StreaK said:
Yes I DO realize all those things but there is no way in hell that Zelda's world is more detailed than Horizon's. |
Detail does not mean complexity. A game world can be full of details, but 'empty' gameplay-wise. If all you can do at the nice textures, and grass is stare at them, rather than engage with content provided to you by the game, then that is not 'complexity'. Yes, in terms of graphics Horizon is a league or two above TBotW -- and yes, in terms of pure visuals Horizon is more 'lush', and has more 'detail' in its environments.
But this is a purely visual perspective -- i.e. how each game 'looks'. In an open-world game, when you refer to an 'empty' world you refer to a world that, despite how large or visually detailed, offers little for the gamer to interact with gameplay-wise. For example, Twilight Princess is one of the worst offenders of this kind. A relatively large (even if sand-boxed) world which was offensively bland and 'empty', with very little for the player to do. Ocarina of Time had a more organic world, but that was constrained by hardware limitations as well as gameplay conventions of the 90s, so it is hardly a fair comparison.
I have played both games. Horizon is a visual treat, but in terms of gameplay does very little differently. In terms of content in its open world, it is clearly coming second to TBotW -- the new Hyrule is as far from 'empty' as it has been for any game of this kind. The last time I was so amazed by the plethora of gameplay options and places to explore was with Oblivion -- and in many ways the new Zelda tops every single open world game I have tried.
If only its graphics didn't look so dated...
