

- The story while hasn't been super deep, it was always good enough. This time, they added voice acting, and in BOTW created a great world with great characters but were completely wasted due to the openness of its gameplay.

- The new gameplay is good, but it misses a lot of polish in combat. Also, why can't we have classic items as well as the ultra hand and stuff? They could definitely co-exist.

IMO, the perfect Zelda game right now would be a mix between both classic formula and the new format. They can have the open world as-is, but make a linear story, with great characters and make great dungeons. That's it.

 

[hemo memo]

I miss classic 3D Zelda like you wouldn't believe.

Currently enjoying the 2nd DLC of Baldo on Switch and let me tell you… I do too, so bad.

 

[BlackTron]

The new format could work flawlessly if they incorporated classic features. They went all in in the open world that they completely disregarded everything else.

- Zelda must have dungeons, it's in its DNA, and both times having 4 ridiculous attempt of something and be copy-paste of each other really harmed the game as a Zelda game.

- The story while hasn't been super deep, it was always good enough. This time, they added voice acting, and in BOTW created a great world with great characters but were completely wasted due to the openness of its gameplay.

- The new gameplay is good, but it misses a lot of polish in combat. Also, why can't we have classic items as well as the ultra hand and stuff? They could definitely co-exist.

IMO, the perfect Zelda game right now would be a mix between both classic formula and the new format. They can have the open world as-is, but make a linear story, with great characters and make great dungeons. That's it.

The beautiful and extremely unintended consequence of all this is that Nintendo now has an ample upgrade path of improvements towards that perfect Zelda game that they can drip feed us for millennia.

 

[alucard0712_rus]

Man the sounds of TOTK...
I knew they've must to build the system that works in real-time. What a genius developers!

 

[alucard0712_rus]

I just thought that this must be seen:

 

[Drell]

Twilight princess and OOT are still so much better. Zelda’s now are too bright and cheery now. Not gloomy anymore. That being said I do miss Eiji Aonuma direction of Zelda.

TP had that grey/braun/dark green colors that were all around the place during the PS360 era. I'd be ok for some "realistic" zelda again but please not that aestethic again.

 

[Jinzo Prime]

I hope the Zelda Engine is used for more games at Nintendo, even if they don't use all the physics. It is well optimized for low end hardware, open world gameplay, has good pathfinding, load on demand, and now even a sound engine; why shouldn't Pokemon, Splatoon, or Mario make use of it?

 

[Robb]

why shouldn't Pokemon, Splatoon, or Mario make use of it?

Seems kind of daunting I imagine. I’ve just seen snippets of the talk thus far but development seems like a nightmare, and we already know they spent one whole year of play-testing just to get things right in TotK, despite already having a working foundation with BotW.

It’s a neat engine but seems very specific and tricky to work with if you’d like to adapt it to something new. Looks like changing just a minor thing will affect a myriad of other things and have unintended effects you couldn’t even foresee..

The bugs they show in the video is pretty much what I imagine the actual release would look like if they handed this engine to GameFreak…

 

[Jinzo Prime]

Seems kind of daunting I imagine. I’ve just seen snippets of the talk thus far but development seems like a nightmare, and we already know they spent one whole year of play-testing just to get things right in TotK, despite already having a working foundation with BotW.

It’s a neat engine but seems very specific and tricky to work with if you’d like to adapt it to something new. Looks like changing just a minor thing will affect a myriad of other things and have unintended effects you couldn’t even foresee..

The bugs they show in the video is pretty much what I imagine the actual release would look like if they handed this engine to GameFreak…

What I would hope for is Nintendo to build some proper engine tools with documentation so that all their teams could use it.

I would also hope that Nintendo or Monolithsoft would basically make the next Pokemon game with Gamefreak just doing the art and story.

 

[Robb]

I would also hope that Nintendo or Monolithsoft would basically make the next Pokemon game with Gamefreak just doing the art and story.

Yeah that’d be amazing. Honestly I’d settle for pretty much any other internal team than GameFreak at this point..

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Great game. I got to experience it in a way that 99.9999% of players didn’t. Through emulation on my 4090/7800X3D system.

Full 4K/60 fps. It played pretty damn well. The mod community worked wonders for that game and Yuzu. Sadly it has been shut down.

Spoiler

and no, i had the disc version so my emulation was legal.

It honestly made me hate Nintendo even more to have to resort to emulation to play their games in a way that I can actually enjoy.

Nintendo just fucking license out a super Switch box to another hardware company. There is a group of us who will pay a for a true 4K console. The best part? It doesn’t need to be super powerful.

Having said that, as great as the game was and it gets praise for being such an open game, I do feel that it would have benefitted a little bit of streamlining and the lack of dungeons still being an issue. While they were kinda there, they weren't really.

 

[Krappadizzle]

TotK took everything I loved about Breath of the Wild(exploration,music,physics) and dialed it up to 11. I thought it was an improvement in every single way and it would be hard for me to go back to Breath of the Wild, which at the time I considered in my top 3 games of all time. It's an amazing accomplishment and is pretty much unmatched by anything else on the market.

To me it felt like the closest to playing Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke in a game I've ever played. Amazing game.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

At GDC 2024, developers of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom discuss structuring an expanded Hyrule around physics-based gameplay and evolved sound design! Join the game’s Technical Director Takuhiro Dohta, Lead Physics Programmer Takahiro Takayama, and Lead Sound Engineer Junya Osada as they explore challenges their teams faced when approaching this sequel.

 

[GigaBowser]

TotK took everything I loved about Breath of the Wild(exploration,music,physics) and dialed it up to 11. I thought it was an improvement in every single way and it would be hard for me to go back to Breath of the Wild, which at the time I considered in my top 3 games of all time. It's an amazing accomplishment and is pretty much unmatched by anything else on the market.

To me it felt like the closest to playing Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke in a game I've ever played. Amazing game.

 

[Gambit2483]

Wow, their physics engine/library almost seems like technological magic. They also have amazing design philosophy within their development team. This is why/how they constantly put out top tier quality titles, their talent.

 

[Hudo]

This talk was great. Heavily recommended. Also the Super Mario Wonder talk was entertaining, too (albeit a bit less educational for me).

 

[Dorfdad]

Wonder if they would release a remaster with switch 2 just add more features and stuff to the engine they probably been tweaking this since its release