The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom of Tears teeth amazing gameis praised for its ability to improve and iterate. Breath of the Wild. A few weeks after the game's release, It was written with all kinds of breathtaking praise People were wondering how Nintendo was able to make games that surpassed the technical capabilities of the Switch hardware from seven years ago.
To all developers the game looked like magic. However, in a talk at the 2024 Game Developers Conference, Nintendo shared that while this is not magic, it is still a clear and well-executed development strategy that looks like magic.
During the talk, technical director Takuhiro Doda said, tears of the kingdomexplained that the game has two major driving principles: „a vast, seamless Hyrule“ and „multiplicative gameplay.“
The first one was relatively simple. “We wanted players to see things in the distance and go there,” Dota said. This philosophy is Breath of the Wild, a new challenge to seamlessly connect the sky, the ground, and the underground. You can see how that integration worked. tears of the kingdom This is a free-fall pose as Link descends from the sky to the ground and back between the ground and underground. This action unites his three different worlds of Hyrule.
But Dota cautioned that building a large, interconnected world doesn't mean it's inherently fun. This fun, he explained, comes from his second principle: multiplicative gameplay.
Dohta defined multiplicative gameplay as a system in which players combine actions and objects to create unique ways to play. According to Dohta, the developers wanted to create a system where „fun happens“ rather than creating fun through individually designed, moment-by-moment gameplay events.
The seeds of this “Let’s Make Fun Happen” system first germinated in Breath of the Wild And the octoballoon is a monster part that Link can attach to heavy objects and make them float in the air.for tears of the kingdomthe developer expands on that idea to include sticking all kinds of objects together, resulting in the Fuse and Ultra Hand abilities that allow Link to combine objects to build weapons, items, and structures.
But for the multiplicative gameplay to truly work, every interactive object in Hyrule needed to behave in a specific and predictable way. This is exactly what Takahiro Takayama needed. tears of the kingdomis a physics programmer and has been described as a „completely physics-driven world“.
One of the first problems that arose was collisions between so-called physics-driven objects and rigid objects in Alpine. A rigid object is an object that has all its properties, such as mass, velocity, and weight, specially designed, regardless of its appearance.In the early stages tears of the kingdomIn its development, Hyrule's various gear mechanisms were rigid objects. On the other hand, the properties of physics-based objects are governed by physics. An example of this is the large metal boxes scattered across the sky islands above Hyrule.
Takayama explained that while rigid objects are easy to create, mixing them with physics-driven objects creates all sorts of problems. As with matter and antimatter, when physics-based objects interact with rigid objects, the world collapses. One example was a rigid gear breaking through a metal box inserted between the gears. The solution to this problem was simple. “To make multiplicative gameplay a reality, everything needs to be physics-driven, without exception,” says Takayama.
Because everything is based on physics, all interactive objects in Hyrule behave as players expect. A metal box stops the gears from rotating.
Takayama said that if this happens, Hyrule will become „a world where players can express their creativity without (the fear of) malfunctioning.“ „A world where anything can happen depending on the imagination of the player.“
Takayama said that having everything physically driven eliminates the need for what he calls „dedicated implementations.“ This includes writing programs for all functions and interactions. Without a physics-based system, every action in the link would require its own bespoke program to function. If a developer wants Link to drive some kind of vehicle, he or she will need to write a special program to manage the vehicle.
Although it was technically difficult to make every object in Hyrule physically driven, it alleviated the need to write so many specialized programs during the development cycle.
„Instead of creating a vehicle program, we created a system that allows you to create a vehicle,“ Takayama explained.
This difference may seem subtle, but in that subtlety lies all the „magic.“ tears of the kingdom lie downThe developer I was surprised tears of the kingdomphysics of bridgesI was wondering how they programmed the bridge to work properly without glitches, but the truth is that the various forces like the bridge's slats, links, and even the wheels that interact with the bridge They created a system to manage the individual components of the bridge. The game's music also utilizes this modular approach.Junya Nagata tears of the kingdom's sound designer explained that the game's wagon sounds didn't come from the team going out to record horse-drawn wagons.
„There is no sound of the wagon, only the creaking of the wheels, chains and joints,“ Nagata said.
These systems allow Types of emergent gameplay it made tears of the kingdom Such a special game. Players could use them in ways that the developers themselves had not thought of.
One example of these systems in action is the humble portable pot Zonai device.in Breath of the Wild, Cooking used to take place in a dedicated area, but thanks to a portable pot, Link can now cook anywhere. Developers faced a problem because everything, including cooking ingredients, was controlled by physics. The problem is that if Link decides to cook on the side of a mountain, all the ingredients will slip out of the pot.
With a dedicated implementation, no matter where the pot is placed, nothing else will cook. However, the multiplicative gameplay philosophy ensures that no matter where you place the pot, the cooking surface will be level, so your soup won't spill out. This gave the pot a greater purpose than just cooking, allowing it to be used as a ball-and-socket joint that led to all sorts of bizarre creations.
Nintendo's tears of the kingdom The panel explained that the game's success was driven by the idea that players should enjoy themselves, supported by a robust physics system that applies to every object in the game. However, in this lecture, tears of the kingdom All shortlisted for Game of the Year in 2023: Nintendo retains talent.
In some industries, Average career length is in the single digits, all speakers worked for Nintendo for at least 10 years. This kind of retention is a huge factor in Nintendo's continued success. Knowledge within the organization is preserved, allowing teams to work together more easily while minimizing disruption from turnover.Even though it's Nintendo Not a perfect companyseem to understand that the best way to get a good game is to hire and retain good people.
„Working with game designers and artists who understand our vision was essential to bringing this vast world to life,“ Dota said.