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Zelda: Breath of the Wild dev discusses how Gorons almost looked very different in the final game

by rawmeatcowboy
23 December 2018
GN Version 5.0

According to Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Lead NPC artist Hirohito Shinoda, the Gorons almost had a very different look than how they appear in the final game.

“At the beginning of development, we tried to drastically change the Gorons’ appearance compared to past titles. I made their heads bigger, made them more human-like, and explored a lot of different ideas, but none of them really fit. So I returned to their roots and decided to lean into their original design from Ocarina of Time. In recent titles the Gorons have had tattoos, but I thought that due to the anime-likes styling of this title, we should aim to make use of empty space rather than trying to fill it, so I went with a very clean design. Rather than just making them round, I paid close attention to the 3D model to ensure they felt like a sumo wrestler, someone with body fat and muscles, and that they looked powerful.”

Out of all the Gorons that appear, it seems that Yunobo was going to be the most different. Shinoda went into detail about the changes.

“At first, to make Yunobo look related to his grandfather Daruk, I made Yunobo very familiar – from his hairstyle to his muscles. A lot of people said that it made him look like an old man, so I made some major changes to his design to make him feel younger and sweeter. The character was spwaned from the idea of a character who is cowardly but paradoxically physically powerful. The gap between being very strong with high physical potential while being a bit fragile led to a very charming character.”

[Link]