When you think of Hyrule Warriors and the challenges its development team likely comes up against, you'll probably find yourself thinking about the hundreds of enemies on-screen or keeping on top of the faithful Zelda lore present throughout. What we dare say you wouldn't think of, is its... grass?
Yes, as it happens, the game's grass turned out to be one of the trickier puzzles faced by the team behind Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. In an interview featured within Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream, development producer Masaki Furusawa, director Ryouta Matsushita, producer Yousuke Hayashi, and art director Yuu Oohashi spoke about the troubles it caused when trying to recreate Zelda: Breath of the Wild's Hyrule Field.
Thanks to Nintendo Everything for the translations below.
Matsushita: Initially the plan was to go with something a little different, but it ultimately ended up being quite a faithful reproduction. The atmosphere of BotW’s world really made its way onto the battlefield. With that said, there were also parts we inevitably had to change up as well.
It really gives the impression that even grass grows the same way.
Oohoshi: Yeah… That grass took ages!
(all laugh)
Furusawa: It was a real pain, wasn’t it?
Oohoshi: It took about half of development time to finish touching up the grass in the game. We really struggled to recreate the atmosphere of Hyrule Field.
Nintendo's very own Zelda team was asked to offer advice, but things remained difficult even with their help:
Furusawa: We asked the Zelda team at Nintendo how they made the grass in BotW and even though they shared everything down to the finer details of their methods, there was still uncertainty about whether we could reproduce it. The game has a lot of grass, so we also considered if there were other methods available to us.
Oohoshi: We experimented with a bunch of different options to make the grass stand out as one of the strong points of the game.
Matsushita: The whole company got dragged into the grass mess, didn’t they?
Oohoshi: How many hundreds of people was it? (laughs)
Matsushita: It’s no exaggeration to say we were in talks with development staff, CG departments, background and technical support the whole time.
Blimey.
We don't know about you, but we'll never take video game foliage for granted again.
[source ndw.jp, via nintendoeverything.com]
Comments 49
Imagine the backlash if they went with different grass
I remember the first time I saw BOTW's grass with every leaf having independent animation and reacting to the player steps. I was amazed because it felt very organic and pleasant to watch. I think the grass it's one of the main elements that makes this game's aesthetics so iconic.
I did enjoy the OG Hyrule Warriors both plot and gameplay. For Age of Calamity I only enjoyed the story since the performance of this game is pretty horrendous. And I blame the grass! XD
Well let me tell you I thought the grass was great looking, and well worth it!
7/10 Too much grass.
SEE IF WE HAD A SWITCH PRO-
All jokes aside on the grass, burning enemies was an easy way to break enemy shields and do massive damage. All the elemental touches in this game were a very nice addition and made it feel authentic to the BOTW physics style. I really don't know why this game got so much dislike. Yes it had technical issues but the story and music were great and it was a nice stopgap between BOTW 1 and the stupidly delayed sequel.
I'd say the end product was well worth it. Congratulations to the team behind this
and the levels that don't have any grass still runs like trash
@Pokester99 @BoostPower flower on the ps3. Flower is a early ps3 title. Still looks amazing
They did a fantastic job with the grass and the environments overall, especially since they were making their engine mimic the BOTW one. It's no easy feat to bolt the front end like that. Kudos....I spent way more time than I should just mowing grass.
@Pokester99
You should really try to step out of the Sony family of consoles. Grass movement was produced convincingly on high end PCs a decade ago. That's hardly the point though is it? A vague understanding of videogame development would clarify the achievement made here. I can only imagine the headaches it caused and the frames it steals from performance.
The only thing I missed in BotW grass areas is that they never took the oppurtunity to make it adult height, like an area that is basically a maze of grass.
The tall cornfield idea basically like the horror movie In the Tall Grass for example.
@Pokester99 I had all the Nintendo consoles since the SNES, but I also had ps2, ps3 and ps4. But I admit that I was not into medieval open world games back then but I liked Dark Souls 1 a lot. It would be nice if you could mention some examples. Thanks
@1UP_MARIO oh, I remember that one but I didn't play it. Nice!
