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[m051293]

Just for reference, open world map sizes:

GTA: San Andreas (36 km2)
Skyrim (39 km2)
Red Dead Redemption (41 km2)
Far Cry 4 (46 km2)
GTA 5 (81 km2)
Witcher 3 (136+ km2) *** this is from outdated info based on two regions, can anyone provide final map size? Researched but couldn't find

Via: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1034905, http://gamingbolt.com/witcher-3-map...different-visual-settings#4XJ80y7pAHEmrVE2.99

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Witcher 3 + DLC is much smaller than 136 sq km.

Here's my post from last night detailing TW3, TP, and 2014 GA footage:

Witcher 3 isn't 136 km^2. The in-game Mini-Map provides meters so finding out world size is easy.

This is what I posted when B&W released:

I measured the in-game distances from N-S & W-E (the mini-map distances). The map is approximately 3085m X 2579m, or 7.96 km2. This is about 53% of the Novigrad/Velen/HOS total map size, and about the same size as all of the land area in Skellige (~35-40% of the full Skellige map, definitely a bit larger than Ard Skellig).

Note that this measurement (and the other map measurements) do not account for the restricted area at the border of each map where Geralt refuses to walk to. Accounting for those is a little difficult because the invisible border is not made up of straight lines. Mentally, I just tack off 10-15% of the sizes listed below.

Here are the rough calculations I did for the other maps:

Measuring the map from end to end (so including small restricted boundaries of each world map) gave me the dimensions, from which I got:

Novigrad & Velen (+HOS): 15.2 km2 (5.8 mi2)
Skellige Isles & Ocean: 28.9 km2 (11.1 mi2)
White Orchard: 0.8 km2 (0.3 mi2)
Kaer Morhen: 1.4 km2 (0.6 mi2)

Total: 46.3 km2 (17.8 mi2)

If we account for the boundaries it's probably a total right around 45 km2.

This was the best analysis of the Game Awards Map mathematically - everything is trig, only guess work is tree height & Link height as reference points. That yielded a size of ~240 sq. km for the Game Awards map (smaller than X which is ~400). Obviously it's tough to reconcile how close the Game Awards footage map is with what we saw today and what we'll have next Spring.

As for TP, my math yielded 1.04 sq km (.40 square miles).

Here's my map w/grid - each square is .01 sq km, so 10x10 squares is 1 sq km. Keep in mind that the 1.04 sq km is referring to green land/blue water only. Anything in black is not counted (so the area of the total rectangle is greater).

I really highly doubt that this new map is just 12x the size of TP. The portion we saw today itself looked significantly larger than TP. I want to see a direct quote from Aonuma. It may be possible he was referring to JUST the Plateau region as being ~12x TP size.

TP on Game Awards Map overlay (assuming 1.04 sq km for TP & 240 sq km for BotW):

Scale is 1 km. Each box is 1 sq km.

Also Witcher 3 overlaid on Game Awards Map (assuming 240 sq km). Doesn't include B&W.

Scale is 0.5 km. Each box is 0.25 sq km.

 

[Effect]

I did. I watch hours of it. The gameplay possibilities are amazing, but let's be honest, the world looks amazing but there's not a lot to do except for repetitive shrines and beat down monsters.

With a map this huge, they better have a lot of locations to visit.

We have to keep in mind that they admitted they took things out of the region the demo was in as to avoid story spoilers. What that could be is anyone's guess from NPCs, other enemies, landmarks, etc. So we really don't know what the starting area really is like until someone gets their hands on the final build.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Is it big enough to fit all the previous LoZ maps inside?

 

[DarknessTear]

Means nothing without content to fill it.

If you saw any of the gameplay, it looks like they did a really good job filling the areas. In fact, it's very much so.

 

[casiopao]

This was especially true for early levels.

You can't enjoy other areas until you get Skells really.

I don't agree lol. The walking time is probably one of the best time in the first four continent. You will be shocked to know how many location seemingly impossible to reach actually can be reached om foot and man, that glorious feeling when you succeed on reaching those place. Sooo good.^~^

 

[TatteredHat]

Here's to hoping it's not as shit as XCX's map was, way too big for its own good.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

If you saw any of the gameplay, it looks like they did a really good job filling the areas. In fact, it's very much so.

And this is with things in the overworld removed for the E3 demo (namely NPCs who will certainly contribute to emergent events and quests)

 

[Meier]

See here, at the bottom

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=207183572&postcount=25

Fantastic! I'm still a little nervous about it being too big, but as long as you can jump around on the map easily, it makes the concern sort of moot IMO.

 

[mrmickfran]

When they fully zoomed out the map, I audibly shouted "HOLY SHIT" at like 2 AM.

