How Nintendo Solved Zelda's Open World Problem

To mark the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, let's look back at the making of Breath of the Wild's open world.

=== Sources ===

How the "Open Air" world was created... | Gamer.Ne

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has become a game... | IGN Japan

The Perfect Game World Born under Nintendo's New Development Approach... | GNN Gamer

The perfect game world of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild... | 4Gamer

Did the map for "Zelda" start in Kyoto!? | Game.Watch.Impress

The Making of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Video – Open-Air Concept | Nintendo

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s map is based on Kyoto | Polygon

=== Credits ===

=== Subtitles ===

[ineffabletryx]

One of my favorite memories was when I purposefully avoided going to any of the divine beasts, and instead decided to just wander around starting from Kakariko village. Eventually I stumbled upon a bridge, and Sidon popped out and said hi. I thought they were just another NPC for a side quest, and I went to follow them. After arriving at the Zora Kingdom, I realized that I had stumbled upon the main quest completely by accident.

[Default]

The big thing that stood out to me in BoTW was that exploring required you to actually...explore. It kinda blew my mind when they introduced the first tower and basically told you "Yes, you actually need to look around, find the thing yourself and mark it yourself" instead of just filling your map automatically with a bunch of points of interest.

[Dr.Longest]

Also, having the endgoal of the entire game obviously in the center and almost always in sight, I think, helped mitigate concerns of "not knowing what to do." The point is to explore and power up so you can eventually go to the middle. Once I understood this, the game became more enjoyable. It's why I immediately jumped into the fun with totk.

[robdood]

I think one of the things that also feels really rewarding about this kind of exploration is the fact that you really 'take in' the map into your memory. At times you spin the camera and spot somewhere you were 10 hours ago from a different angle and it's kinda nostalgic and awesome! <3

[PasCorrect]

I love how you can completely miss less important landmarks until you're hundreds of hours into the game. For example, I was astonished at how late I discovered the snowbowling minigame, the fairy fountain right next to Tarry Town, the horseback archery course, and lots of random little named locations (e.g. Shadow Hamlet Ruins) only found by scouring for Koroks.

I also have to give props to whoever composed the little musical sting when you find a new location. It's so satisfying.

[HMM-R]

The triangle rule is seriously blowing my mind right now. It might not seem like it at first but it really is a genius solution to such an obscure and difficult problem.

[kcr]

You can definitely see how they've even, somehow, improved upon these concepts in TOTK:
Stables now have pillars of smoke rising into the sky from the horse's mouths,
The towers quite literally have spotlights lighting them up
A green aura radiates upwards from the shrines
and even when diving from a sky island I've never spotted much more than 3 shrines at once, plus some other points of interest.

[CalebCheek]

One of the coolest things about TOTK is how NPC dialogue naturally directs you to other locations, quests, items, lore etc. In other open world games, NPC’s usually just exist for a singular purpose but in this game, they might suggest checking out a village you may or may not have been to already and will give you details, even after finishing their quest line

[arbo]

It’ll be fun to see how/if the triangle paradigm is used in Tears of the Kingdom. Hard to hide a hundred floating islands behind a mountain

[NakeyJakey]

mark you are an absolute treasure and such an amazing resource for all things game design. thank you for putting this together <3

[KarlRock]

Epic! I wondered how this worked. I never take the roads. Sometimes I wondered if I should've. I'm playing Tears of the Kingdom right now and I feel like the level design has been improved even more because after finishing one point of interest, there's usually a next one nearby. It's hard to stop playing TOTK.

[confusedzebra]

I remember first starting this game thinking there were no friendly NPCs other than the old man. It took me far too long to come across anybody but when I did I was shocked to see someone walking down the road and right after that I found all sorts of people and it really opened up.

[Platitudinous]

World design is so important to any type of game, and it can be hard to analyze when it's meant to be naturalistic like in Zelda, but no matter the setting, everything is there for a reason.

[Nursesaids]

What I appreciated about Breath so much was discovery for its own sake.
Your push to explore wasnt based off of video game-y stuff like numbers going up or some secret op weapon, it was pure, almost childlike.

[KROGANLovesKittensAndPuppies]

I still went to the towers first in botw and totk. I just like unlocking the map first and use it to help explore the world and find interesting places to explore

[catfish]

I think something that really helps this style of exploration is the scope, pins, and stamps. You can mark interesting locations, and the scope and pins make it very easy to relate a spot in the game world to a spot on the map.
If you climb a mountain or a tower and see half a dozen interesting things, you can mark them all down for later. It really helps with keeping your bearings in such an open world where you can go anywhere at any time.

[irvine]

One major issue I had was only having Hestu only available at a single location. My buddy was 10 hours into the game and had no idea what Korok seeds were for. He's not one to look things up online or watch videos, so he just thought they were a random collectible in the game. I had to explain to him they were a currency and would greatly help him get more gear. He's a nomad in adventuring/open world games, so he immediately starts exploring off the beaten path. So he never even came close to Hestu's initial spawning location. Special NPC's like that should be in many places or spawn according to finding your first few of the resource they are associated with.

[AnotherCraig]

I'd love it if you talked about BotW's weather.
Because I love the climbing mechanic so much, my approach was generally to climb over anything in the way between me and my goal.
I eventually realized that, as annoying as rainstorms first seemed, they forced me to change up my approach, and explore in a different way (if only temporarily)!

[mattsonofjens]

I love how TOTK manages to completely upend and expand upon this design by adding so much freedom in the sky, land, and depths. TBH the depths feel like they are their own game.

[Lukaszgbur]

What i felt and love about both games, is how confident i feel about exploring, i'm not afraid of missing something because i walk out of the main the road, and i'm sure that eventualy i'll end up on the "right" track" without having to backpedal to were the roads split up.