Zelda: Breath of the Wild devs on changing the series' norms, missing Iwata during the dev process

Coming from a New Yorker interview with game’s director, Hidemaro Fujibayashi...

“They said, ‘Change anything you want.’ So we wrote down all of the stress points, the things that make Zelda games less enjoyable, and we replaced them with new ideas.

When Iwata passed away, there were moments we’d come up with an idea which we’d be excited to talk to Iwata about. Then we’d remember he was no longer here. Miyamoto told me it was the same for him. He’d come up with an idea at the weekend and would feel excited to speak to Iwata about it on Monday, only to remember. The sadness runs deep. This is approaching spiritual talk, but we had the sense that he was watching over our work. That became a source of motivation, a drive for us to improve and be better."

Coming from technical director, Takuhiro Dohta...

"At many times in the process, there were things that just weren’t functioning at all. We’d have to remove everything and build back up again."