[Interview] Aonuma On How DLC Ideas Came To Create Breath Of The Wild Sequel (Kotaku)

Just as the Nintendo Direct E3 2019 came to a close, viewers were treated with the announcement and a teaser for a The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild sequel. From what we saw, it looked to reuse a lot of the assets from the first game to make the sequel. The last time the Zelda team did this was with Majora’s Mask by using the Ocarina Of time engine. Jason Schreier from Kotaku recently spoke with Zelda Series Producer Eiji Aonuma.

Mr. Aonuma said in aj interview with Game Informer that he wanted to revisit the Hyrule in Breath Of The Wild again. He also revealed that the Zelda team has so many ideas for DLC that they decided to just make a whole new game from scratch.

When talking with Jason Schreier, Aonuma expanded on the team’s decision to take the DLC ideas and create a new game instead:

“Schreier: What made you and the team decide to make a sequel to Breath of the Wild as opposed to a new Zelda game?

Aonuma: When we released the DLC for Breath of the Wild, we realized that this is a great way to add more elements to the same world. But when it comes down to technical things, DLC is pretty much data—you’re adding data to a preexisting title. And so when we wanted to add bigger changes, DLC is not enough, and that’s why we thought maybe a sequel would be a good fit.

Schreier: Was this sequel originally planned as DLC?

Aonuma: Initially we were thinking of just DLC ideas, but then we had a lot of ideas and we said,  ‘This is too many ideas, let’s just make one new game and start from scratch’.”

Schreier: When we talked in 2014, you told me you wanted to reconstruct the idea of puzzles entirely. What do you want your next big innovation to be?

“Aonuma: [Laughs.] I can’t tell you.

Schreier: I mean from a big-picture perspective, similar to the idea of reconstructing puzzles in a Zelda game—that’s a good challenge. What’s the next big challenge for you?

Aonuma: One thing we learned from Breath of the Wild is that when we focused on creating a dungeon that has multiple solutions, it turned into this great title. That’s one thing I want to polish up and use for inspiration going forward.”

Another interesting take away from the interview was Aonuma’s view on the lack of button remapping in Breath of the Wild,something the team might consider implementing in the future:

“Aonuma: When we have a button arrangement, we very much put thought into how we do it, because there’s a specific way we want players to feel. In some ways, if we freely let players do customizations on key assignments and such, I feel like we’re letting go of our responsibility as a developer by just kind of handing everything over to the users. We have something in mind for everybody when we play the game, so that’s what we hope players experience and enjoy as well. But we understand also that players have a desire for free customization.

Schreier: Also, physically disabled players might not be able to play the way developers intended.

Aonuma Definitely, that’s a very good point, and that’s something we’ll keep in mind going forward, thinking about that.”

With The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild getting its own sequel, I for one am excited to revisit BOTW’s Hyrule all over again and see how they expand on the game’s story. Even if this time around, it is a more linear experience with plenty of sidequests to keep my occupied. The interview with Aonumacontinues on to talk about about Link’s Awakening, Work conditions at Nintendo and the possibility for a Zelda Maker. You can check out the full interview with Aonuma over on Kotaku.

Source: Kotaku Via: ZeldaDungeon