Welcome to Checkpoint, a segment from the authors here at LevelSave designed to quickly let you know what is on our minds, how we are reacting to current news and trends, and some looks into content coming soon from LevelSave.com.
March 3, 2017
Switch day! If you can find one.
Checkpoints:
- The Switch has launched. If you got one, have fun!
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild may very well be the series high point. It’s one of the best reviewed games of all time (so far).
- Friend Codes are back! Horray? Nintendo claims they will be adding easier ways to add friends later.
- Nintendo has lied to us about this once already, however.
- Microsoft is going to let people self-publish games on the Xbox UWP Platform.
Bonus Level:
Self-publishing games on the Xbox Platform is a nice gesture to developers, but it comes with a caveat: You must develop in the UWP ecosystem. For those who don’t know, UWP stands for “Universal Windows Platform”, allowing apps to work on multiple devices, screen sizes, and be compatible with a large variety of input options. This isn’t a bad requirement per se, as it technically allows self-publishing on the Windows platform as well as the Xbox One, but it may slow down development a tad for developers who may not have targeted one platform at the outset of their project. Play Anywhere games are technically UWP compatible (hence the Windows 10 and Xbox One copies). These self-published titles will be in their own section of the Xbox store, so you won’t have to worry about an onslaught of lower-caliber games invading the regular store, like what happened on Steam with Greenlight. Microsoft has also promised to uphold some quality standards on content as well.
Speaking of quality software… boy has Zelda captured the attention of everybody! I’ll be getting my Switch later this weekend and simply can’t wait to play it. It’s been a long time since a Zelda game has been a day on purchase for me, mostly because the traditional formula of the series has grown a bit stale (at least, for me it has). This game is being lauded for drastically rethinking how a Zelda game is played, and it is being described as “finally moving forward.” Since I played Skyrim (again, and again, and again) I’ve been convinced Zelda should move in a direction more like the Elder Scrolls series and so far it looks like that’s exactly what happened, except it was also able to bring that Zelda magic with it to make the whole experience its own. I adored Skyrim. I think I’m about to have the same reaction to Zelda. I’m excited as can be.
Checkpoint reached.
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