I hope they support this game through the generation with DLC. I always like seeing reasons to return to Hyrule. Nintendo hasn’t had a proper DLC dedicated team before this, so having these can be incredibly valuable to keeping a game alive and in the public consciousness. A lot of the most successful PC games are successful because of these sorts of dev processes.
For example. Paradox Games. They have their main team develop a new game, and then leave it in the hands of a DLC support team which ensure not only players will stick with the game for years to come due to fresh new ways to play it, but also ensure that it’s in the public consciousness for years to come. Every 4-6 months for the next few years the game can be continuously repitched to new players highlighting the new and existing features. Aonuma can guide the process with a much less hands on approach while he focuses on building the next major Zelda game.
With Paradox games, it makes them seem deceptively productive since they’re always releasing DLC while always having their next Grand Strategy game on the horizon (I believe they only have two main teams, but each game gets its own dedicated DLC team; and the dev milestones on the DLC are signed off on by the main team leads and producers to ensure brand integrity - essentially, they’re not handing off EU4 or CK2 to some dev for hire to run in how they see fit.
The other benefit is that players have stuff to do while they wait the years it takes to get a full length mainline Zelda built. Zelda gets to constantly feel like a living and growing franchise. BotW DLC also can continue on for years after the launch of the next full game, if they want to. Again, using the Paradox Games example, new games fon’t Mean an end to supporting old games. They keep support up as long as people want it.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
