Mario Kart designers had to rethink everything to make it open world
theverge.com
theverge.com
The open world Zelda game kinda made sense to me because those games have always been pretty open. You could always wander around. When I was a kid, I played Ocarina of Time as an open world game, I just wandered around and made up the NPC interactions in my head. And the 2D entries in the series had pretty big worlds.
Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see if the trick can repeat outside that context. The open world Pokemon was pretty bad, but that series has been resting on its laurels for longer than most of the players have been alive.
Zelda makes sense to a degree, but IMO they lost the plot on what made Zelda games interesting. Old Zelda games were kinda open, but had (mostly) fixed sequence. The games were basically lock and key puzzles with a lot of back tracking. As you went you unlocked more items (keys), but having to key wasn't enough. You had to figure out how/where to use it. The way everything layered was elegant. You were excited to get to a dungeon, they always need a new gimmick(s)/mechanic(s), you got a new toy, and two boss fights. Once you were done, you got to see how this new thing unlocked more of world.
New Zelda games have puddle deep dungeons and shrines to quickly get you back into the overworld, and you've already unlocked all the mechanics before the tutorial is over. So all that's left is exploring the overworld for the sake of exploration, which has a thousand seeds and a hundred shallow shrines to encourage you overturn every stone in it.
I get I might not be the target demographic, open world games aren't inherently bad, and the new Zeldas enjoyed great commercial success. However I do feel this shift to open world misses and loses what made Mario Kart and Zelda beloved series to begin with.
I feel like the dungeons in BOTW all resemble the rooms in Portal. I.e. they feel highly artificial and contrived. However, this lets the player focus on the puzzle itself, rather than worry about the story at that moment. The puzzles there really force you to "get good" at a particular maneuver the game requires of the character. Rather than getting an item or advancing a world event, the player's reward is simply to suck less by accomplishing the task.
Plus, let's be honest, Zelda's story is really pretty fungible. The linear progression was mainly due to hardware limitations rather than aesthetic choice.
That's definitely an "IMO"—I've been playing Zelda games since the first, and Breath of the Wild revitalized my love for a series I was getting bored with. I do want to see them do something different with the next big title, but Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom kept my interest for hundreds of hours.
Nowadays, I find the stagnation of open world games a little boring. But, I also enjoy steeping in a world. So I play rogue-lites, haha.
I'm sure Nintendo has put a lot of thought and effort into this. But personally I feel like most open worlds feel empty and void to me after a few hours. I didn’t play it, but that seemed to be a major complaint with the latest Pokemon game.
I'd be more surprised if the team manages to fuck it up, given Nintendo development's solid litmus test of "what's fun and not."
A more detailed interview with the dev team seems to be available here: https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/ask-the-developer-vol-1... and https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/ask-the-developer-vol-1... and https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/ask-the-developer-vol-1... and https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/ask-the-developer-vol-1...
Regardless, verdict will be reached in a couple days!
I thought after Super Mario Galaxy 2 that surely Nintendo couldn't meet that mark every again. And then Odyssey came out.
That was the open world game to me, it never felt boring (although the game itself had a lot of grind) and, if memory serves me right, about 400 square km to explore.
I sunk about 300 hours in it…
…and wish they already would release X 2.
Wouldn't that be Xenoblade Chronicles 2 & 3? Or are they too different? (I only played Xenoblade Chronicles 1, so I'm asking honestly)
But yes, those mentioned are great in their own right - it is just that very different setting, the real open world, game play mechanics, skells (mechs) that can take you anywhere...
I think the series is never going to not be open world going forward. It was a resounding success and most people like it.
Still have all that gear in a plastic bin.. I think about firing it up, but maybe I should leave it alone and just enjoy my memories.
Mario Kart, like any racing game, has the bulk of its strategy in figuring out corners. Do you aim for the shortest path but lowest exit velocity? Do you prefer the longer, outside line, for a higher top speed when exiting the corner?
Every turn is a major decision. Doubly so since Mario Karts drifting mechanic gives a new way to change the speed vs distance calculation.
But with a long stretch of straightaway, that's all gone. I see that Mario Kart World has added traffic, boost zones and grinding to make the long straightaways somewhat different at least, but I have doubts it's as good as the traditional corner or turn.
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That being said: simplifications to kart customizations and other clear improvements shows that Nintendo truly understands the game.
But it's... Bold. To try to design levels like this. I hope it works out but there's so many issues that could make things unfun.
Need for Speed Underground changed to an open world with the second release and I hated everything about it.
That's $90 today.
I don't play very many video games anymore though I did play the hell out of Doom 30 years ago.
What I have noticed, as an outside observer looking in, about people who play video games today is that they seem to be among the most entitled people on the planet who love bitching about everything.
I think like most groups there is a silent majority getting on with it, and a loud minority picking fights online. That said, every time I have tried to take up a competitive online game with voice chat, I have regretted it.
So there are significant upfront and ongoing costs to releasing a game like Mario Kart World. $60 per copy just isn't going to cover those costs. The only options are to charge more upfront or introduce purchasable cosmetics and the like to extract that value from the customer another way.
Developing a game is also a lot more expensive in 2025.
Starfox 64 was $80 in 1997, about $160 today.
What is a video game if not an outlet for disposable income?
