Aonuma on Zelda: BotW - Open world, losing yourself, RPG elements, physics trouble, Monolith Soft involved, & more

Gamekult: What was the main motivation behind the choice of a very open and systemic world?

Eiji Aonuma: The desire to make a open world game came shortly after the end of Skyward Sword. It was realized that the way of moving from one area to another through the air, with no possibility of walking, had frustrated many people who wanted to know what was hiding between the different regions. Insofar as one of the great pleasures of Zelda is the exploration and the search for hidden things, after doing some preliminary tests, it was felt that the Wii U had the power necessary to achieve a satisfactory open world , Which would allow players to visit the entire world without loading time. Everything is based on this will.

Gamekult: On what criteria have you built the world, divided the key objects, placed the sanctuaries and temples? Are they linked to personal experiences or a particular philosophy?

Eiji Aonuma: When you make a open world, which takes the card and say "I'll put it there, that this thing here and there", paying attention to the distances and estimating travel time between the points, It is important to take into account the relief. There is inevitably a big difference between the 2D representation and the 3D world, when you realize you have to cross mountains or canyons and that it is much harder to progress. As a result, we chose an implementation as the general construction of the game, walking on the map and looking at when to place an important element or a secret. If you want to hide places, it's even more complicated in 3D because the player does not necessarily know what to look for. All of these measures have been taken through the game world, in order to have a concrete idea of ​​the travel time and the spacing of the points of interest. What is not well known but yet true is that Mr. Miyamoto had done the same thing in 2D at the time to place the dungeons in the very first Zelda.

Gamekult: As you approach the subject, you said in an Iwata Asks that this founding episode was too difficult and too thin in clues to your liking, which prompted you to make it easier for the players when you started working on the series . Is Breath of the Wild, which pays tribute to the original Zelda in its communication, not an up-to-date review?

Eiji Aonuma: That's an excellent question, because the first Zelda is a game where you lose a lot and I think Breath of the Wild will do the same in 3D. I assume that there are two different ways of losing oneself in a game: because one does not know at all where one must go or because one wants to go to see places out of pure curiosity. As the first is absolutely not interesting in terms of game, so much the second is something I can not wait to make live the players. That's why the mechanics of the game encourage people to explore. From the beginning of the adventure, Link has the ability to climb high enough to ensure that once at the top, the scenery we can scrutinize and head towards what most attracts our eye gliding through the paraglider. This loop of climbing, contemplation and aerial journey really is the base of the exploration of the world in this Zelda and I really wanted to be able to take pleasure in getting lost.

GameKult: The first time I tried Breath of the Wild, I was very surprised by the encrypted RPG aspect, weapons power statistics, pretty loaded inventories, crafting ... What has Motivated this change and are not you afraid that it will burden the gambling experience for those who are used to a more symbolic and refined Zelda?

Eiji Aonuma:Indeed I have always wanted to avoid encrypting things in the past but given that the scale of this game is much more important than anything we have done so far, with a lot of different objects To offer players, I think the simplest solution is to have more numbers. It seemed difficult to do without comparing equipment in a natural way. At first glance, we can say that it will add to the game, but I think that in use, people will find it much easier to understand when deciding which object will be better than another .

Gamekult: Regarding the physical engine, I understand that it is one of the points that has been the most difficult to integrate and to balance, because of the unpredictability of certain reactions. How did you ensure that this leads to more good than bad surprises on this side?

Eiji Aonuma:It took us a lot of time for a simple reason: when you have a single physical engine to handle all the rules that will apply in a world, if you change even a small value at one place, It can happen anything on the other side of the card. For example, we had a dungeon manager who wanted to do a riddle where he had to move earthen pots with wind and he changed a slider to make the wind fly the pots. In testing this version of the game, I went to a completely different place where there was to be pots and I did not find them again. In fact, they had all been transported by natural squalls and stuck at the foot of a distant mountain. We had lots of anecdotes of this style during the development and from there we proceeded on the principle that it was absolutely necessary to have a perfect communication between the different teams. We could have gone through e-mails but it was simpler than everyone else on a par with the latest information about the game, so it took a lot of time but we decided to Make compulsory play sessions simultaneously. Everyone had to test the current version before moving on to the next step to verify that changes made by one group did not negatively affect the work of other groups. More than making the engine itself is its setting for all parts of the game to work together which took a long time and pushed me to ask the management to delay the exit.

Gamekult: Has there been talk of integrating a multiplayer mode or online features that allow players to communicate with each other and encourage each other to visit a particular place?

Eiji Aonuma:It's a very good idea. I'll talk to the teams when I get back to Japan! (Laughs)

Gamekult: As with Skyward Sword, you collaborated with Monolith Software employees on Breath of the Wild, which is not surprising given that they now have the habit of open world games with Xenoblade. To what extent have they influenced the technological choices of this episode?

Eiji Aonuma: On Skyward Sword, Monolith we had especially supported in graphic design and other artistic elements. Even if we could have asked them for technical help, we realized that their way of playing games was completely different from ours and that we did not have much to learn from them This episode, insofar as we were doing almost two different trades. Breath of the Wild on the other hand, we were helped by level designers accustomed to large play areas, to achieve topographic amenities.

Gamekult: If you were allowed to create other games than Zelda, they would look like what and what ideas would you like to develop?

Eiji Aonuma: (He laughs softly) I have time to do anything other than Zelda and once told me that if I wanted to work on other games, it was not necessary that I hesitate. The problem is that as soon as I start to think about what I can do, as soon as I find a nice idea, I think it could work in Zelda and I always come back to this series. So much so that I put aside the ideas I stop me from putting in a Zelda for use elsewhere, even if for the moment, I am busy with Breath of the Wild.

Gamekult: Does the idea of ​​cooking in Breath of the Wild come from you? I thought you'd love to cook in real life.

Eiji Aonuma: It does not come at all from me, sorry! (Laughs) It was a logical choice to the extent that when you walk in the game world, it picks up a bunch of ingredients and eat as is, but we thought it would be interesting to mix them as For better effects. Mixing ingredients is one of the basics of cooking and it seemed natural to be able to prepare dishes in the game. It seemed logical to us but the first time that my son, who is a fan of Zelda, saw the trailer Showing that we could cook the kitchen, he thought it was weird! What may seem natural to some is not for others, and anyway, I have not insisted that incorporates this idea of gameplay.

Gamekult: Last question: what do you think is the central theme of this episode, in one sentence?

Eiji Aonuma: "Climb, live, protect". These are the three words used in advertising on the official Japanese website. It means exploring by climbing everywhere, living in harmony with the world around us and protecting something or someone to accomplish a mission. This is really the essence of this game.