Gallery: The Artwork in Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is Beautiful

I'm getting Last Guardian vibes here. Along with some Elder Scrolls and even modern day first person titles like Assassin's Creed. It looks beautiful and certainly the start of a bold new era for the series but part of me feels a bit like they're appeasing a Western audience and selling out a bit.

😍

Utterly fantastic.

I came here looking for a new wallpaper, and I don't know which one to choose.

Love the artikelen! The more I see of it, the more amazing it gets! 2017 is going to be a very very long want!

I am so excited and so upset that this comes out in such a long time!!!

Between the images and gameplay I actually feel like there's an original Legend Of Zelda vibe to this game. I wonder if there's an inspiration there?

I agree, feels very fresh. Feels very huge.

I'm glad that weapons and armor have stats, and enemies have HP bars. This is XCX all over again with being able to explore such a huge open world.

I love the name. When ever I've seen anything for this game I've though of a soft breeze and a feeling of adventure. This artwork just adds to that feeling. I may have finally found a Zelda game that I love.

This will be the best game ever.

Looks beautiful. And desolate.

Hope we get heavy NPC interaction, sidequests, etc.

Damn, this game looks beautiful.

I wonder if these are Wii U screenshots?

Still gives impression of Princess Mononoke.

It looks better here than in some of the other screens or videos I've seen, although still not mind boggling imo, but I tend to believe the actual in-game footage I've seen over specific screenshots setup for the purpose of showing off the game in a very idealised marketing way. I worked on GTA V and I know how easy it is to take a perfectly set up screen grab that gives a largely false impression of how the game actually looks in reality.

I'll just post the same comment I made in another post here too:

I was all over the idea of a gorgeous toon-shaded new Zelda game; this genuinely isn't that game. I was kinda hoping for something like this but in full 3D (and ideally with character animation that was bordering on a Disney cartoon: Imagine something like Ni No Kuni II but in the Zelda universe*):

What we got is OK looking, but those textures are utterly disappointing for the most part. And, it's not because Nintendo went for a toon style that there's an issue here at all; it's because those are just some terribly low-res/blurry and extremely generic looking textures, the lightings/shading is slightly off, and overall it's just strangely a bit bland looking. Take away the general grass/flower shader and the rest that's left is really not visually striking or beautiful at all imo.

I'm actually quite disappointed with the visuals here; in many ways it's barely even beyond SD Wii level of graphics.

Look how stunning toon-shading or even simple clean visuals can actually be in 2016:

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AkY9a7DQUE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJJmajUHmQA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k17aVeY2rI

The level of visual polish and all-round presentation in those games is just far beyond Zelda here, from what I'm seeing, and two of those are indie games—going up against and arguably utterly trouncing [visually] the most flagship of Nintendo first party AAA games.

I mean, this isn't a toon styled game but it is third person and it does have big open fields with a character riding around on animals and firing a bow and arrow, and the level of visual quality and polish here compared to the new Zelda is just night and day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5Xx3MdqdgM

Do not forget how truly stunning simple but beautiful visuals can actually be on current-gen consoles (and this was actually released first on the last-gen PS3, by a little indie developer no less):

https://youtu.be/T8LzZj51ef4

I expected more from Nintendo to be honest, even given my general lower expectations of Nintendo these days.

Man this game look amazing. Just amazing!

I was blown away by Xenoblade's beautiful world, but this very well may top it.

Nintendo has definitely delivered

@Kirk None of those examples compare, most are very small games that can dedicate more resources to polishing, Ni No Kuni has zero gameplay shown, and of course Horizon looks better.

Did you forget this is running on a Wii U? It's incredibly impressive.

@Neurotic_Biotic Using the size of the world as an excuse is a total copout, imo. I think it's possible to make worlds of any scale beautiful visually, because beauty is all about the artistry and not the scope of something. And gameplay footage of the first Ni No Kuni exists if you need some indicator of how close the visuals in that trailer of Ni No Kuni II will get to the actual game.

Here's a couple of examples for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_c0Jp-V4LE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07EB611_Fk8

I didn't forget it's on Wii U, and I'm still not impressed visually. Technically, I couldn't care less about such things; all I care about is something looking visually beautiful, even when extremely simple, and I do not think this game comes particularly close to looking so.

