IGN: Zelda: BotW - Aonuma on getting lost, rupees, subtitle, special arrow, Link's tunic

Coming from an IGN interview with Eiji Aonuma...

On trial/error when creating Breath of the Wild

“After Skyward Sword we really needed to develop a bigger world, but we've actually never done that. So 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 to make this big world. We realized that it's OK if there's pocket of emptiness"

On dungeon entrances

“If there were multiple entrances it would be very confusing, but how you get to that entrance is very different this time around.”

On letting players get lost

“In previous 3D titles, I thought that getting lost is a bad thing. 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, you're going to end up at the same exit, but I can't figure out how to get there. Challenging something in a way that ‘I think this is going to work’ and then discovering that ‘Oh, this isn't going to work,’ it's not actually that much of 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, to find out that getting lost is OK.”

On elixirs

“There are many different effects that will help you accomplish your goal. There are elixirs that will nullify any sound you make. If you're going to a cold area and you drink the right type of elixir, you can go there half-naked and you'll be fine.”

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.”

On the subtitle

“Even the subtitle itself is different from previous Zelda titles, It took a while. We talked a lot about plot points and items and characters, but what we kept coming back to was that the world itself is really the soul of this game. The ruined, crumbling masonry and the quiet field with a breeze running through it. The sense of melancholy that pervades this place, what was once a beautiful kingdom is now fallen to ruin really felt like the soul of the game to us. Really the world is the main character."

The special arrow from the original footage

“That arrow is definitely an important part of the game and getting it is very important to navigating the game. To reveal it now would be a spoiler so I don't want to say too much.”

On towns

“I can't share too much about villages because to tell you how the villages work, they're interconnected to the story and overall world.”

On what happened to Link's green tunic

“I don't know... I wonder."