After playing through what I presume is half of Tears of the Kingdom, and beaten four dungeons. Yet I still have yet to see half of the game, there is this notion in my head that this really is a huge game. It is essentially three times as big as its precursor, Breath of the Wild, of which I spent an egregious amount of time playing.
These two games come in a pair, there was even a prequel but it was a bit more instanced based. Whereas the developer has said that Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild, and Tears of the Kingdom are all part of a trilogy. Which after playing it makes sense.
This post isn't going to make sense at first, but it is a dream from a zelda fan. It is a dream to the modding community to make this happen.
Two Parts of the Same Whole
In previous zelda entries there would usually be about 8 dungeons, and it followed what I called the Zelda Blueprint.
This in short would be the 3 easier dungeons, usually Grass-Fire-Water in that order, and then something big would happen. Then you would face off the next five dungeons, and that typically included the final one.
In Botw and Totk you simply have four dungeons plus the final castle. Now I could be wrong, as I haven't fully finished the game, but that is seemingly what is happening. This makes me think that we know botw was a proof of concept, and so dungeons took a back seat. They wanted to try something new, and totk they listened to fans (at least a tiny bit), and brought back 'real' dungeons. I wish that they had more of a tangible feel like the ones in Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess, but at least they are different.
With all of the changes made to the world in Totk I thought you know it would be interesting to see what it would be like if both games were combined.
Carry the 2, Drop the Shrine
There are 136 Shrines in Botw and 152 in Totk, that is a lot of mini dungeons, but I for one am for it. Making there be 8 real dungeons, and then 288 shrines? That would make for an insane game, and not to mention the koroks. No really don't mention them.
However with something like this perhaps we could change the reward for completing them.
There would be a need perhaps to change chests, so that armor sets don't duplicate (i.e. Tunic of the Wild). Certain areas would have to be modified back to a botw state from totk in order to fit the divine beasts.
However having this all in one game would make the continuation of the story seamless, and you could make the difficulty curve even higher too.
It just seems like they would fit together well.
Exponential Emergence
These games thrive on emergent gameplay, and while both have too many things to do it is overwhelming. I think for any pro player this idea of combining them is too good to pass up.
Botw seemed rather empty in comparison to Totk, and honestly both have a ton of emergent gameplay on their own. If you were to combine both games, you would see so many shrines and koroks throughout the way from point a to point b.
Heck if you really wanted, you could even put the botw shrines in the DEPTHS of tears of the kingdom. Keeping them separate from the new ones, and helping light up the underground.
Plus it would make sense that the sheikah take a back seat to the Zonai at this point given the story.
A Tale as Old as Time
You never know what may lie ahead of you around the corner, and with each change comes a new surprise. Perhaps it could even be a bit randomized too to make the merge easier to develop. Just throwing ideas out now, but you get the point.
The possibilities are endless, and I think it would make for a really compelling adventure!