Look at the temple image dudes! Is it just me or does anyone else see some resemblance to the time stones from Skyward Sword? It'll be interesting to see where this game fits. Also I'm in love with that sunset effect you're using in these screens Nintendo, keep it up

@Kirk It's not a cop-out, Journey is a linear 2 hour game where there is minimal gameplay, the visuals are half of it's selling point so of course it's stunning. I'm not sure how you can even compare them, Zelda is a huge dynamic world running on outdated hardware so obviously they have to sacrifice certain aspects. It's Nintendo's fault for having an underpowered console, but for what it is I think it does look beautiful. It still has 9 months anyway to improve and you could just wait for the NX version instead.

And I've played Ni No Kuni, the visuals are good but nothing special.

@Neurotic_Biotic They don't have to sacrifice artistry. As I said, I do not equate scale to beauty or lack thereof; that's just a total copout as far as I'm concerned. And, even using the fact it's on Wii U as an excuse is also a copout imo. The notion that you can't make a game look beautiful if you go for scale, or that somehow Wii U is a limiting factor in how lovely a game can look artistically, is absurd, and I know even you know it.

Tech does not equal beauty, and there's nothing about this game or the hardware it's running on that says it can't look gorgeous artistically; not as far as I'm concerned.

Now, you thinking the game actually is beautiful is certainly an option you're entitled to. I, however, really don't think it is; at least not based on what I've seen thus far. There's some touches of beauty in there but it's all mixed in with lots of very rough looking visuals in most places imo. I also feel there's a bit of conflict going on with some of the visual elements too, like might happen if an amateur artist tried to mix different art styles and techniques that didn't quite work in perfect harmony together.

And, Ni No Kuni is still artistically accomplished but starting to show its age in some technical aspects because it was made a few years ago now. I didn't, however, use Ni No Kuni as my actual example of beautiful toon-shaded visuals in the current-gen. I only used Ni No Kuni 1 after you commented to show how close Ni No Kuni II should get to the footage shown in the trailer.

I was really impressed with how the game looked running on the Wii U in the gameplay demonstration. All they need to do to make me happy is smooth out the framerate hitches.

As pretty as the images are, though, I'm inclined to agree with Kirk that they're not an accurate representation of what the game looks like. At least, not the Wii U version.

Thanks for the wallpaper

@VanillaLake No, doesn't look like it. WiiU is running Loz:BotW in 720p. Those screenshots are 1080p. As a few here have already suspected, it's pretty likely that these are screenshots from the NX build of the game.

Wow could these be our first glimpse of NX "in game" screenshots?

@jmax1234 Thanks for the information.

Of course, I will buy the game as a Zelda fan but, after E3, I'm not that hyped any more. Skyward Sword disappointed me a lot (both visually and as a game). Breath of Wild World looks visually similar to Skyward Sword, and the gameplay I watched yesterday was basically exploration through a rather dull world. In my opinion, Twilight Princess is the best game Nintendo has ever made, but Breath of Wild World is not giving me the best impression this far.

@TruenoGT That's just not true. It wasn't until roughly the Wii era that Nintendo really went down the whole "not really caring about graphics" route. The Super Nintendo's marketing slogan was literally "Now You're Playing With Super Power.", and obviously the NES version was the same slogan without the Super word. One of the magazine ads for N64 was literally talking about how powerful it was, being 64bit, and to wait for it because it was so cutting edge visually. And Nintendo certainly wasn't shy about making sure the GC on par with the other consoles of the time either. Also, many of its games reflected the relatively top end competitive level of visuals that its consoles were capable of at the time too. It's wrong to claim that games like Super Mario World, F-Zero, Super Metroid, A Link to the Past, Yoshi's Island, Donkey Kong Country, Star Fox, Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Wave Race, F-Zero X, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Conker, Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario Sunshine, Star Fox Adventures, F-Zero GX, The Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, etc., didn't care about pushing out great looking visuals, especially artistically but also technically in most cases.

And, to be very clear here, Nintendo has almost always put specific effort into making sure its games were aesthetically pleasing and artistically accomplished, and that's what I think is lacking to a degree in this new Zelda game, especially relative to the expectations of the times. It's not particularly impressive or beautiful, imo, and how it plays is ultimately irrelevant to that point. Most of Nintendo's games hold up extremely well visually over time, specifically because it tries to make the visually timeless. I'm not sure this game will hold up as well, as it already seems to look dated and kinda fugly in many ways to me. Basically, I think some of the technical decisions in the graphics here are undermining the potential beauty of the visuals (low-res/blurry textures, strange lighting/shading effect, generally dull/bland look overall).

