Aonuma says it’s been tough implementing Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s day/night cycle

Implementing the day/night cycle in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has been “extremely hard,” series producer Eiji Aonuma has said. Part of the challenge has been avoiding a situation where players would encounter “something that was dark and scary.”

Previous Zelda titles have offered day-night cycles of their own. But Breath of the Wild is taking it much further as it directly affects the gameplay. For instance, players will find that enemies sleep at night, and the temperature can drop which has an impact on Link.

Aonuma told EDGE magazine this month about the day/night cycle:

“We didn’t want to create something that was dark and scary. I’ve been up a tall mountain at night and seen the stars; it was completely dark, but the starlight made it brighter. I wanted our nighttime environment to be something like that. And when it’s dark, there are elements in the environment that glow, so the player can use those to find their way.”