Zelda: Breath of the Wild devs on having total freedom, difficulty with the engine, missing Iwata
In making The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, director Hidemaro Fujibayashi tells The New Yorker that the team had total freedom. He told the publication about how Nintendo approached development:
“They said, ‘Change anything you want.’ So we wrote down all of the stress points, the things that make Zelda games less enjoyable, and we replaced them with new ideas.”
The New Yorker also spoke with technical director Takuhiro Dohta about Breath of the Wild’s chemistry engine. This is built on top of the physics engine, and allows for all sorts of antics like cooking, fire spreading on grass, and much more.
Putting it together wasn’t easy though. “At many times in the process, there were things that just weren’t functioning at all,” Dohta said. “We’d have to remove everything and build back up again.”
The New Yorker notes how the team “proceeded with trepidation” given how they were “at least in part, tearing up Miyamoto’s original blueprint.”
Lastly, Fujibayashi and Miyamoto had some touching words about missing late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata while working on the game:
“When he passed away, there were moments we’d come up with an idea which we’d be excited to talk to Iwata about. Then we’d remember he was no longer here.”
“This is approaching spiritual talk, but we had the sense that he was watching over our work. That became a source of motivation, a drive for us to improve and be better.” – Miyamoto