@Pokester99 Oh! Uncharted, I never played any, that's not my type of game at all. Anyway, I was not thinking it was a technical achievement, I just thought it looked so nice to have that on an open world Zelda game and how nice to watch those views were. Anyway, I am not into console or PC wars if that's what you are looking for, I enjoy games in general, no matter where they come from
@Pokester99
Hahah sorry I'm old, I thought a decade ago was N64... As a former developer I can appreciate the effort and dedication required for the tiniest detail in a videogame that most players may not even notice. I can inform you that developing games for such basic hardware is a challenge and these guys have impressed. The most mundane details in games can be a complete nightmare!
@Pokester99 Even on PS4 the grass was often static and didn't respond to the character walking through it, so I'm not sure what you're on about. PS360 games were usually devoid of any complex foliage, let alone real grass instead of a detailed but flat texture. Just compare GTA V on PS3 and PS4 for example.
On PS4 it was no longer a flat texture. Grass often looked sharp and plenty, but it was also static and plastic-y like a high res JPG. For example, grass especially didn't catch fire when shooting burning arrows at it etc. like it does in BotW. Titles like Horizon Zero Dawn, TLoU2 and Ghost of Tsushima come to mind - pretty grass, but very static and unresponsive. Something always did feel 'off' about it. Even RDR2 maxed on my PC has pretty basic grass when I stop to take a look at it. BotW's grass emulated in 4K destroys it any day.
The technique these devs used was a great one though, in the end it allowed them to create good looking and rich images despite the very limited hardware on a basic PS4 and XB1.
It's also why BotW's grass was very much a unique and unbelievable feat on friggin' Wii U hardware. It almost makes the rest of the game look bad, though. It really is no wonder that replicating this complex grass was very hard in a game that literally has 100s of NPC's on screen at once - on hardware that's only slightly more powerful than Wii U. Granted it no longer has detailed physics and has constant pop-in issues, but this game already taxes the system without any grass to begin with.
SotC's grass is right up on top with BotW's, in my book. Can't believe I have a book about grass...
Well, like GRASS, grass, anyway.
@Sculptor
Very well articulated The examples you gave are great. It's the reactive, reflective and dynamic nature of this specific foliage that impresses me. Grass in BOTW/AoC is GPU intensive - smoke and mirrors are the normal choice given the processing cost. Choosing to render physical grass is heroic/ambitious with such basic hardware.
So the grass is why the game runs so badly.
Considering BOTW struggled to have a stable frame rate when there was a lot of grass on-screen it's not too surprising it also took other developers an age to get around the issue!
@Crockin the grass is a important part of BotW design wise.
But with Age of Calamity I rather had they focussed more on the frame rate instead.
The first time I saw gameplay of the game, I was actually very surprised that they were able to recreate the grass for a warriors game like that, while staying on the same hardware.
It being so hard to do doesn't surprise me in the slightest, though it was arguably necessary, because it wouldn't feel like the same world without it.
And here I thought BotW and Age of Calamity were using the same engine/assets! I don't mean that in a bad way I just mean I assumed Nintendo let them "borrow" the assets to keep the same feeling, especially considering it's a canon story.
@ChromaticDracula
100% the same assets, most definitely NOT the same engine. The two games are very, VERY fundamentally different at their cores.
Now we know what to blame for causing the frame rate and resolution to tank...
so the grass in Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity is why the game run so poorly on Switch?
Not sure why everyone just now assumes that the performance is due to the grass.
I mean, yes?
Everything that you can see on screen costs performance in a way. Unless it is CPU performance which is the limiting factor (quite possible in a Warriors game), removing the grass would of course raise the performance.
Just like having lower poly enemy models would also raise performance.
Or lower detail backgrounds.
Or lower anything visible really.
