Why do Zelda Console games take 5 years to develop.... ?

[TheLastStarFighter]

tolu619 said:

TheLastStarFighter said:
These games take too long largely due to incompetence. Like Rockstar and GTA, they've been using the same engine for every game since the N64 days, just improving the visuals. The problem is they re-work the concept and unique "hook" of each game repeatedly for a year or two before getting into true production....

This is not only completely false, it's also completely impossible. I'd advise you to get your facts right before you just say things. Let me attempt to say this in a way a layman would understand: What you have said is akin to claiming that Windows 95 and Windows 10 run on the same engine, and all the variations of windows in-between have just been improving the visuals and changing the unique hook. The architecture is different. The possibilities are different. The challenges are different. The design philosophy is different. For you to even think its possible for the same engine to have been used from the N64 days till now reeks of pure ignorance. Think about car engines or whatever field you have more expertise in, and try to think about your statement again.

This post is a hilarous collection of misinformation.  I'll attept to explain why in laymans terms.

A close family member of mine worked on Windows for decades.  And yes, each version simply builds of the previous iteration.  they salvage as much as they can, to build a Windows level OS from scratch would be a massive undertaking, and also stupid.  They salvage as much as they can.  Of course Windows 95 and Windows 10 are vastly different due to the many additions in that time, but each version of Windows did evolve and reuse much of the previous iteration.   Windows 8, for example, was such a mess in large part because they used the bones of Windows 7 but attempted to plaster the tile interface over it.

Whe it comes to games, Rockstar North started with this great product:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnocQS1maqg

which, crazy enough, had all the basic elements of GTA.  The character animation, the camera, the gun fights, the stealing of vehicles.  All designed for Body Harvest.  They took that game, expanded on it, created a new graphical skin, etc, and made GTA III.  All subsequent GTA's have used the same ever-evolving bones, expanding, adding polygons, content, features, etc.;  but GTA V was by no means a "from scratch" game.

Zelda is the same.  The fundamental gameplay engine was created for N64's OoT along with Mario 64.  OoT, of course, would use nothing from the previous title, ALttP, but every title since has built off the OoT engine and gameplay.  Other than diversions into motion control, they all play exactly the same.

Where Anouma and crew get into sensless delays, is in their contstant re-skinning of the graphical assets for new "artstyles".  Or in their creation of new gameplay hooks like changing into a wolf - something that I think most would agree added little.