Zelda Botw has the most elegant map towers to date, yet after unlocking 10 of them I've come to the conclusion that revealing the map that way is still more harmful to the game than beneficial. I've noticed that I'm having more fun exploring uncharted territory right up to unlocking the tower, than afterwards while 'finishing up' a zone after the map is revealed. It's great Botw doesn't litter the landscape with icons, yet putting down names everywhere is basically the same thing, except now you can't easily check where you've already been. Plus the suspiciously unnamed geographical features are a dead giveway for being an important place to go.

Climbing the towers and solving how to get to them is handled greatly. Not just in Botw, FC4 had nice variations too, and Horizon takes it to another level (or so I've heard). However when that map gets revealed it feels like a big spoiler to me, so much so I don't intend to unlock the few I have left until I've completed exploring the zones. I get why it's there, otherwise go to the west of mount such and such wouldn't help you much for directions. Except with the map already revealed you simply mark the spot and it's not all that different from the game putting a quest marker down for you.


Before map towers we used to have auto mapping, the map gets filled in as you walk around. Great way to track where you've been yet not that useful for directions. Although that simply needs better directions, npc's that actually point in the direction you need to go or draw some crude directions on your map. Map towers could still work with that by giving a crude layout of the land with the roads for example. Or make use of the elevation and map that which you can actually see in crude detail which gets refined when you visit those places.


Then there are games with no map at all like Dark souls for example. It would be a bit inconvenient in open world games yet it never bothered me in Everquest. It was actually much more exciting having to remember the way back and fear getting lost on the way.


Tldr: Climbing towers great, revealing the map in large chunks, not great. Bring back automap.

You know, you bring up a good point. So much that I really can't debate it.

I like auto mapping the best. it encourages the player to explore.

What if they made it so that doing a shrine would fill out that small section of map? It would effectively be a soft combination of both.

Yeah, not only for shrines. That could also work for completing an objective in an area which then reveals that area on the map, filling in the gaps to satisfy completionists :) some kind of smart fill feature, since going back and forth to 'paint in the desert' would get tedious too. Same as the extent of a lake you happen on can be filled in for as far as you can see, yet not everything that's on the shore in great detail.

I find the towers one of the most rewarding parts of the game.

Auto map by far. I haven't played Zelda but I disliked it in Far Cry 3/4. It was like something you needed to go do before you could do what you really wanted. Of course, I hate platforming in FPS games, so that was another mark against it for me.

One thing I really like is when an icon is added to your map by way of quest (or whatever) but isn't filled in until you've been there.

I do not like the map feature in Zelda, you are basically blind at first and even after you unlock the map, it is basically empty and useless. The map should be empty at first but auto map and remember everything you visited in detail, so you can find it again later. Also the map should let you know where you have already been and where not and also resemble the world.

In Zelda the map remembers almost nothing and displays next to no information, it is not a tool but an obstacle for the player and placing all the icons yourself is tedious work instead of fun. Skyrim's map is much better but it should not reveal where to find the solution for most quests.

In Zelda, certain useful details in the map get filled out as you progress.  So it actually does remember quite a few things and displays a lot of useful information.

Yeah I'm not a fan that I can't tell where I've been in BotW. They could use a second layer on top of the revealed map that has like 50% transparency for auto mapping. It's the best of both worlds.  Also NPCs that have new sidequests available should appear on the map or at least have some sort of symbol above their head that appears even when I'm far away from them so I know they have a quest available because as is I have to walk up to every NPC and that's kind of stupid.