Zelda is a series that has inspired countless other games over the years, but series producer Eiji Aonuma has revealed to IGN that the team currently working on the Breath of the Wild sequel have been inspired by one notable game in the process of development.
Speaking in an interview with the outlet, Aonuma was asked what games the younger staff on his team had been inspired by during development. “[Something] I did hear that a lot of people were playing was Red Dead Redemption 2," was the reply.
When pressed on open world inspirations as a whole, he added: "When I was working on Breath of the Wild, the director [Hidemaro Fujibayashi] was playing Skyrim."
In the same interview, Aonuma revealed that he has been playing an awful lot of Zelda lately thanks to the fact that the Switch is getting two new titles in the series this year (Link's Awakening and spin-off Cadence of Hyrule) as well as the aforementioned Breath of the Wild sequel. "Recently I've been very busy, especially with Link's Awakening," he explained. "So on my breaks, I've been playing Cadence of Hyrule. So I've been kind of overloaded with a lot of Zelda recently."
[source uk.ign.com]
Comments 57
Yee (and I cannot stress this enough) Hah!
Hmm not sure about this news, will hold judgement though.
On a different note, the whole rising of the castle thing, just reminded me of Sonic the Hedgehog's Angel Island.
John Marston is Ganondorf, he moved to Hyrule with his wife and son to get away from the criminal life, but now he makes kill Zelda and Link to keep them from ruining his new life.
re-watches trailer, in particular the every end Wondering if we will see the castle rise to the sky like something out of Skyward Sword? If so, can we expect to ride birds again? The mind boggles..
Bit surprising. Red Dead 2 sold almost nothing in Japan.
Clickbait title, sorry Nintendolife.. but you should be better than this.
Maybe they should replay Majora's Mask while they're at it
He must spend his entire day playing Zelda - poor guy. Must be a $hit job!
If this is another dungeon free Zelda then i don't think I'll bother. I appreciate that people love the open world vibe but to me botw didn't feel like a Zelda game.
"Overloaded with Zelda"... Is that even possible? I have played Zelda games over and over every since I was a kid and never got tired of it.
This is giving me Majoras Mask dark feels and I LOVE IT!!
Well that says what the devs were playing but I wouldn’t expect RDR2 in Hyrule for this sequel. It’s just like how everybody harped that because Aonuma was playing Skyrim that BOTW was skyrim in Hyrule when it was more Zelda 1 with modern graphics.
I hope they take the right things from Red Dead 2, if that is their influence. The world and vast amount of activities was let down by some horrible controls and a boring mission structure. I trust Aonuma would keep the hands off approach of the first game, instead of the hand-holdy nature of Rockstar’s games. At least I hope that’s the case.
Shrinking Epona balls confirmed!
"Breath of the wild sequel inspired by Red Dead Redemption 2 says Aonuma"
You mean, when asked what people have been playing Aonuma said that some of his younger team members have been playing Red Dead Redemption 2. Kinda different things.
I do like hearing senior Nintendo staff acknowledging the existence of other games and consoles though. For a long time Nintendo went through a phase of acting as if they were unaware that other consoles and games existed and I don't think it helped them to be so blinkered. Especially with online infrastructure.
That’s good news.
I really hope they add traditional dungeons and not have weapons break after a few hits. The main dungeons were the weakest part of the game.
Ive been saying the first one felt a little like Red Dead in some ways and all my friends said I was crazy. Now I know they’re talking about the sequel here but I’m pretty sure BotW also got some inspiration from the RD franchise.
My dream scenario would be co-op with both Link and Zelda (or even the other heroes too) or Zelda being the main character saving Link. She's got a new adventurous haircut!
Odd, nowhere in this article does it state what the headline implies. You sure this wasn’t lifted from Yahoo News? Lol
Now I can only be happy if Zelda's Lullaby is replaced with Old Town Road.
@BionicDodo Hit the nail on the head. Might as well be ‘Breath of the Wild Sequel Inspired by Cold Brew Coffee’ because some of the younger development staff have been drinking cold brew coffee.
Since the events in this game can only happen a few years at maximum after BotW, I wonder if Link and Zelda either will get warped into another dimension or another time period. I also don't think Hyrule Castle is flying somewhere. It looks more like it will raise up a bit, revealing something underneath.🤔
@Maxz Yeah, I heard one of the team is planning on picking up a PC Engine Mini, so I'm expecting BotW2 to have heavy Bonk influences now.
@Sabroni Not gonna lie, but I also agree that BOTW did not feel like a Zelda game. It was a great game, but not Zelda for me. The shrines, whilst great, did not in any way feel as great as dungeons in previous games and quite frankly, I really did not like the divine beasts as rather than exploring a dungeon, we got go to points A, B, C, D, and E before going to point F to finish. Hyrule castle was probably the only thing that felt like a dungeon to me.
I am holding out more hope for the new one though, as it appears to be a bit more story-oriented which gives me hope for a bit more structure.
When watching the trailer over and over, I am convinced that the villain that was sealed is Demise!
I really hope that's true. The glowing eyes, the pointy teeth the long hair.
@JasonLee99 "You sure this wasn't lifted from Yahoo News?"
OUCH! Burn! lol!
@MS7000 Yeah, me too. BOTW with a deeper story and some dungeons would be awesome!
"Some of the young guys were playing RDR2"
STOP THE PRESSES BREATH OF THE WILD SEQUEL INSPIRED BY RED DEAD REDEMPTION TWO THIS IS A GAME CHANGER PEOPLE
This just in: Every game made in the last 30 years inspired by tetris
Isn't he just saying that he noticed a lot of people on the team playing it?
As in, nothing to do with the writer, director, or producer letting themselves inspire by RDR2 as an outset for the game.
