this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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That's what hype does. Hype can be good if the end product lives up to it, or the hype isn't so potent. Tears of the Kingdom comes to my mind for this. The hype was more like "it's coming, we think it's going to be cool" and a couple of gameplay vids. Then their reputation combined with the understatement of how good the game actually was created a wildfire of good hype.
Starfield was like "PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR THE BEST GAME EVER MADE, IN THE WORKS FOR HALF A DECADE, YOU'LL NEVER PUT IT DOWN, GAME OF THE YEAR GUARANTEED" and created a ton of bad hype. Bad hype is good for sales, but creates unrealistic expectations and makes a lot more people go "meh" once they find out what it is.
Let me tell you a secret: bad hype is intentional. All that matters to a studio is how much they sell, not that players continue playing.
Bad hype makes players stop talking about a game pretty quickly.
But didn't TOTK also have the issue that to some it felt like an "expansion pack" (Probably closer to a switch's version of Majora's Mask, where many assets are reused and remixed with a new gameplay element added). While it was a good game its probably not as revolutionary as BOTW. It also doesn't help it was the switch's first 70$ title.
Totk was the 2nd open world Zelda. Starfield is the 5th Bethesda game. AssCreed would be the 27th? Ubisoft game
Diminishing returns I guess
Also, "as revolutionary as the last one" is probably not the standard we should hold all sequels to. Changing the fundamental design of a series is important to do periodically to keep it fresh, but well executed iteration is also really important. I definitely feel I've gotten my time outta totk, and I'm not done with it, tho I have gotten a little distracted by life, bg3, and picking ror2 back up.
Also for anyone looking at full price switch games as too expensive, you can pretty frequently find $100 eshop cards for $90, which you can use to buy a 2pack of game vouchers, and effectively get any switch game for $45, including totk.
I'm not really commenting on how the actual game was, just the hype building up to it. Nintendo consistently teaches a masterclass on hyping their IPs. Whether or not the game was good, or worth the money, is an opinion beside the point.
In the same vein, people call starfield "fallout but in space" and "fast travel simulator 2023". There are plenty of things to criticize there too. But I honestly think the reason those criticisms weren't taken in stride like totk was is because of all of bad hype surrounding the release. People expected a lot more.