14 DAY TRIAL // Eiji Aonuma, the director of the core Zelda franchise and one of the men who steered the creation of the new Hyrule Warriors spin-off, says that the original vision for the game was much more classic in its approach to the universe before Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of the series, got involved.
He is quoted by Nintendo Life as saying that he and his partner Yosuke Hayashi were planning to limit the number of ideas that were taken from the Dynasty Warriors franchise in order to make the experience more appealing to long-term fans.
The developer states, “However, Mr. Miyamoto came along and up-ended the tea table, saying, ‘No, that should not be the case. What we’re doing here is grafting Zelda onto the Dynasty Warriors experience’. It was a reversal of the original proposal from Hayashi-san, which was adding elements of Dynasty Warriors onto the Zelda franchise. It ended up being the other way around based on Miyamoto’s direction.”
Traditionally, Miyamoto is very hands-on when implicated in the development process of a game, but in the past few years, he has only offered more general indications to his collaborators as he tries to get younger directors involved with the major Nintendo intellectual properties.
A solid dose of Zelda
After Miyamoto intervened, the development team added a chunk of Dynasty Warriors elements and then returned to Zelda and began putting in minor concepts that would feel familiar.
Aonuma adds, “We realized we needed more than just that, so we ended up adding more and more aspects that were Zelda-esque – for example, the sound effects and animations that people are familiar with from the franchise.”
The title has been launched only on the Japanese market until now, where it performed well, and the developers are planning to deliver a range of new options via downloadable content in the coming months.
Big hopes for the Wii U
The Wii U home console has not delivered the kinds of sales that Nintendo has been expecting since launch, and Hyrule Warriors is one of the titles which could boost it in the short term.
Launch will take place in Europe on September 19, with a day one patch already in development, and on September 26 in North America.
A full-blown classic Zelda experience, with an open world structure and a new take on the well-known mechanics, is set to be launched at some point in the fall of 2015.