 

[jblank83]

I'm not claiming that MGSV (or TLOU) invented anything. But they're the ones that really started the chain reaction we are seeing right now, by being the most recent, big-name titles that came out before the trend right now. Alternatively, you could say they're the first that jumped on the trend that was set by those earlier games but that is going in full force right now.

I see what you're saying but when I look at it, I see a long line of unbroken games going all the way back.

Given the experience of the producers and directors at Nintendo, while they might be influenced by the games popular today (example: the inclusion of "survival game" aspects, such as quickly degrading items), I'm assuming they also have an eye on games of the past. Zelda itself is an example, with influences taken from Zelda 1.

 

[engineer87]

Glad it is that big.
Wasn't there a report a while back that Monolith Soft wanted to help with the development of this game. Maybe Nintendo called once they saw the size of XCX

 

[Galang]

Didn't realize you could use shrines as a teleport point. Sounds great, but a bit archaic. There are sooo many of them.. would be hard to keep track of. Hopefully there are other fast ways to travel too.

 

[Quonny]

If you saw any of the gameplay, it looks like they did a really good job filling the areas. In fact, it's very much so.

The first area that is essentially the demo for millions of people to watch.

If they can keep it up for that giant map I'll be happy, but they're going to front-load as much of the content as possible. So I still need to see the whole game.

I'm a lapsed Nintendo fan, so I wish they would win me back, but I'm still going to be cautious and not lose my mind.

 

[IceDoesntHelp]

well shit. Better be lots of dungeons (;

 

[Corronchilejano]

The Last Of Us and Metal Gear Solid V's influence on this gen are ridiculous. The Sony conference was TLOU-inspired games. Marking enemies (particularly the way MGSV does it) is now becoming the standard for adventure games, as well as having the biggest areas possible, with enemy outposts, large "empty" areas, more diluted storytelling, etc.

If the Wind Waker hadn't done pretty much everything you say of MGSV (except marking), I'd agree.

 

[Dennis]

This pleases Dennis immensely.

One of the points of open-world games is that they should feel open.

Please, don't include Fast Travel as an option.

 

[Choppasmith]

Glad it is that big.
Wasn't there a report a while back that Monolith Soft wanted to help with the development of this game. Maybe Nintendo called once they saw the size of XCX

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. They did help out with Skyward Sword IIRC.

 

[Quonny]

Please, don't include Fast Travel as an option.

The shrines are fast travel points, iirc.

 

[diffusionx]

The Last Of Us and Metal Gear Solid V's influence on this gen are ridiculous. The Sony conference was TLOU-inspired games. Marking enemies (particularly the way MGSV does it) is now becoming the standard for adventure games, as well as having the biggest areas possible, with enemy outposts, large "empty" areas, more diluted storytelling, etc.

MGSV is a cool game, but this is all Crysis/Far Cry IMO. Especially Far Cry 2/3.

 

[mrmickfran]

Please, don't include Fast Travel as an option.

lol wat

Fuck that, I ain't trying to spend an hour just to revisit an area.

 

[Dennis]

The shrines are fast travel points, iirc.

Anouma, you fucked up.

 

[Agent Gibbs]

oh my goddess! thats amazing, i cannot wait to explore this! its been dreaming of a zelda game of this scale for years

 

[Schnozberry]

Anouma, you fucked up.

You're right, he definitely fucked up by putting in a convenience feature that no one is forcing anyone to use. What a dick.

 

[Spiritwalker]

Sounds good, I'm not a fan of super massive game worlds as they're rarely fleshed out properly

 

[maxcriden]

Witcher 3 + DLC is much smaller than 136 sq km.

Here's my post from last night detailing TW3, TP, and 2014 GA footage:

Amazing post. I'm going to add this to the OP if you don't mind. Did you get to analyze the newest map also to see if it's the same as the TGA one? If you said that and I missed it, sorry.

ETA: checked your post history and saw you're planning further analysis soon, looking forward to that, thank you!

 

[KooopaKid]

Seems way too big, I don't like this one bit, seems impossible to not make it boring.

 

[Rich!]

Anouma, you fucked up.

 

[gardfish]

Anouma, you fucked up.

you don't HAVE to use it you know

meanwhile the rest of us will be very thankful that we don't have to waste an hour backtracking every time we want to revisit a part of the map

 

[Enduin]

Stolen from Reddit but the whole the Great Plateau is only 1-2% of the map is totally not BS regardless of the actual size of the map in comparison to other games:

That said I wouldn't be surprised if the Great Plateau represented 5% or more of the game's content though as they stated that area is more dense than many other parts of the world since it's the tutorial section, but still. That's massive.

