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Kai_Mao said:
This is technically EAD 3's (though all the Nintendo dev teams have now merged since late 2015 to become EPD) first big project for Wii U outside Wind Waker HD. I'm not saying it's hard, it just takes longer, longer than making 3D polygons based on how tech is these days. I'm no expert on tech but I would think trying to create these games at such a scale are no cake walk. It took Rockstar North five years between GTA IV and V, Rockstar San Diego presumably seven years between RDD and RDD2, five years from Oblivion to Skyrim, and seven years from Fallout 3 to 4. The only possible exception is CD Projekt Red with the Witcher games being about 4 years apart (though 2, which I've played a little, is a little more self contained compared to 3 from what I heard). If a quality open world in HD is that easy, most devs should be able to do that then within 3-4 years by now and with little hiccups. |
Nintendo's internal teams share tools and technology though, so the Zelda team would benefit from all the progress made by other internal teams in HD development over the last 5 years. This can be seen in the graphical improvement in first party titles over Wii U's life, across numerous different teams. For example, even though they were made by different teams, Mario Kart 8 looks better than 3D World, which looks better than Pikmin 3.
Also, Monolith are co-developing Breath of the Wild, and they've already made a HD open world Wii U title.
4 years to make Breath of the Wild, the same timeframe as Witcher 3, would have been acceptable. Even 5 would have been excusable given the ambition of the project. But it they can't get it out in March 2017 in time for Switch's launch, that's some seriously bad management.