@Rayquaza2510 for botw, sure. For this game? Totally not necessary
@Pokester99 After looking at these 2 games, that's some different things and behaviors. For Uncharted 4, we clearly see it's still chunks of grass that are animated and not every blade independantly plus there's a lot less place with grass than in Zelda. For Flower, the petals you control have not really an effect on the grass, that's more to do with the wind, plus all of the levels are only grass to animate and there's almost nothing else (NPCs, trees, etc...) that the hardware has to care.
This game was fun to me for a while, but I got burned out quick. Probably won’t ever play it again honestly.
@Crockin
This game is supposed to be a kind of "BotW Warriors", if it doesn't look like BotW then it failed at that.
The grass is very important for that purpose.
If you don't care about how close it is to BotW, that is your thing, but many will disagree.
They should have changed some more Stuff, the Framerate is not acceptable in this Game.
Thankfully they gave out a Demo
The framerate was fine for me except in multiplayer. I really wish they had online multiplayer for all of the Warriors games. As much as I love couch co-op, I love not having to share my screen and higher framerates more.
@Crockin What is this toon grass for kids? I want mature grass.
I don't like grass. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
@Pokester99 sorry but I think you need a bit of fresh air
Did the game ever get a 60 FPS update like the other Warriors games on Switch or is it still a janky mess?
On one hand i commend them for how much extra effort they went to with the grass on the other hand it does feel like one of those games which if the grass was causing the games performance issues then it would have been nice to at least have an option for "graphics" or "performance" (not sure how many switch games support this, i think darksiders warmastered did)
though tbh as mentioned in another articles comments i do hope a theoretical switch successor ends up fully backwards compatible (whether it be a "new switch" or a "switch 2")
Screw graphic fantastics. I would be perfectly fine with meme flat “grass” if it makes the game way more stable in a game genre where stable Frame rate actually matters
@Arawn93 As someone who has avoided nearly all musuo games aside from DW4 (my intro to the series) and AoC, there's nothing more I would appreciate than a mode that cuts down on the meaningless enemies by 90% and make the remaining minor enemies' threat levels (and xp) appropriately higher. That would definitely help improve stability! And simultaneously make me more interested in the games as they're a bit more believable as well.
Yeah when I'm hacking my way through hordes of enemy baddies, I'm always so concerned about making sure every blade of grass is doing its own thing.
I'm not bothered by the shoddy frame rate and terrible gameplay as long as every blade of grass has it's own independent script.
Good thing to know that developers are putting their focus in the right places 🤨...
Not all people realize this, but BoTW's grass is a complex thing, since it's actually fully modeled as opposed to being just an alpha texture, with physics included! No wonder why it was hard to add such grass to an engine that powers games usually using alpha grass.
Good grass is always a hassle, but it's so dang important to the look of a game like this. :v
@Pokester99
Id say no PS3, PS4, PS5 game to date matches the physics-driven environmental detail like Botw, with it's grass, water physics when raining etc. Ofc. not because they can't do it, but because most of the Sony studios prioritizes other graphic details. Just compare Botw with Horizon zero dawn, the PS4-game does look a lot better in texture detail and stuff, but the world is totally static...
@Kilroy in other words, you'd prefer if musuo games weren't musuo games, which is an incredibly unrealistic thing to ask. musuo games are all about hacking through vast armies, they're not about "realism".
if they're going to have a performance mode, cutting down on how many enemies you're facing is exactly the last big thing that you excise.
@TheRealMW It's not "incredibly unrealistic" at all. There are tons of games out there across multiple genres that offer side modes that resemble almost nothing of the main mode, yet those are welcome by fans who continue to buy those games. Why do musuo games have to be so stubborn with the presentation? All that's accomplishing is alienating people who want options (and ultimately lose out on maximum sales). I've even read people on social media say the main attractions for them are the boss battles, not the thousands of braindead husks that you can kill (whom I agree with).
@Pokester99
Just stating facts. Either you're a fanboy, or you simple don't remember how the games looked like back in the PS3 days. Either way, try not to get so angry. It's not good for you...
Very few other AAA-games comes even close to some of the rendering-tech of the nature elements i Botw.
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