 

[Jarmel]

Yea that's not really good news. The XCX map had mechs that justified the size. That's a shitload of horseback riding.

I'm also worried about how dead some of the environments will be.

 

[Twilight Princess]

If this is true, we are definitely getting a flying mount, likely a dragon.

 

[Enduin]

If this is true, we are definitely getting a flying mount, likely a dragon.

Based on what?

I'd rather have an owl.

 

[The Lamp]

This pleases Dennis immensely.

One of the points of open-world games is that they should feel open.

Please, don't include Fast Travel as an option.

Nobody wants to walk or horseback ride across 140 square miles to reach a destination once they've already explored the area in between. Lol

 

[Dead_Pixel]

I'm 99% sure that it was said during the Treehouse Live stream that the Plateau alone is 12x the size of TP, not the entire game.

For the whole game, 12x the size of TP would actually be quite small.

 

[ZiggyPalffyLA]

We just need Sawano to score Breath of the Wild to make up for this.

As long as the Kakariko Village theme doesn't have rap lyrics.

 

[Ithil]

Anouma, you fucked up.

??

 

[m051293]

Amazing post. I'm going to add this to the OP if you don't mind. Did you get to analyze the newest map also to see if it's the same as the TGA one? If you said that and I missed it, sorry.

ETA: checked your post history and saw you're planning further analysis soon, looking forward to that, thank you!

Thanks, and sure thing.

Yeah I'll try to go deeper over the weekend. Trees & other objects are indicated on the zoomed-in Plateau map, so if I can determine that those are properly scaled, we can start to get some better estimates.

 

[Meffer]

Link better use a mech to traverse the map.

With the choices of mobility Link has he doesn't need a mech.

 

[m051293]

I'm 99% sure that it was said during the Treehouse Live stream that the Plateau alone is 12x the size of TP, not the entire game.

For the whole game, 12x the size of TP would actually be quite small.

Cool. Timestamp? Would be nice to confirm, although that might just be someone spitballing, because if 12X TP = 1-2% that would be way too large to be consistent with yesterday's footage (600-1200 sq km). That's like 2-3x JC 2 & 3.

 

[TheJoRu]

I don't feel too bad about watching the footage yesterday now. Holy shit.

I hope, as mentioned in the thread before, that they can reuse a lot of the work put into this game to make a new game fairly quickly, at most 2-3 years (which is short by Zelda-standards these days, lol). Maybe they could make a sort of remixed "Dark World"-esque expansion, using much of the same world but in a parallell universe where a different kind of conflict is unfolding. Different story, dungeons, enemies and equipment. New music and overall a different tone; perhaps it could be a step up in difficulty, too. Basically a whole new campaign, sell for $40 in retail or a reduced $20 digitally for owners of BotW. It'd be a bit reminiscent of New Super Luigi U to NSMBU, or how Fire Emblem Fates is structured with there being two main campaigns (and a third through DLC) using the same assets but having some different features and different tones, and that you can buy at a lower price digitally if you already bought one of them.

 

[hemo memo]

Are we doubting Zelda team in term of world design and content? Really! This is not copy paste design. If there is ever a team that can build open world design with great content it's them.

 

[Gitaroo]

hope they understand size /= more fun. MGSV and some others games have much larger maps than the previous entries but after awhile it just become a chore to travel even with quick travel.

 

[thiscoldblack]

Perhaps we'll have a hovercraft vehicle.

Neither the horse or the paraglider will get you that far quickly.

 

[Dead_Pixel]

Cool. Timestamp? Would be nice to confirm, although that might just be someone spitballing, because if 12X TP = 1-2% that would be way too large to be consistent with yesterday's footage (600-1200 sq km). That's like 2-3x JC 2 & 3.

I'm not going to re-watch a 4 hour stream to find a timestamp for that quote

If you've got half a day with nothing to do, I think it was Aonuma or Miyamoto who made the claim.

 

[xviper]

i hope it's filled with interesting things to explore not just an empty big world like MGS V

 

[Buggy Loop]

hope they understand size /= more fun. MGSV and some others games have much larger maps than the previous entries but after awhile it just become a chore to travel even with quick travel.

This isnt Ubisoft we are talking about...

 

[Mokujin]

Yea that's not really good news. The XCX map had mechs that justified the size. That's a shitload of horseback riding.

I'm also worried about how dead some of the environments will be.

There are going to be shortcuts unlocked for sure and maybe some other kind of mounts.

 

[John Kowalski]

Hoping for some vast emptiness to travel through. Some real huge empty plains with nothing but low grass and roaming horses.

 

[Always-honest]

In general i think that is too big. But maybe it will work.

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

Link better use a mech to traverse the map.

Whistle while you work!