By Andrew Dodson on June 14, 2016 at 11:58am
The long-awaited new Legend of Zelda title, after more than a year of delays, seems to be well on it's way to release now. At the Nintendo E3 conference, the now-titled "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" got a beautiful new trailer that dives in the new world of Hyrule and gives us a taste of what to expect.
Step into a world of discovery, exploration and adventure in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a boundary-breaking new game in the acclaimed series. Travel across fields, through forests and to mountain peaks as you discover what has become of the ruined kingdom of Hyrule in this stunning open-air adventure.
Nintendo Press Release
It looks like "Breath of the Wild" is a bit further in the future than past Zelda titles. While still clearly a fantasy title, there are now elements of technology (advanced technology) hidden throughout the landscape. One of the first pieces of equipment that Link picks up is the Sheikah Slate, which is used to display the map and to "scout" enemies to learn how tough they are - a very useful tool in as open a world as this Zelda title appears to be.
They got into the new gameplay elements that "Breath of the Wild" will introduce to the series. One of the things veterans of the franchise will notice right away is that you can push a button to make Link jump now, rather than having him jump only when it was necessary for a specific obstacle. He is also able to climb things now, the limit here being a stamina wheel that slowly empties the longer he's holding on and fills up once he gets to a resting point (similar to how it worked climbing in "Shadows of the Colossus").
Another notable change is the introduction of a lot more equip-able gear. In the gameplay shown at E3, Link essentially wakes up in his underwear and finds a set of old clothes in a couple of nearby chests. As they explored more of the world, they found new pants and shirts for him to have that all had different stat increases - mostly increasing his armor so he would take less damage. There are a lot more weapons available to find (spears, swords, clubs, axes and bows) but these early 'common' weapons all break after a couple of uses, requiring the player to think ahead and have a couple spares in their inventory.
Besides finding weapons and new armor, Link can also find different resources to help him build different things. The example we saw today was Link using an axe to chop down a tree and then using the wood to make a campfire. It will be very interesting to see how that mechanic is fully utilized when the game is released.
Something we saw in the trailer but wasn't really encountered in the gameplay they showed, were the spells that Link seemed to be using to create blocks that he could use to jump on top of to reach different points...or the ones he created in mid-air to crush enemies. That will be a fun thing to play around with to beat complicated puzzles or get around dangerous creatures.
"The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" does not have a confirmed release date yet, but it looks like we won't be able to check it out until at least 2017. It is being made available on the Wii U and Nintendo NX systems.
