Imagining the Legend of Zelda as a Real Time Strategy Game
Posted on April 23 2016 by Mases Hagopian
The Legend of Zelda series has recently expanded into other genres and Nintendo has been more open with their prized intellectual property in terms of who can work on their storied franchise. Hyrule Warriors takes The Legend of Zelda into the gametype of Dynasty Warriors. While not a true ‘Legend of Zelda’ title, it features a huge cast of characters from The Legend of Zelda series and could be the stepping stone for Nintendo to create a new game in a vastly different genre.
This article can be considered a companion piece to the previous ZD Talks which asked our news staff which asked which game genres could The Legend of Zelda series follow. Hit the jump for more on how Zelda could expand into the RTS genre.
A Zelda real time strategy game in the vein of Warcraft III or Starcraft could take a few cues from Hyrule Warriors. Having factions that are broken up by races/enemy types is what makes the bread and butter of a real-time strategy game. The usual norm for an RTS is to have two or more factions duke it out over resources and making bases with these resources to wipe out your enemy. If we take Hyrule Warriors at it’s core and break up the four main factions we’re left with the Hylian forces, Ganondorf’s forces, Cia’s forces, and Zant’s forces. There are a few cases where the main enemies that you face bleed over between factions and you even get a chance to fight with and against the Goron’s led by Darunia. The Legend of Zelda has no shortage of potential unit types for an RTS game. The Hylian forces could include the knights we’ve seen in Hyrule Warriors which have appeared in several forms throughout the Zelda series.
These are all potential units that could make up the bulk of Hylian forces. Various types or specializations of these potential units could involve a more elite version of the each, or could have ranged/magic based units. A group of knights could be a single unit type to create the feel for a larger battle. The same goes for any other unit type, allowing groups of enemies to fight it out on the battlefield. Variations on units could include Knight archers, Goron rock-throwing units, Zora mages, and Deku seed launching Deku Scrubs just to name a few examples. For Ganondorf’s forces these units could make up the bulk of his army.
Ganondorf has the potential for a lot of different enemy types considering most of the Legend of Zelda series involves Link taking on a huge list of enemies that keeps growing as the series goes on. Similar to the Hylian forces, Ganondorf’s forces could have upgraded versions of their base unit types, and variations on units that could be ranged or use magical abilities.
Single hero characters as special units could be available for certain time limits, or chosen before the battle starts to make them more unique. The sky is the limit with the amount of heroes that could be available to the player to choose from. Here is where my shining example of a console based RTS comes in to play. Halo Wars has two separate factions in the game that each have three hero units that can be playable with the Covenant and offer special bonuses for the UNSC. Similar upgrades or unit types could be exclusive to these hero characters. Running around as Link and having him fight on the battlefield has enough potential as it is. What could make battles much more tactical and unpredictable would be the introduction of special abilities and bonuses that hero choices could allow for. An example could be if the player chooses Darunia as a hero character. Darunia could have a unique Goron unit that is available to him that specializes against destroying buildings or has extra health. Link could have the assistance of The Great Fairy while Zelda could use light arrows to deal extra damage to enemies from a wide range.
Imagine an army led by Volga and Wizzro.
Potential Hero Characters:
Including those few new characters from the Hyrule Warriors games, and all of the DLC characters that are eventually released through Hyrule Warriors Legends, could be potential hero characters on top of the ones listed above. Throwing in more obscure characters from Link’s Awakening or the other handheld games could be a great way to throw them into the limelight.
Breaking Down Unit Potential: Rock, Paper, Scissors
-Ground units
-Vehicles
-Ranged Units
-Magic Units
Following tropes from other real time strategy games; a rock paper scissors system could determine which units have the advantage over others. For instance in Halo Wars infantry beats air vehicles, air vehicles beats land vehicles and land vehicles beat infantry. How this could play out in our hypothetical Legend of Zelda real time strategy could be a bit more malleable. For instance ground units beats magic units, vehicles beats ground units, ranged units beats vehicles, magic units beats ranged units. Any variation of these could be moved around to make more sense given the unit types but a basic structure like this could work in a game like this.
Calling in Boss Units, and/or Boss Units Randomly Appearing On Maps
The Legend of Zelda series also has a huge pool of bosses to draw from. An RTS game is not just limited to the 3D games bosses and could do what Hyrule Warriors did and take enemies from The The Legend of Zelda and render them in 3D and give them new movements and attacks. Imagine bosses like Vaati, Gleeock, Triinex and Koldstare alongside Manhandle, Dodongo, Argorok, and The Imprisoned in an open battlefield rolling through enemies. To balance out the use of boss enemies there are a few options that could be used to handle how bosses interact in the battlefield. Bosses could be special units that have a high cost and require a lot of resources to purchase. Bosses could be taken control of by a player by claiming a certain area of the map during a certain time, or by defeating the boss they can summon them once in that battle after a certain cooldown period. A last option could be bosses that are tied to a specific map, or several bosses available per map. Maybe Gohma and Manhandla are available on one map versus another which may have Vaati and Koldstare. Bosses could be tied to your hero character so each hero unit becomes more unique. All seem like valid options but following the Halo Wars path could be the ideal path. In Halo Wars there are Uber units for the Covenant and the UNSC. For the Covenant the Uber unit is a Scarab which can deal a huge amount of damage but takes up a huge amount of required units to build. This balances the amount of units you could build so that you don’t have too large of an army. Trading the potential for more units is outweighed by having a Scarab at your disposal could translate perfectly for using boss characters. The player also needs to research certain upgrades in order to be able to unlock the Scarab. The same applies for the UNSC which can research the Vulture Uber air unit. The Vulture requires significantly less unit resources than a Scarab but you can only have so many Vultures in your army. Having this method of boss creation allows variety to be placed on bosses as Uber units. Bosses could have more balancing in place allowing a boss like Gohma to be less powerful than Vaati or Dodongo. Dodongo may have extra defense against certain units that make him more useful in certain situations over Manhandla or Argorok.
Gamepad Potential
Having a console RTS always has it’s struggles adapting the game to a controller. Having a mouse and keyboard is the ideal way to play an RTS game but some console RTS’ have been able to utilize a controller to maximum efficiency. Notable examples include The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2 and Halo Wars on the Xbox 360. These are the shining examples in my opinion and Halo Wars has already received a lot of comparison. Using the shoulder buttons to select all units or on-screen units would be the ideal way to control your selections. A good way to incorporate the Wii U Gamepad would be allowing players to select and place units via the touch screen of the gamepad. Being able to make unit changes with the stylus or to navigate around the world map would be another suitable use for the stylus controls.
Hyrule: Total War
While it may not be the exact style of the game I invision, there is a massive fan mod for Total War called Hyrule: Total War which adds in Zelda factions into the Total War style of real time strategy. Total War has a more permanent home on PC and seeing a type of official release with a Zelda spin on it doesn’t seem plausible. Running a Total War game on Wii U while making use of the gamepad is even more of a stretch, but as a curious aside, take a look at these trailers for the Hyrule: Total War mod for a view of what might be expected in a Zelda RTS.
Having a title in the Legend of Zelda series that is a real-time strategy game would be a grand departure from other installments, but with the introduction of games like Hyrule Warriors into the series it doesn’t seem like too far of a stretch. A console RTS game is no small feat, but with some of the ideas outlined above it could stand to be a very successful game, given the right development team and the creative freedom that the developers of Hyrule Warriors were given. Feel free hit the comments to discuss other potential genres that the Zelda series could adapt to and share your thoughts on the possibility of a Zelda RTS.
