Aonuma: Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s E3 2014 trailer “became the basis for the whole game”

Nintendo gave us a first look at The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild during E3 2014 with a trailer. At that time though, the project hadn’t been completely shaped yet.

Series producer Eiji Aonuma reconfirmed to EDGE this month that the video was running in real time and in-engine. However, the scene shown was made especially for the trailer. When we saw Link shooting arrows at the Guardian on his horse, jumping off, and firing off one last arrow in mid-air at the enemy in slow motion, you couldn’t actually do that.

Aonuma mentioned how he “really wanted to put that in the game” and realized his vision following the trailer. It also made the team expand on Breath of the Wild in terms of story. Interestingly enough, the trailer ended up as “the basis for the whole game.”

Aonuma’s words in full:

“After creating the trailer, I really wanted to put that in the game. So I ended up making it come true. There’s a lot I learned from that trailer. Once we’d put that element in the game, it made us think: what else can we do with this enemy? How else could we fight it? It expanded to new story ideas as well. The trailer became the basis for the whole game.”