Watching even just half an hour’s worth of videos about Nintendo’s process in making The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild reveals quite a bit.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has been out for less than two weeks. At this point, you could have feasibly finished the main story and are now deep into the hunt for more shrines and everything else you can find and collect in the game. However, if you just can’t look at a TV screen anymore, but need more Zelda content, Nintendo has you covered.
They released three videos on the making of Breath of the Wild, going further into the process of creating this massive game.
“The Beginning” focuses on the early development of Breath of the Wild, as the title suggests. Notably, the concept of Link either wearing a hood or going bareheaded with or without a ponytail seems to have shown up quite early. Since Link’s had a hat since the very beginning, that’s perhaps the oldest convention of them all. The developers also appear to have taken heavy inspiration not just from the 2D engine of Zelda they used, but from the original game itself.
As for the inspiration from the Jomon culture, photos of pottery at the Encyclopedia Britannica show the influence pretty clearly.
Does anyone else think it’s kind of hilarious that there’s a sound effect for a Bokoblin picking its nose? The emphasis on footsteps makes perfect sense; as mentioned in the video, the music of Breath of the Wild doesn’t always dominate the audio. Sometimes it really just is Link walking along. But to go so deep as to have nose-picking? That’s dedication.
Notice how much time is given to talking about the process of creating this Princess Zelda? We here at Culturess have already made the argument that Breath of the Wild is about Zelda more than anyone else. (Warning: there are some spoilers in that post, as is to be expected.) Since the video concludes with art director Satoru Takizawa saying he thinks Zelda will be “the most popular character,” to quote the subtitles, it’s safe to conclude that all of that was on purpose.
Next: Review: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
What struck you as the most interesting notes from these three videos? Let us know in the comments below.