Nintendo MMORPGs

Shooters and open world RPGs. They're seemingly the biggest two genres in modern gaming culture, with multiple big franchise titles in each. Practically all of them have extensive online modes. Some of them are exclusive to online play, having no single player content at all, a state of affairs that would have been unthinkable fifteen years ago.

This is unless you're playing a Nintendo console. In the world of Nintendo platform games still reign supreme. Not that there's anything wrong with platform games. Or Nintendo's more family-friendly approach for that matter. But shooters, open world RPGs and a focus on online play remains a gaping hole in Nintendo's line-up. I suspect this is a large part of the reason the Wii U underperformed and the company as a whole is considered a notch below Sony and Microsoft in the home console war.

Those holes are the bad news. The good news is that it would be easy for Nintendo to solve the problem. They have the ideal franchises. The Metroid Prime series is a highly regarded set of first person shooters that keeps the standard issue Nintendo charm but comes about as close as the company's ever going to get to giving us an army grunt in the style of Mass Effect¹ or Halo. Meanwhile it's very easy to imagine the Legend of Zelda being tweaked to be Ninty's answer to Skyrim.

A new Zelda game is very much in development for Wii U (and probably the yet-to-be-properly-unveiled NX) and has been cautiously framed as an open world title in which you can travel to the (far off) horizon and beyond. The last original Metroid Prime title was released in 2007. That's a long time for a series to stay idle, but there's a strong chance that a new title is in development: Retro Studios haven't released any information on what they're working on since the release of their last major game (Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze) in February 2014.

These games will focus on single player content, because that's the Nintendo way. Personally I feel it would be a mistake to do anything else with them: they're both clearly established as single player experiences (particularly Zelda) and the company can't rely on having a large enough user base for the NX to make online play the central focus of any game (especially one carrying the Legend of Zelda tag, that being their second biggest franchise after Mario). It can be argued that the Wii U, renowned for having a weak sales record, has managed to support Splatoon, a game that focuses more on online content than a single player mode, but that's very much an experimental title by Nintendo standards. They wouldn't do something as bold as that with an established and important series.

This does not mean the games cannot provided the structure for extensive online play after launch. The LOZ series is the perfect faux medieval setting for an MMORPG. Prime is the perfect setting for a space exploration shooter. The trouble is title has is that they're so tied to their established lead characters, something which isn't terribly practical for online play. Not everyone can play as Link. Even if you through Zelda, Ganon and a bunch of secondary characters into the mix the best you can come up with is a battle mode. While that doesn't sound like a bad thing it already exists in the form of Hyrule Warriors and it's not the experience people would want.

So what would they want? I think people would want the chance to explore the Hyrule of "Zelda U" as a new character, taking on quests at Kakariko village, Hyrule town and whatever other settlements make it into the game, trekking up mountains and into forests to fight crazy monsters like that mechanical octopus from the game's initial trailer or the more established dodongos². Toss in a impressive character creation screen, set the online content six months after the conclusion of Link's Latest Epic Quest™ and you've got yourself a big, open world settign that people are going to be interested in. Same goes for Metroid Prime.

I know there's more to it than that. It's not simply a matter of stitching on multiplayer. Done right it takes as much time to get right as a single player campaign. But the hard work, creating the world, characters, and (most of³) the enemies, would be completed. It's not even something that would need to be available at launch. If it was polished enough online play for both franchises could be launched as their own separate things. The new Zelda (presumably) being available on Wii U and the NX would be a slight problem because it's probably not in Ninty's best interest to make this available for Wii U but the good news is that they're not in a position where they've confirmed any sort of online functionality. They could announce Zelda U will be made available for both consoles and that an MMO element will come exclusively to the NX version several months after release. That provides a reason for people to buy an NX without depriving Wii U owners of the core game they've been promised⁴.

If Nintendo did this they'd have a pair of evergreen titles⁵ to update with fresh campaigns every six months to a year, encouraging continuous waves of sales. That's an approach they need to go with for the NX. It works well for their competitors and is a large part of the reason the Wii U was not the success it could have been. If they're not planning this for these titles, they should. I they're not developing a new Metroid Prime title, they should.

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¹ Hey, you may love Mass Effect and Halo's characters but they're not what you'd call nuanced or interesting. Mass Effect does better than Halo in that regard but a large part of the reason for that is that the game's narrative and gameplay are strongly tied to a decision-making system that makes a healthy substitute for character development⁶. 

² Not fussed enough about Zelda to know what monster is what? They're the lizards that are defeated by fooling them into swallowing bombs. They've appeared in most of the series' instalments. It's amazing that a species that can be pretty easily tricked into swallowing something so clearly deadly has managed to evolve and be such a prominent part of Hyrule's ecology, but there you go.

³ I feel like online content for both a Zelda title and a Metroid Prime title would need to offer monsters to fight that weren't present in the single player. This simplest answer to this is to create new bosses that are only encountered online.

⁴ It could even be offered at a lesser price than the NX version to reflect the difference in online content (something which will probably happen anyway).

⁵ Look, I hate this term as much as anyone but it makes sense and is a handy shorthand. Don't hate me for using it, I already hate myself for it enough.

⁶ Not that character development is particularly important to me. One of my favourite series of games ever is the Mario platformers, and they're about as light on character and story as you can get.