Now, to be doubly clear: It's not terrible, but it's not exactly pretty either; not from where I'm looking. And, regardless of gameplay and whatever else, I actually think all great games need to look aesthetically pleasing too, even when thinking of some of the most simple games you can imagine, like Tetris or whatever. It's not tech I'm after; it's genuinely compelling visual artistry that isn't clearly diminished by the limitations of the tech behind the visuals. Or, basically, that isn't kinda fugly in many places/ways. We need to stop using this idea of "gameplay" to excuse kinda fugly visuals, because it's not the same argument as saying that tech generally isn't important in making great games—visuals generally are actually very important, and 99.9% of the greatest games ever have great visuals, almost timeless in many cases, or had great visuals relative to their times at the very least.

@Kirk #31 Absolutely true. I don't know why so many people believe that Nintendo has always been the Wii-Wii U Nintendo. They ignore Nintendo's history. Nintendo used to be a top-notch developer before Wii, with probably the best results in the whole industry, not only from a technical point of view but also artistically and gameplay-wise.

@VanillaLake Exactly. There was a time when you looked to Nintendo if you basically wanted to see the very best the industry had to offer, in basically every aspect of game design from presentation and graphics to controls and gameplay, pretty much bar none. That really isn't true anymore, imo. Nintendo still produces fun games, some of them great fun, but, if that's all I can say in all objective fairness/honesty about modern day Nintendo, it's certainly dropped pretty far from where it used to be. Nintendo basically used to be King of this industry; now, to me, it's often just another random blending in with the rest of the crowd to a large degree. I expect more than that from Nintendo.

@TruenoGT Yeah, it has always tried to reach beyond purely the technical aspects of its games, and that's something I've always loved about Nintendo, but when Nintendo is at its best, that great gameplay very rarely come at the expense of lovely visuals, especially relative to the times (and I'm not necessarily meaning visuals that are technically impressive but more artistically/aesthetically accomplished), and, more importantly, that gameplay often does stand out as something genuinely special relative to everything else available during the same time. I don't think this new Zelda particularly stands out beyond the crowd in terms of its general gameplay and game design/scope, not from what I'm seeing. So, you have a game that basically appears to be in line with the likes of The Witcher series, Skyrim, or something like Horizon: Zero Dawn in terms of that general open world, action-RPG type of gameplay, but it falls way short of those games in terms of overall presentation and graphics. Christ, there's still no frikin' voice acting for the NPC characters in this flagship Zelda game in 2016. It's just all a bit underwhelming to me.

@TruenoGT Yeah, exactly. And like you said, Nintendo actually made me even more likely to be hyper critical this time around too, by putting so much emphasis on this single game like it was the coming of the Messiah, when in reality it just looks like a fun open world action RPG but one that doesn't particularly stand out compared to similar games already available on the other consoles, and it even falls short of them in many aspects of the presentation and visuals. It doesn't look particularly special to me; it looks mostly competent. So, my mind isn't exactly blown here.

@Kirk It's around he same level as Skyrim but you have to remember this is only one area of the game that they actually removed villages and NPCs from for e3 not to spoil it for people.

Aonuma wanted Hyrule's fields to be lush and green, wait until they reveal the forests and the beauty they'll bring; remember the 2014 trailer? That short clip in the woods looked great but lacked a bit of variation in colour (too green, early days).

I think you're being a bit too critical for the sakes of being critical; take a step back and have another look. You're a developer are you not? Then start acting like one.

@Stone OK: I have taken a step back now, and here's my current view: The apparently very sandboxy nature of the gameplay looks like it has the potential to be a lot of fun, but the presentation and visuals are just so far below par by current-gen standards (especially for a first party AAA new entry in the main Zelda series), and just fugly in general regardless of gen, that it really is to the detriment of the overall experience for me personally.

Now, I can play a game like Mother 3 (with its GBA level art and graphics) and totally love it, because it's visually beautiful for what it is and it's all executed to the highest level of quality and polish. But, I can tell you right now that the whole time playing this new Zelda game I'd just be distracted by how disappointed I was with the crappy sub-par level of presentation and visual polish across the board; it's simply a fugly game for the most part*, and it's not a world I'd relish in wandering around in and taking in the view, appreciating the details, absorbing its beauty.

