Breath of the Wild director on cut items / ideas, rearranging for Switch, wanting to make the next best Zelda
Kotaku has more comments from Zelda: Breath of the Wild director Hidemaro Fujibayashi. His remarks are pretty darn interesting, as we’re able to hear about some of the ideas that were cut during development – including the Hookshot and Beetle from Skyward Sword. Aside from that, Fujibayashi spoke about having to rearrange the game when Switch came into the picture, and always wanting to make the next best Zelda title.
Read up on Fujibayashi’s comments below. You can check out Kotaku’s full article here.
On cut ideas…
“Hookshot was [one] we experimented with and tested, as well as [the] Beetle from Skyward Sword. After a lot of experimentation and testing, we weeded out all the ones that had potential to detract from the gameplay and enjoying the game. What’s left currently, the four items, were really what would draw out the fun of the game.”
– Team played around with allowing players to obtain objects within dungeons, as you could in previous Zelda games.
– They even tried the Link Between Worlds approach, although that was a little limiting
“We did at one point test what it would be like to be able to obtain some of these abilities in some point in the story. But when we do that, you are pigeonholed into having a specific order of dungeons. We did have ideas [that] if a certain dungeon needs bombs, for example, we might put a little bomb icon on the dungeon walls or somewhere on the ground.”
On cut ideas with hearts…
“We had talked about the idea of maybe — usually the heart gauge decreases from the right, having it decrease from the left. Or have it naturally regain over time… We actually did that with a number of things in the game that don’t look like they changed in the final product. Actually, during our experimentation we tried to change them, and then realized, ‘Oh, this is actually really well thought out.’”
On a cut idea with treasure chests…
“We thought maybe there’s something we can do differently with these. You’d find a treasure chest in the game that’s open. It’s just open, and that’s the end of it.”
On making the game for both Switch and Wii U…
“We knew about the hardware… We thought it’s probably gonna come, oh and here it is.”
“When it was originally just for the Wii U, we had touch controls. But we had to remove them… Although it was not very flashy or exciting work, it was still time-consuming and difficult.”
“We felt that the way the Sheikah Slate is represented in the game and how we use the GamePad in real life synced really well. So when we had to remove it, I did feel like, ‘Oh, it’s too bad we had to do that.’ And because it was so tied into the scenario, we did have to go back and redesign and rethink the scenario, which was a little bit [of] hard work.”
On what’s next for Fujibayashi and crew with Zelda…
“Every time we put out a Zelda game we feel like we’re at the top of the mountain [and] this is the best Zelda game. But we realize there’s a taller mountain behind that. And I feel like the minute you feel like this is the tallest mountain there ever will be, then you’re not being a good Zelda director.”
