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Zelda: BotW director talks gameplay roots, 2D Vs. 3D Zeldas, being inspired by Minecraft/Terraria

by rawmeatcowboy
12 March 2017
GN Version 5.0

The following comes from an EDGE interview with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild director Hidemaro Fujibayashi...

On the gameplay roots of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

“It didn’t come to me right away as a fully formed idea. For a long time, I went from idea to idea before I finally reached what I think are the very roots of Breath of the Wild’s gameplay: the idea of cliff climbing and paragliding back down, the keyword ‘survival’, and the idea of ‘creativity of combination’ whereby players make use of things that happen when their actions interact with objects placed on the map – for example, lighting wood with fire to create a bonfire. It was this root gameplay that I then submitted.”

On developing for the Switch in comparison to the Game Boy Color and Advance

“The Oracle games and The Minish Cap were 2D pixel-art games released on the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance. Compared to the Wii, Wii U or Nintendo Switch, graphically they can’t even begin to match up the kinds of animations, the text we can show, the audio, and storage space are definitely not comparable. The most notable difference is simply that we can no longer ‘fudge’ things when it comes to anything graphical. What we have previously left up to players’ imaginations can all now be shown for real, so continuing to use our previous methods of expression would lead to some very odd experiences for players. It might be more fun for players to see how we maintained a balance by playing the game and seeing for themselves.”

What games inspired Fujibayashi when developing Breath of the Wild

“I was rather inspired by playing Minecraft and Terraria. I was able to learn from the gameplay and the possibilities found in. I could learn from the sense of adventure, exploration and how it inspired curiosity.”

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