Note: I'm probably being a bit harsh, because I'd likely get into it after enough time and be able to live with the visuals if the gameplay and world were compelling enough, which I really hope they are.

Gameplay will always be more important than graphics, but for me personally lovely visuals, even when they are very simple ones like in Mother 3 (it's just an example), absolutely have to be part of the equation for any game to truly be considered worthy. The level of presentation and graphics in this Zelda game simply are not good enough, imo, and I do not think Nintendo deserves praise for this; I think it needs to be punished (i.e. called out), otherwise how will it ever learn and/or feel the need to do better—and I absolutely believe it really needs to do much better and can do much better.

Note: And I want to be very clear hear that the issue is not that they went for a toon-shaded style—I am a total and utter advocate of toon-shading, when it's done right—but that they simply have not given the presentation and visuals in this game the level of polish and quality they really should have.

*And that is blatantly and constantly visible in all the details, like the terribly low-res, blurry, and fugly textures on most of the surfaces, the dull colouring on most of the textures, the slightly off-looking lighting/shading, the times where there's lots of single blades of grass awkwardly stuck in the ground as though the polygon has slightly dropped below the collision box, the terribly low-poly N64 level trees (especially the Christmas tree looking ones), the blurring of the overall view only a few metres beyond the character such that basically the whole game looks like it's almost running in 480p at times, etc.

These screenshots are the very best this game is likely ever going to look, and they're OK (in some instances bordering on pretty), but even they are a little bit of a lie. I've watched more than enough videos of this game in motion now to be very confident in saying it's just a rather fugly game that's been half-*ssed in many aspects of the graphics (and it has nothing to do with the nature of the video compression or any other excuse either).

Again (and ignoring the specific art style for a moment), this is where current-gen is really at and capable of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5Xx3MdqdgM

And this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4ony2r0QFs

And even the likes of Rare's Sea of Thieves more "toon-shaded" style also blows away Zelda in almost every way (so, again, it's nothing to do with the particular choice to go with a more "toon-shaded" style):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z48qvGsA_0

And yes, those are in-game visuals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQlsN6EO2oU

These are also great toon-shaded visuals on the whole:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfScVNF0AMs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8c31B3kbiM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYa33f9mfCA

To me, even this game on 3DS does a better job of the whole toon-shaded aesthetic in many ways than Nintendo has managed with its flagship Zelda game on Wii U (Nintendo's approach is a mishmash of visual aesthetics/styles that just don't quite gell/work properly, stuck awkwardly somewhere between proper toon-shading and more "realistic" visuals):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-_OOVwgL7c

So, I don't think I'm being too critical just for the sake of being critical; I think we all really need to stop giving Nintendo a free pass when it pulls sub-par sh*t like this (the Christmassy trees alone are evidence to me that Nintendo simply isn't really putting it's full effort into making this look up to scratch). We need to hold Nintendo up to the standards of all the other AAA developers across the industry in 2016 (and I'm talking mainly in terms of presentation and visuals here but even the gameplay needs that light shined on it too in some ways).

Now, watch this Zelda gameplay footage again, then go back and forth multiple times between it and the other links I've posted above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIrY56yg7dY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9FQymEBCpw

It would all be extremely impressive technically in say the GC era, I'm sure, and maybe even the Wii era too (for Wii at least, but maybe not so mind boggling on Xbox 360 or PS3, given all the open world games that came to those systems; Elder Scrolls, GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Far Cry 4, Just Cause 2, etc.), but this is 2016 and there's now plenty of other open world action-rpg type games out there that Zelda now has to compete with, and in terms of presentation and visuals it's not really competing.

I actually think many of us know fine well that Nintendo can in fact do a lot better, certainly in terms of presentation and visuals (even on the underpowered Wii U), and I'm just willing to say it.

Ya know, I've just realised, THIS is how I want a new Zelda to look*:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfScVNF0AMs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8c31B3kbiM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYa33f9mfCA

I didn't realise until now that WoW has managed to capture basically exactly the gorgeous 3D realisation of the classic cartoony/painterly look that the best 2D console and arcade games had in the past, the look I've been wanting most modern 3D games to have for ages (not fantasy necessarily but that gorgeous hand painted toon style in full 3D). Why do only a tiny handful of games look like this? The overall look and style is gorgeous and basically timeless.

