From the moment you enter the true world of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you are able to see just how big it is. The world is HUGE, and is easily one of the biggest, and most detailed, video game worlds around. Plains, rivers, mountains, deserts, it has it all. But it makes you wonder, what was the inspiration for the map itself?
Turns out, it was Kyoto, Japan. This comes from Breath of the Wild’s Director, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, who talked with The Verge about how the city became the starting point for the map and layout of BOTW in many ways.
“When I first started looking at this game, I had Link in an empty game field and I would just walk around and try to map out and get a feel for the distance and where landmarks should be. What helped me with this was my hometown, Kyoto. I took a map of Kyoto and overlaid it on the game world, and I tried to imagine going to places that I know in Kyoto. I’d think ‘It takes this much time to get from point A to point B, so how does that translate to the game?’ And that’s how we started mapping out the world in Breath of the Wild.”
He went on to note that this idea worked not only as a starting point, but as things developed as well. This was because many of the development team were familiar with Kyoto, and were able to input their own experiences about travel and references points that could be translated into the game itself. The tactic worked, as the world is not only vibrant, but it shows its depth by having you truly travel everywhere in it.
You can expect our review of the game later this week. For now though, why not check out our first impressions of the game?