The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the latest entry in the long-running action-adventure series developed and published by Nintendo. As many fans of the series may know,
Breath of the Wild is the first game to feature an open world that allows players to go anywhere at any time; even allowing them to go straight to the final boss and attempt to beat the game if they so desire.
So, from a technical standpoint,
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild rewards exploration but doesn't restrict the player's choices as it doesn't force them to do anything; except for the tutorial which, truth be told, still allows players to do pretty much everything they want.
Perhaps the most noticeable change was to redesign the main hero Link, as he's no longer sporting his iconic green tunic and "pointy elf hat", and the developers have pretty good reasons for drastically changing the character's the iconic look; wanting Link to be a more "
neutral character in a variety of ways".
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Link is the game’s protagonist, so I’ve always thought we need him to look cool. Yet, if we overdo it, the people playing the game might feel like they’re controlling an already accomplished hero, which I felt could get in the way of the players immersing themselves in the game. For that reason, this time I decided we should make Link a more neutral character in a variety of ways", explained Eiji Aonuma—long-time producer for The Legend of Zelda series.
"We thought that the iconic green tunic and hat had become expected, so we wanted to mix things up and update his look. Interestingly, though, nobody on the team said, ‘Let’s make him blue!’ It just organically ended up that way".
Art Director for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Satoru Takizawa, adds to Aonuma's sayings by explaining that Link went through one hundred designs before they decided to go with the new blue tunic he wears in the latest game.
"Producer Aonuma-san declared that we would be revising expectations by updating Link for this game. He wanted Link to be a more neutral character that players could see themselves as. You can feel how energized and excited the artists were about this idea from the really interesting modern concepts they drew. There were close to one hundred designs presented within the team for Link, and the number of sketches was too great to count".
Yoshiyuki Oyama, Senior Artist for the game, explains that the changes made to Link's tunic also serve an aesthetic purpose since the colour blue stood out against the backgrounds they were initially producing in early stages of development.
"The Link of this game was to be a traveler from the frontier who exudes a sense of adventure, which is why there are a lot of designs that feature capes and bags. At the beginning of development we drew a lot of landscape concepts. Link wearing blue clothes appeared pretty early on because the blue stood out against the backgrounds we were producing".
It's definitely interesting to see how Link's appearance has changed over the years, but it wasn't until The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild that he was given a completely new official uniform that is also tied to the story, since Link is one of the Champions of Hyrule; all of them wearing Blue garments that single them out as Hyrule's loyal protectors.
No kingdom. No memories. After a 100-year slumber, Link wakes up alone in a world he no longer remembers. Now the legendary hero must explore a vast and dangerous land and regain his memories before Hyrule is lost forever.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is currently available for the Nintendo Switch.