Poll of the Day > Been playing live-service games and am behind.BotW, TotK, GoW, or HZD:FW next?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Is it even worth doing BotW at this point or going straight to TotK? Id be waiting to play on the Switch 2.

I loved HZD and have like 150 hours but got the DLC too late so never did the DLC in the original, I guess thats an option too. Its been a while since Ive done an open world so think I can do another at this point.

might aswell go HZD:FW first as itll be the shortest.

BotW and TotK are both well worth playing, but because TotK reuses so much of BotW's world and exploration forms such a core part of both games, you'll have a worse time if you don't have a solid break between them to let yourself forget parts of the world. Between them, I think I'd say that TotK is the better game, but both have their merits and playing BotW first would probably be best because TotK fixes (or at least improves) some of the more annoying bits about BotW. There isn't enough story continuity to worry about missing out if you play TotK first (all you need to know is that Zelda gets rescued at the end of BotW).

I think the mechanics and shrines in TotK are better, but the dungeons overall are worse. But I think I still prefer TotK. But play both. Play BotW then like a year later play TotK.

Arguably the biggest problem with TotK is that it's BotW's sequel, because it sometimes doesn't acknowledge that it is. You could play TotK first and miss out on virtually nothing in terms of plot, but I'd advise against it because that would remove everything that would make BotW great (particularly the exploration). TotK does have a lot more area to explore, but it's at a point where it's nearly absurd.

Basically, either game is weakened by playing the other one first. BotW deserves more praise in my opinion by virtue of the fact that it was released first. I've been replaying every Zelda game in release order for the past year and I've hit a bit of a wall with TotK since BotW is so fresh in my mind. I agree with others here that you absolutely need a sizable break between playing each game, and honestly a year is a great suggestion despite how long that sounds.

TotK is an objective improvement in a ton of ways mechanically and yes, it does make a lot of BotW obsolete. But I had a much better overall experience with BotW. It was simpler, despite how complex and different it was at its time, the story and characters were far better and more coherent and everything about it knew what it was trying to do. But even with that considered, it's really hard for me to go back to it after playing TotK.

With this in mind, I would highly suggest playing BotW, and like adjl says it would really be best to give yourself a decent break before moving on to TotK. It would be really easy to overwhelm yourself going from one giant experience to a similar experience that's over twice as big. I do kind of disagree with complaints that they're too similar though. I think TotK does a really good job of modifying the environment it came from to the point that it's familiar but a whole new experience. It's like going back to your hometown after a decade and seeing how much it's developed. It's just not the same.