If Mario is Nintendo’s Mickey Mouse, then TheLegendofZelda is its ‘Lord of the Rings.’ Nintendo’s Eiji Aonuma and Hidemaro Fujibayashi offer a behind-the-scenes look at their hotly anticipated sequel:
It took five years to develop the new game, and a team that eventually swelled to some 300 people. As director, it was Fujibayashi’s job to set the vision and manage all the teams. Aonuma provided oversight and kept a close eye on quality control, playing prototypes as they came in and providing feedback. Asked if they ever had a major argument, Aonuma says, “I think we probably would get in fights if it was just the two of us working on this.
Once the group agreed that giving Link the ability to combine objects would be key to the new game, they started experimenting with the concept, not unlike the way a composer creates variations on a theme. They named the new ability Ultrahand, a nod to a, whose success helped keep the company afloat at the time. They gave Link the power to not only build rafts and planes and cannons, but also enhance his weapons and shields by fusing them with objects he picks up along the way.
For those versed in film and TV production, it’s a little hard to imagine the complexity involved in creating such vast, immersive games. Players could easily spend 100 hours on a single playthrough of BOTW, which takes place in a world, Hyrule, that’s roughly equivalent in size to Manhattan Island. Tears of the Kingdom’s universe is even bigger.
“Going back to Skyward Sword, there were limitations in hardware, so we weren’t able to accomplish what we can now do with the Switch,” says Aonuma. “Now there’s the sky, the surface, and the depths. And being able to dive through that and traverse a world that’s not only horizontally connected in a single world, but vertically connected as well, and being able to bring to fruition that sense of freedom when you’re diving into that—that’s something that we wanted to do.
For years, investors have been pressing Nintendo to diversify its revenue away from its console business and build strength in mobile gaming, movies, and in-person attractions. In response, the company tends to move slowly but deliberately. It held back on mobile games, and then suddenly collaborated on the release of Pokémon Go, one of the most popular mobile games of all time.
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