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Zelda: BotW - Aonuma on seeing what fans are doing with the game, working with a massive dev team

by rawmeatcowboy
14 May 2017
GN Version 5.0

Coming from a Nikkei interview with Eiji Aonuma...

On fans posting new ways to play Breath of the Wild…

“When we apply the laws of physics in this game – based on the physics engine, various kinds of ‘interesting things’ will happen.

We intentionally give [much] freedom in testing them out, but I’m surprised on the tricks of using the Magnesis item that can carry anything metallic. When you place a block on a metal trolley, and when you stand on top of it and then pull the trolley [with Magnesis], it will gradually soar up into the sky. When we saw the video that used that method to move mid-air, all the staff became speechless (laughs).”

On using a development team of 300 people…

"The organisation of 300 people was really made at the very end of the development so I don’t want to exaggerate this too much. This kind of thing [game development] happened normally in the past; in the era where a small number of people could develop game software.

When that has grown to a large number exceeding 100 people, anyone would have only thought that it’s ‘impossible’, so I don’t think it’s that surprising.

However, if we’re looking at a simple way of thinking such as cost-cutting, it becomes ‘no way [it could happen]’, so at the start of the development I also had a bit of resistance with the viewpoint of a producer.

But when we actually tried doing that, it makes quality control smoother, and on the contrary I also actually felt that it connects to cost-cutting, so we decided to go through with this until the end.”

[Link]