Imagine a new scrolling beat 'em up like Golden Axe or Dungeons & Dragons done in the style of those cinematics above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfMfcrpKCAE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axBRSw0gDWk

'Twood be amazing.

*Not that I've just figured out that I want a Zelda game to look like this, but that I've only now found basically a perfect example of pretty much exactly what I've been after for generations now, and it's been right there in World of Warcraft for God knows how long (at least in these beautiful in-engine cinematics). lol

@Kirk if you don't like the visuals, that's your problem, not mine YOURS. when I saw the trailer and the gameplay I was star stuck. and while the texture is muddy in some areas, it follows the style of the original Legend of Zelda,
if you are a developer then blow me away, otherwise learn to live with the fact that Zelda had great visuals and that what you want wont always happen.

agree to disagree sometimes.

@HSuzumiyaVI "it follows the style of the original Legend of Zelda".

I hope you mean in terms of gameplay design in some way, because visually they're not even on the same plane of existence.

I only wish I had the money and the resources to blow you away. But, let me try and give you some hint as to how I might make this Zelda look if I were in charge of development. It would be some kind of mixture of the following looks/styles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AkY9a7DQUE

https://youtu.be/FfScVNF0AMs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJJmajUHmQA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl3UiHp0sz0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8LzZj51ef4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aciLjusEN8

That's the best I can do for you, sorry. And you likely can't even imagine how I could bring those styles together in one cohesive and beautiful whole, so it's all just a waste of breath.

Hey, but I totally agree to disagree. I disagree like you wouldn't believe it.

@Kirk in the live stream, Bill claimed it was similar to gouache, and Aonuma said it was windwaker with some removed elements but it does look like Hayato Miyazaki's art style prevalent in My neighbour Totoro and Princess Mononoke.

@HSuzumiyaVI At a glance it arguably does, but on closer inspection very little of it stands up to the standard seen in those cartoons.

It's in the details where it distances itself from the work of Miyazaki/Ghibli most, and, unfortunately for Nintendo, you spend a lot of time noticing those details when you're in a game world for tens-hundreds of hours and interacting directly with it at every given moment. So, the details become all the more important in creating whatever look, feel, and atmosphere you're going for, and if some of them are a bit rough they can detract from the intended outcome quite dramatically imo.

When I look at this world all I see is a pale imitation of Miyazaki/Ghibli . . . that could have been a much closer comparison with a little bit more polish and refinement.

To be clear, it's not terrible, and when viewed on my tiny iPhone 4 screen, where most of the details and issues are more easily hidden, it actually does start to look pretty lovely at times, but that's not what happens once I see it on a proper-sized screen again and start to notice the jaggies, blurry low-res textures, low-poly trees, pop-in, visible LOD, the slight blurriness over the whole view, the general lack of contrast and saturation in much of the world detail when close enough to the camera that it really should be a lot more defined, and so on.

I guess it's all the limitations in the graphics tech, as well as simply a lack of polish in some areas, that are actually to the detriment of the artistic vision overall, to a pretty large degree ultimately, imo.

@Kirk that's because it was captured on a wii U,
its pushing the console beyond its limitations yet its still serene.
plus, its native 720p

@Kirk Visually, BoTW blows all of those game (with the exception of journey) out of the water to me. It may not be the style you were hoping for and I agree that it's lacking in some aspects such as texture resolution in some cases but, compared to something like HZD breath of the wild is a jewel. Wow looks pretty hideous to me so I'm really happy they are nowhere near it. The majority of what you complained about are technical limitations and while there are things you could blame the devs for them not making an openworld game on the WiiU looks as technically impressive as something on the ps4 or linear games that are 10 times more controlled is not one of them.

@lethal01 It's not the artistry that's lacking at all with this game, but the tech doesn't quite show it off as well as it could on a more capable system. This can be seen in how some of the shaders make things likes a bit more plasticky than is congruent with the more Studio-Ghibli-like cartoon style, or how there's some pixelation on the grass, and texture draw in and some other stuff like that. The exact same game running on something like the PS4 would look even better--and that's all I'm really getting at.