“This Concept of Open World Is Something I Had When I Built the Very First Zelda”
Nintendo’s first-party developers frequently hit games out of the park, but that wasn’t the expectation for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The game has done well critically and commercially, but during development, Shigeru Miyamoto wasn’t sure if it would be accepted.
Speaking with GameInformer, Miyamoto noted how the team was never sure of Breath of the Wild’s direction. And even during the final days of development, they weren’t sure if this iteration of Zelda would be accepted. While the franchise is a classic, the open-world experience is not.
“Have you been watching the positive reception for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? Has it given the Mario team a confidence boost?”
“This concept of open world is something I had when I built the very first Zelda,” answered Miyamoto, “and so it’s not that I have played a lot of open world games to get that concept, but I did feel that, as the franchise was moving forward, that we were losing that concept of open world and so we decided to go back to the essence and really kind of build a game that really brings to life that concept and I was definitely not sure how it was going to be accepted and I think the team was the same way in that we just built a game we thought would really bring to life what we were really trying to accomplish. And even with the last year to six months before the release all we could do was really try to believe in what we created and really polish and finish it up and make sure we felt good about it, and it wasn’t until those final touches that we felt like were going in the right direction. And even then, we definitely weren’t sure if it was going to do well or not, so I was very relieved when it did well.”
Furthermore, Miyamoto gave thoughts on Classic Super Mario remakes. He stated that he would prefer to see them ported over to the switch. The specific reason for this was so that they might take advantage of the hybrid console’s “unique features.” Is that a hint at virtual console?
“We have a version of Mario 64 on the DS, and as you mentioned there are Zelda ports on the 3DS, but rather than focus on trying to remake them, I would rather if we were to think about porting them, focus on more recent titles, but using the unique gameplay elements of the Switch. When you think about the playstyle of the Switch it would be great if I could play all classic games on it.”
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is available for the Nintendo Switch. Pair it with Super Mario Odyssey releasing tomorrow, and you’re set.
Happy gaming.