Aonuma on Zelda Wii U – Miyamoto’s role, technology in the game, more
Thanks to an interview conducted by Zelda Dungeon, we have more quotes from Eiji Aonuma regarding The Legend of Zelda for Wii U. Aonuma discussed Miyamoto’s involvement with the game, technological aspect (not as in-depth as most originally thought), and more.
Head past the break for Aonuma’s comments. You can find Zelda Dungeon’s interview here.
On Miyamoto’s involvement with Zelda Wii U…
So with the new Wii U Zelda that we are working on, I work really closely with the director day to day on developing it and then we meet with Mr. Miyamoto once a month and present to him kind of where we are, and kind of what are next steps are. At that time we get his feedback, his thoughts on what we should do or what we should change. Just his feelings on how things are going. That process hasn’t changed.
On how long Zelda Wii U has been in development and why it’s taken so long to show…
During the digital event, I talked about how this was open world and we really wanted to provide fans of the series a new way of playing and experiencing the Zelda universe. In order for us to get it to a place where we can show something to the public, it just took a lot of time for us to develop the game because there is so much content that needed to be in place first.
What you saw in the digital event wasn’t cinematic. It was actually in-game footage. So you saw, when I was sitting there with the mountains in the back. If Link gets on his horse, he can actually travel to those distant mountains.
On whether this is the same character of Link we’ve seen before…
(Room erupts in laughter)
When I say Link, it’s not one specific character. It is the protagonist in the Zelda game. Please understand.
On whether we’ll see the changes in A Link Between Worlds carry over (getting items in a different order, playing dungeons in a different order)…
Yes (laughs)
On the theme or prevalence of technology in Zelda Wii U…
Aonuma: It’s not as though this environment is more high tech than past Zeldas. If you remember, we’ve had statues in the past that had beams that shoot out of their eyes. The hookshot is something that is actually really really high tech. We probably couldn’t even make one now if we wanted to. So I wouldn’t say this new Zelda is going to take place in the more distant-future, or even the near-future for that matter. But one thing we have to do as developers, you might be thinking ‘but then you are not rethinking the conventions of Zelda’, but I am rethinking the conventions, and as a part of that, we have to continue to have these items evolve and change their presentation and make sure that it’s still new experience.
