I will enjoy using the fire rod! Burning those suckers will feel pretty good.

For me, what makes it so much more appealing than a typical sandbox game is the amount of interactivity and nuance that's gone into the world.

Grass can be set on fire, which creates updrafts you can ride with your sail cloth and is influenced by the wind. Trees can be felled for firewood, and if cut down into a river will float downstream on the current. Temperature varies not just by area, clothing, and time of day, but with altitude and proximity to fire; the peak of a mountain is colder than halfway up, and you can start a fire and stand/rest by it to keep warm, except if it rains, the fire will be put out. The skeleton enemies will pick up their comrade's severed arms to use as weapons. Bokoblins can leave their weapons lying unattended while lounging around camp, and you can sneak up and steal them before engaging.

I could go on and on, but I honestly can't think of many other games that have this level of thought put into the game world and how you can interact with it.

But grass on fire, different weather zones, dynamic enemies etc, aren't those features much like those who developerss like Ubisoft and others pride themselves with? Tons of gimmicky features that are kind of cool but really don't add to the depth of the game.

I'm not trying to downplay. I love features like that and I do think they add depth (so why did I just claim they don't add depth? I don't know lol).

Thanks for giving some examples. I avoid videos and articles because I want to explore the game myself and basically not know anything beforehand, but it's extremely exciting to hear that Zelda has been given this kind of detail and life to its world.

But, and it's a huge but. I'm afraid that like with many other big games these features won't have any real meaning. What I mean is that with just one difficulty level (damn you Assassin's Creed), the game will naturally be designed for the lowest common denominator (a mass market casual gamer) which means a core gamer can just rush through the game without having to utilize these beneficial features.

Like with Assassin's Creed. Especially during the Revelations era, the AC games had tons of cool features (countless upgrades and special equipment, environmental assistance, a strategy layer, mini-games and so on), but since the game was so damn easy, a player could rush through it by only using the basic attacks and moves, and ignore all the cool stuff. Which was really sad and made me angry and frustrated.

I want to have access to a hard difficulty level where it's practically impossible to beat the game if you don't pay attention to and utilize the features.

People who have played Zelda since the very first game are going to tell you that an open world is a return to Zelda's roots.

What is wrong with you is that you need to be told what you are supposed to like, and you think that this Zelda does not represent what Zelda should be. So in order to correct this, I am going to tell you that this Zelda is looking great and you should feel the same way.

Since the game is supposedly so openly designed that you can challenge the final boss right away (which should be seriously difficult because of the crappy equipment you are going to have at the start of the game), the same freedom should hold true for all other points of interest. Meaning that a lesser skilled player will avoid dangerous places and instead try to find easier tasks while a more skilled player can use the environment to his advantage in order to defeat enemies that would otherwise take a long time to beat with conventional attacks. Playing in such a way would of course not make the easy tasks go away, but you would be able to skip past them if you want more of a challenge.

But grass on fire, different weather zones, dynamic enemies etc, aren't those features much like those who developerss like Ubisoft and others pride themselves with? Tons of gimmicky features that are kind of cool but really don't add to the depth of the game.

I'm not trying to downplay. I love features like that and I do think they add depth (so why did I just claim they don't add depth? I don't know lol).

Thanks for giving some examples. I avoid videos and articles because I want to explore the game myself and basically not know anything beforehand, but it's extremely exciting to hear that Zelda has been given this kind of detail and life to its world.

But, and it's a huge but. I'm afraid that like with many other big games these features won't have any real meaning. What I mean is that with just one difficulty level (damn you Assassin's Creed), the game will naturally be designed for the lowest common denominator (a mass market casual gamer) which means a core gamer can just rush through the game without having to utilize these beneficial features.

Like with Assassin's Creed. Especially during the Revelations era, the AC games had tons of cool features (countless upgrades and special equipment, environmental assistance, a strategy layer, mini-games and so on), but since the game was so damn easy, a player could rush through it by only using the basic attacks and moves, and ignore all the cool stuff. Which was really sad and made me angry and frustrated.

I want to have access to a hard difficulty level where it's practically impossible to beat the game if you don't pay attention to and utilize the features.