Tri Force Heroes Director Discusses Multiplayer and Voice Chat

Now that the dust has settled on E3 2015 and all of the festivities are done and over with, we can take stock of all we have learned about the two new Zelda titles coming our way. The biggest surprise for Zelda fans was Tri Force Heroes, a multiplayer title with a strong focus on cooperation to help solve puzzles and fight your way through dungeons. Although this game has a single player mode, the emphasis is more on the multiplayer side which is made easy by its online and local play capabilities. Not to mention the fact that you only need one copy of the game to play with your friends with download play. But since the multiplayer aspect is the main focus, Nintendo considered adding voice chat capabilities but decided against it to not impact the overall experience of the game and help teach you new ways to communicate. Tri Force Heroes Director sits down with The Verge to talk a little more about multiplayer and the decision to exclude voice chat. Head past the jump to see what he had to say.

Shikata discusses a little bit with The Verge on multiplayer and the focus of the game.

“In a lot of multiplayer games there are a lot of people, but they’re not really playing together.

“That was the main focus — building a multiplayer game that requires cooperation.”

With the lack of voice chat in the game, Nintendo has given you a set of eight different emoticons that you can use to convey many emotions like frustration, or my absolute favorite one – Link with cheerleader pom-poms to help show your team they are awesome.

“It’s actually creating a new form of communication,” says Shikata.

“I believe it might be a little bit stressful for players to try to figure out how to communicate what they want to do, but I think that because of that feeling, when you’re able to do it successfully there’s a level of satisfaction that you don’t find in other games.”

Nintendo did consider voice chat but ultimately decided to go a different route.

“With voice chat, what we would see is a highlight in the difference of experience levels between the players. Higher players would tell lower players what to do, and lower players would wonder why they’re being told what to do.”

Its funny, when I do play online I seldom ever have my mic turned on. Most of the time I just try to tune out the crazy talk that is usually happening and the only time I find it useful is when we are dealing with a situation that requires strategy and precision. But even then the communication is short and usually consists of one or two words. So maybe this idea will work, I can probably get my point across with just those eight options… No, I won’t be mashing that cheerleader Link icon all the time!

What are your thoughts on the games multiplayer focus and lack of voice chat? Do you think that the lack of voice chat will impact playing the game online in a negative way? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: The Verge