So you are welcome to your opinion, but it's not like this is unprecedented, or even unreasonable.
Same here, so expensive but it came in a larger than other games box and the book iirc.
As Peter Thiel said: if you double your price and don't lose half your customers, you're making profit.
You need a switch 2 to play it, and there's a bundle that includes it for $50 more.
If you can afford a switch 2, but can't afford the bundle, I kinda think you realistically can't afford the switch2. Of course there are going to be niche cases, but they're niche.
That said, I normally open an exception for Nintendo. Their games are fun, generally come out well polished (no day 1 huge patches to fix a broken release) and are void of microtransactions.
But don't worry, this first day DLC more than doubled the content of the game, so it was worth it! Of course... if it's a day one DLC maybe we could've just included in the base game we're releasing at the same time.
Anyway, Triple AAA has been doing this for a long time. It's just that nobody cares when EA is greedy, it's just expected from them.
Will wait for a new Zelda game before diving into getting a Switch 2.
What happens after it has been out for a year?
The real test will be if this sells even half as good as the first Switch in its first 5 years.
This could be another Wii U judging from the general pessimistic sentiment people have for the brand these days.
When the Wii U came out, people's biggest gripe with Nintendo was whether or not they could technologically compete with the like of Sony and Microsoft.
But these days most people accept that Nintendo is not even competing technology. So rather, their bigges gripe with Nintendo is Nintendo itself and the way they show utter contempt for their customers while hiking up prices. Much more is at stake this time.
Well, Mario Kart 8 sold about the same as the 5 Zelda titles for the Switch put together (BotW, TotK, Link's Awakening, Skyward Sword HD, and Echoes of Wisdom). More than twice BotW, which was the best selling Zelda game for the Switch. So that's the bigger draw overall.
This is one of the deep secrets of the universe — and clearly the most important part of the article. More questions than answers …
It looks like this game will be finally scratching this itch.
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
Also games have only become more expensive to make since then and gamer expectations have only increased.
The complaints don't really seem based in reality.
[1] https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/hard_soft/index.htm...
Whether a game is worth it is different for different people. When you expand your audience beyond enthusiasts then people will not be willing to pay as much money for a game. Saying that enthusiasts will see it as a good deal when most of the audience are notenthusiasts. does not mean too much.
Actually there's been studio bankruptcy after studio bankruptcy, due to a massive contraction post-COVID, and the rise of mobile gaming eating away at casual gamers. Even Ubisoft earlier this year was having some people giving 30% odds of bankruptcy.
As stated elsewhere, games have literally never been cheaper. Even at the launch of the Nintendo Switch, a $60 game in 2017 is the equivalent of $77 today. The launch price of Mario Kart World, in real purchasing power, is completely identical to what Mario Kart 8 launched at. The complaints, therefore, scream entitlement over logic - games must always be bigger, larger, better, and unaffected by 3 decades of inflation. Or it's anti-consumer, as though Nintendo put a gun to their head forcing a purchase alongside toilet paper. (In my opinion, a luxury good not in any way necessary for a good life by definition cannot be anti-consumer, or otherwise Gucci would be the king of anti-consumer practices.)
There's really not much backlash. At the most, just some impotent complaints online toward random companies, and nothing at all toward the federal reserve. If people really cared, we would have seen a lot more politicians like Ron Paul.
Could we please stop pretending that corporations do not wish to extract as much money as they can from our pockets?
At that point you can live a perfectly happy life only playing games that are years old and buying them deeply discounted or second hands for peanuts.
It’s a mystery to me who spends 80 bucks on a game which is approximately the same than the previous one itself the same than the one before.
Nowadays a game from 4 years ago looks ~about the same as a current one, might have the same gameplay, and doesn’t suffer as much from the constant progress in monetization strategies. Plus you know if a community will grow around it. And, relatedly, mod support has developed if it ever will.
The only reason to play a game that just came out is if you are into a specific pseudo-competitive scene; the “recently released matchmaking game” genre (and, it should also be noted that this isn’t the real pro-competitive scene, that’s MOBAs and Counterstrike).
Nope, they did not. They're sticking with the original release date
>24% tariff on goods from Japan
There are currently 10% tariffs in place for baseline goods, such as the Switch 2. The 24% rate was announced, but "paused" for 90 days. The USA and Japan will likely come up with some sort of trade deal before that pause ends.
Also keep in mind that the prices have risen in the EU as well. Games are also rising to 80 euros despite VAT being constant at 25% for decades. This is because the Euro has seen heavy inflation since Covid as well.
The quote relies on there being some horrible side effect of creating the thing without thinking whether or not they should do it. I think there’s no chance that this goes on to be a MOBA, which is to say I think it will never become fundamentally a force of evil.
My gut says the same thing (although Nintendo has pulled a rabbit out of their hat before, so I guess we’ll see… they’ve also had flops).
> I grew up during the age of fads, and "Open World" is very much one of them that keeps on recurring.
I dunno when you grew up, but I also grew up during an era of fads. I’m not convinced human culture is anything but a filtering and accumulation of fads.
That said, I do agree that the videogame industry relies on fads way too much, to its own detriment. Always chasing the latest thing that was successful.
On the other hand, Nintendo always seem to do its own thing, much to its success.
What’s the need for Forza Horizon (2012) to be open world?