Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Developers Discuss Turning Breath of the Wild’s World Map Into Warriors Battlefields
Posted on June 26 2021 by Alexis S. Anderson
In a recent interview with Japanese video game site Dengeki Online, the developers of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity talked to Azuki Shinanogawa about adapting the experience of playing Breath of the Wild to a Warriors game. Producers Masaki Furusawa and Yosuke Hayashi, along with Director Ryōta Matsushita, highlighted two big challenges: turning Breath of the Wild’s expansive map into Warriors’ battlefields and restoring Hyrule’s buildings to their pre-Calamity state.
Matsushita summarized the difficulty of turning the challenge of exploring a large map into fresh, compelling individual battles saying:
Matsushita: As a game in which Link adventures alone, you could say that the fields and map themselves are objects of conquest in Breath of the Wild. For that reason we had to restructure them into stages for battle for this game. So we needed to design in order to both “revive the form of 100 years prior” and “arrange it as a battlefield” simultaneously.
Maintaining the majesty of Breath of the Wild’s vast landscape was also a priority, which proved difficult to accomplish with spaces like large plains. On the other hand, locations like citadels on the map were structured perfectly for Warriors battles and easy to restore, as Furusawa explains:
Furusawa: The grassy plain is the location in which you first start, and of course we endeavored to make it elicit an impression of breadth upon first sight. If we strayed from the feeling of those meadows from Breath of the Wild, it would immediately feel like a different game. It was difficult to appropriate the grassy plains as a battlefield, and we racked our brains over how to express it the right way without sacrificing either.
On the other hand, locations that were already presented as battlefields, such as the Akkala Citadel, were easy to revive. If there were remains of a turret in Breath of the Wild, then the turret must have been used there in a fight, so we were able to weave those things into the story as well.
The locations themselves were not the only aspects of Breath of the Wild’s gameplay experience the team needed to translate into Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. The developers attempted to have the game’s narrative unravel in much the same way as story elements in Breath of the Wild did. Matsushita, Hayashi, and Furusawa recounted how this was achieved through both the inclusion of sub-stories and new ways to progress after clearing battles:
Matsushita: For those who played Breath of the Wild, it is studded with elements that spark the imagination. We had a clear backbone for even the merchants, shops, and shopkeepers. There’s an establishment with the same name as a shop which appeared in Breath of the Wild, and the name given to the shop keeper also rings a bell… That applies to the name, and if you track down the related Hyrule Challenge message you may unravel more.
There are various story threads incorporated which can be enjoyed as sub-stories, so for anyone out there who skipped through all the dialogue, we would love for you to go back and read through it again.
Hayashi: Actually, there were no merchants or shopkeepers until somewhere around half-way through production. But it felt like it was lacking something of the Breath of the Wild flavor, and we added merchant and shop elements to address this feeling that something was missing. Once we did so it vividly resembled the picture of 100 years ago.
Furusawa: Because intense action unfolds through battle scenes, it was quite difficult to convey the feeling of a story there. Thinking about how to flesh out other aspects of the story resulted in the addition of the map features.
The mechanic of immediately increasing the options available once you’ve cleared one produces the same feeling and excitement as in Breath of the Wild. Was the way the icons come up and so on made in consideration of Breath of the Wild?
Matsushita: I think part of the fun of Breath of the Wild is that you can see the glow of shrines, or strange-looking buildings from the top of the towers, and say, “I’ll glide over there with the Paraglider” to formulate your own plan of play.
The gameplay in Breath of the Wild of the stage expanding as you continue your adventure was something that we wanted to prioritize again as we depicted 100 years before. That was the basis we had in mind in the system of increasing your options whenever you clear battles or challenges in this game.
There were some aspects of Breath of the Wild that the developers were not able to convey in the game, however. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity couldn’t be truly open world, but the team worked hard to simulate the same feeling of exploration and expansion through the map’s method of gradual access to new locations. Matsushita, Furusawa, and Hayashi delve into the important of the map screen by saying:
Matsushita: Being “open world.” Breath of the Wild is the adventure of a single man against everything in a vast field of play, whereas this game progresses the story on a timeline of continuous battles, so the method of partaking in the world differs from Breath of the Wild.
We didn’t touch on that aspect in this project, though the theme of experiencing the world of Breath of the Wild was something we had from the start. But because the gameplay system was different we were at pains to incorporate that.
Furusawa: We made it so that the places you can reach on the Hyrule map increase one by one as you clear missions in an effort to provide that feeling of the world expanding before you. By no means does it simulate the same experience, but we incorporated a system in a way that we hope players of Breath of the Wild will be able to feel some parallel.
Hayashi: It’s not a flashy part of game development, but we were saying that “the map screen is of utmost importance.” We talked about the map screen being a key tool for conveying a sense of connection with Breath of the Wild, and we were very aware of that point.
Not making the world fully open meant that you have to use the map screen to provide the feeling of it expanding before you. It’s an understated element which doesn’t generate direct comments from the players, but I think it’s part of the reason those team members who worked on that feel so gratified when we hear people say that it has the same feeling as Breath of the Wild.
How well do you think the developers captured the experience of exploring Breath of the Wild‘s map in Age of Calamity? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Source: Dengeki Online
Translation by Dark Isatari
Alexis S. Anderson is a Senior Editor at Zelda Dungeon who joined the writing team in November, 2014. She has a JD from the UCLA School of Law and is pursuing a career in Entertainment and Intellectual Property Law. She grew up in the New Jersey suburbs with her parents, twin brother, and family shih-tzu.
