IGN sure have been posting a lot of interesting content regarding Breath of the Wild lately and now, posted today, is another brilliantly written article by Jose Otero, regarding what Miyamoto, Aonuma & Trinen had to say with regards to story, towns & more, so naturally we’re sharing their responses here:
Aonuma on Getting Lost:
“After Skyward Sword we really needed to develop a bigger world, but we’ve actually never done that. A lot of it was trial and error, and we had to feel things out.”
“We talked a little bit about the idea of density, how dense do we make this big world, as we were developing it, we realized that filling [Hyrule] with things to do and explore is going to be a lot of work. It’s going to take a lot of people and a lot of time. But when we actually started doing it and experienced things like moving around on the horse or climbing up to a high place and paragliding down, we realized that our desire to see what’s ahead was more than just wanting to see what’s in the world. So in that sense, we realized that it’s kind of OK if there are pockets of emptiness.”
“During development I noticed this idea of actually getting lost is fun. Getting lost in those small worlds, it’s not a loss of what to do but it’s more of a directional loss. I see the exit but I can’t figure out how to get there. That can lead to frustration, but when everything in the world is connected, [you end up] challenging something in a way that ‘I think this is going to work’ and then discover that ‘Oh, this isn’t going to work.’”
“It’s not actually a painful experience, it’s actually fun. It’s a sense of discovery and, as we’re developing this, I thought to myself, ‘Maybe this is what it means to create a big world.’ I learned that getting lost is OK.”
Aonuma on Rupees:
“Rupees do exist, but the reason for their existence is a little different this time around. As you saw it’s not about going to cutting down grass and collect rupees or find them in treasure chests but it’s about collecting things and going to sell them and then using the rupees you get to buy new things. The rupees are there but they serve a different purpose.”
Aonuma on Why he can’t Talk about Towns:
“I can’t share too much about villages because the way they work is interconnected to the story and overall world. It would be spoilers, so I wouldn’t want to do that now. I think that in adventure games the idea of meeting people and saying farewell to them is an important aspect. So that’s definitely in there.”
Aonuma on Link’s Clothes:
“The clothes he’s wearing right now is actually the same clothes that he was wearing in the trailer that we’ve shown previously. We thought that having him wear this tunic for this demo would make it a little more familiar to people watching the game demo and trailer this time around. Link gets that blue suit at a very important juncture in the storyline, and we also showed suit of armour you can get too. There’s also times when Link will venture out into the cold and he’ll need to appropriately equip himself, so there’s definitely a lot of variation types of clothes he can wear.”
Miyamoto on BotW’s Open World:
“Sandbox games is what they’re typically called here, but before anybody called them sandbox games, I always described Nintendo games as being a garden in a box. Zelda is a garden in a box game where the player can freely go around and experience [the world.]”
Trinen on Quests & Missions:
“There are quests. Sometimes we call them little chores that we need to do, but there are missions. On the systems side, you get a list of missions that’s easy to look into and check on.”
“Those missions are, obviously, optional, and even the way the story is set up, once you get off the plateau you’ll get to a point where you’re given some options of things you can pursue. You might want to pursue the story. You may want to try to learn more about Link’s background, or you might want to go and try to solve all of the Shrines.”
“You get to this point where you’re able to choose which one of these directions you want to do first, and then you’ll get missions that are layered on top.”
Miyamoto on Story:
“This game has a heavy focus on experience and also freedom. It’s not really story heavy. You can choose to do all of the tasks and all of the missions and you’ll still get to the end, or you could choose not to do all of them, and you can still get to the end.”
“The story isn’t as clear cut as it was in the past with the existence of Ganon, Link, and Zelda. With this one it’s a little bit more vague. You’ll kind of feel what Ganon is, and you’re going to feel maybe this is what Zelda is like, or this is what Link is like. It’s really Link’s adventure in discovering all of that.”
Trinen on Story:
“They’ve done a really good job of weaving the story into the world, giving you just enough direction to know, generally, where you need to go to pursue it. If you’re off doing other things and you decide you want to go complete the Shrines, or you want to go climb mountains, or you want to go look at deer in the field, or find that pond that had all the ducks in the trailer, you can do that.”
“I get into the game and then go off to do random things. Then, maybe after a couple days of playing, I’ll think that maybe I should actually go to that place [someone I met in the story] talked about. Then, you go there and get enough clues to point you in [the next] direction. It’s does a really good job of guiding you to where the story is, but it still feels like a sort of chance encounter out in the world when you come across somebody who has a role to move the story forward.”
Despite the amount of information we’ve shared above, the IGN has even more details we didn’t cover here, so if you’re interested in seeing what else came up and was revealed, make sure you visit the link below:
Source: Jose Otero of IGN
