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Aonuma on Zelda: BotW - open world struggles, unused ideas, series' future, nature, Zelda's importance & more

by rawmeatcowboy
07 February 2017
GN Version 5.0

Coming from a Gameblog interview with Eiji Aonuma...

- filling the vast world with interesting content is a pretty difficult task
- this is made even tougher because the various activities have to make sense in the world they’re found in
- everyone was working on their own parts separately, but the team realized this method wasn't going to work
- this is not the final evolution for Zelda games, and Aonuma says he has many more ideas
- some ideas they had for the game were just too far outside the realm of believability, so they scrapped them
- other ideas were put aside to use for future Zelda games
- these unused ideas will allow them to challenge the conventions established in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- Aonuma doesn't think having blood splashing everywhere or heads rolling would add anything to the series
- Aonuma doesn't think adding more violence would be worthwhile
- Aonuma also doesn’t want to add “unlawful” elements, as he feels those are unrelated to the franchise
- the goal is to have a character that starts weak, grows up and progresses throughout the adventure
- the main trait of all iterations of Link is that he's a bit like a blank canvas, as neutral as possible
- this is why he’s man with a rather androgynous body, not too macho but not too girly either
- for Aonuma, it’s the players themselves that determine what kind of personality Link ends up having
- Aonuma grew up in an area filled with trees, snow and mountains, which he eventually grew tired of
- when he moved to the city to work, he realized how much he missed nature
- this is why nature is such a big part of his games
- this is also why climbing mountains is a crucial element in Breath of the Wild
- nowadays, players have less time to play games than they used to, due to all the various devices now taking their attention
- it’s also become harder to focus on just one game
- this is why he hopes that Nintendo will be able to keep the attention of players for as long as possible with Breath of the Wild
- Zelda is a pretty important character for Eiji Aonuma, a Legendary character in a way
- she’s so important that, even if Link has to go and save her, if he fails to do so, then that means the end of the world
- since she’s so important, Eiji Aonuma really wanted players to spend some time with her, in order to get to know her better
- without Zelda, there quite simply wouldn’t be anything
- Aonuma feels he's completely moved on from Ocarina of Time to realize a new path for Zelda
- even if he’s been working on Zelda games all this time, Aonuma doesn't feel like he was living in Hyrule himself
- he did dream about Zelda once, specifically Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
- he dreamed about a specific event from the game, and the next day, he saw a cutscene depicting that very event
- Aonuma says he's getting old, and when he goes to bed, he always sleeps soundly
- when morning comes, he doesn’t even remember what he dreamed about

[Link]