Zelda: Breath of the Wild is objectively one of the most well-crafted game of our lifetime, and now Nintendo are going a little deeper into how they managed it.
At a recent talk given at Japan’s Computer Entertainment Developer’s Conference (CEDEC) last month, director Fujibayashi Hideyuro and lead artist Makoto Yonezu explained the secrets behind the team’s design philosophies.
Most of the talk has been transcribed by Japanese site 4gamers, however Capcom’s production manager Matt Walker is translating tidbits via his Twitter.
One of the most interesting is the use of triangles in the world to pose problems that can be solved either by tackling them head on and heading up them, or taking a longer route around them.
This extends to more than just large physical obstacles such as mountains, but the process of solving the triangle always presents opportunities for hidden treasures.
You can get an idea for just how widely this concept was applied in this image. pic.twitter.com/ecGGSBfnDn
— Matt Walker (@gypsyOtoko) October 3, 2017
We recommend checking out all of Walker’s tweets if you can’t read Japanese, there’s a lot of sneaky game design wisdom hidden in BOTW.
