Most Recent: Wii U

Eiji Aonuma, the Producer of the Legend of Zelda franchise at Nintendo, recently sat down with Gamereactor to discuss The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D. Naturally, the conversation drifted to the next entry in the series, the currently untitled The Legend of Zelda Wii U. When asked about the size of the game’s open world, Aonuma said he has built the game’s to be “as large as can be realized [on the Wii U]”:

“A huge, seamlessly unfolding world is something that can’t be achieved if the hardware isn’t advanced enough,” he responded when asked how the studio was transitioning to the new world teased in last year’s demo. “Ever since we made the very first generation of Legend of Zelda games though, we’ve had as large a world as can be realised with the hardware, so you could say it was inevitable that we’ve now done the same with the new Wii U title.”

But Aonuma did express confusion at journalists who have been saying that the Zelda franchise has “finally” gone open world. In his mind, the Zelda games have always operated within an open world:

“When I first showed off the new Zelda game on the Wii U, it seemed everyone was very excited and started proclaiming that a Zelda game had at last become open world! Zelda games have always allowed you to roam and explore a huge world. What’s changed now is that the hardware has progressed to the point that you can now explore this vast world seamlessly; the underpinning of the game hasn’t changed.”

I’ve got to admit, I agree with Aonuma here. In The Legend of Zelda on the NES, players could explore the entire map and tackle the dungeons in any order they chose. That is the very definition of an open world game. The same idea powers The Legend of Zelda Wii U, but as the developer said, it will be quite a bit bigger because of the increased processing muscle of the Wii U.