I don't understand what this could mean because I've never played RDR2. Can anyone give some insight?
@Lizuka The funny thing is how the “realism” or the game’s approximation of it, seems to be for no reason of than “well... because it’s cool”. For example, after killing an animal why does the player need to watch the same boring animation of Arthur skinning the animal? The meat or fur should just appear on the ground automatically. Those clothes you can make at the trapper look cool but the limited space on the horse means riding back and forth carrying one or two furs each time. What is the point of that?
@sanderev Aonuma was asked directly what games inspired the sequel. His first response was RDR2. That's exactly what the title of the article implies. There's just about no way to make the article title more accurate. I don't think you have any comprehension of what click bait means.
Even though I am personally not a huge fan of Rockstar's most recent games, I do love that one of their big franchises has inspired Nintendo. That is always a good thing.
@Pod that could be the case, but considering it was in response to a direct question about influences, I would assume he meant that it did influence the game in some way. Not in a direct "we loved RDR2 so will model the Zelda sequel after it" but more generally speaking. If many people on the team were playing it, it makes sense to me that they would be influenced by it in some way and take inspiration from some of the things RDR2 did well.
@NotTelevision
" For example, after killing an animal why does the player need to watch the same boring animation of Arthur skinning the animal?"
Because now the box can advertise 20 extra hours of gameplay if you have to sit through crap like that every time. It's like the FF games that made you watch 3 minute long summon videos every single time you used them.
Well, it is a great game. Not surprising.
Other than Breath of the Wild being open world, I don't really see any similarities with Skyrim, so in what way is the sequel being inspired by Red Dead Redemption 2?
So in the sequel we're see Link with horses and guns? Make it happen, I'll definitely yee-ha my way to gun fight with Ganon again.
@roadrunner343 Incorrect. See the quote:
"Speaking in an interview with the outlet, Aonuma was asked what games the younger staff on his team had been inspired by during development. “[Something] I did hear that a lot of people were playing was Red Dead Redemption 2," was the reply."
It doesn't state that this influenced the game design of this new game.
A better title would be: "Aonuma states that his younger staff plays Red Dead Redemption 2"
If this means we're getting a Western style segment similar to the Hidden Village in Twilight Princess, I'm (again) sold!
@sanderev Right. So in response to a point blank question about what games inspired younger staff, he responds that they were playing RDR2. Shouldn't be too difficult to connect the dots.
Question: "What are some of your favorite foods"
Answer: "I've been eating a lot of Pizza lately"
Sure, I suppose you could argue that answer doesn't imply that I love pizza in any way, though.
@Sabroni
I agree with you. I love the open world but it didn't feel like a Zelda game to me either.
I will admit the trailer was interesting and I was interested but I will need more info before getting. Now if they add dungeons, a unique story, it will be day one purchase and I will even accept weapon breaking.
So BOTW was inspired by Skyrim, BOTW 2 is apparently inspired by RDR2.
Guns confirmed? Probably (and hopefully) not.
He mentions what they were playing during development of this game, not that they were actually "inspired" by RDR2. Good clickbait Nintendo Life.
This is pretty gross that you would share an article that literally fabricates information. Too busy to fact check or even read your own text?
I hope devs are taking good ideas from other games. Read Dead did lots of things better than BOTW, so it'd great to see improvements in the sequel. That said, no open world game comes close to matching BOTW's freedom. I felt nailed to the ground in Read Dead and Witcher (both great games), in BOTW you can glide, climb, and ACTUALLY go anywhere.
@Lizuka have you even played red dead 2?
I think I'm one of the few not hyped by the reveal of BotW2. I know it's not coming out any time soon and will likely see numerous delays to get it right.
I'll be delighted to play it when it comes out, but that it was being worked on is no surprise. I'd be more surprised if they said it wasn't happening.
The closer we get to 2022, the more excited I'll get.
@roadrunner343
That's fair.
Influence might imply something different than inspiration though, but I won't be a stickler on that front. Hopefully they also play it to see which ingrained genre tropes NOT to repeat.
I just hope it's not as boring as Breath of the Wild was
Oh god this is just terrible journalism...
Clickbait and lying? Come on NintendoLife, you're so much better than this.
Aonuma did not say the sequel was inspired by RDR2, he said that a lot of the younger people working on the sequel for BotW were playing RDR2. It's not the same thing, not even remotely.
Like, honestly, wow. Straight up wrong title that is 100% clickbait. Nice.
@Tasuki If you didn't like BotW, you're not gonna like the sequel. That's pretty safe to say.
This is a new direction for the Zelda franchise, and in my opinion, that's a good thing. Prior to BotW I only really ended up liking Minish Cap.
The rest were pretty forgettable/boring.
@Ryu_Niiyama
Straight up facts. Had it day one & that's EXACTLY what I told folks after several hours with the game.
@Octane Comment of the month.
@Harmonie it Means RDR2 is a inspirational Game for The industry or "Open World Genre"
some people may not like the Game but it's okay,the game is slow paced and if anyone wants to play it in hurry and trying to just finish The main story i would say don't play the Game
@Lizuka i guess each to their own. I’ve put more than 200 hours into RD2, got the 100% achievment, and I’m taking a break now. I understand your pov, it seemed too slow and all that initially, but around the 50h mark something just clicked for me. Going back to the witcher 3 or botw seemed odd. the games just feel empty and lifeless in comparison to rd2 (botw less than the witcher3, which makes up for the lifeless world with the best voice acting direction ever). If i had to sum it up, it would be like this
Red dead 2 - best looking game of this gen, best flora and fauna
BotW- best environment interraction, best cooking in a video game ever
TW3 - best voice acting, best script
Nier Automata - best concept and original score
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