In preperation for the launch of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Nintendo had recently provided more parts to its Ask the Developer Vol. 13 series of interviews on the game, with an exchange from Chapter 4 of the interview revealing an exciting and mind-blowing factoid about it- that its map is eight times the size of the one present in the Switch remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.
Here’s what Satoshi Terada, the game’s director from developer Grezzo, and Nintendo’s Eiji Aonuma had to say:
Terada: “-Yeah, we’ve been involved since The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, so everyone has great respect for the series. Many of the staff love it and have played the games many times over. So even now, when making a new top-down game in the series, we’re always thinking about how we can bring that “Legend of Zelda-like” feeling to the game. However, we packed in so many things we wanted to do to create this “Legend of Zelda-like” feeling, and the map ended up eight times the size of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.”
Aonuma: “At first it was four times the size, but then, before we knew it… (Laughs) However, although the map has become much larger, the feeling of a top-down The Legend of Zelda game, where you can easily enjoy gameplay in a compact world, is still there, so it isn’t intimidating to explore. So you’ll be able to play with a slightly different feeling compared to the vast worlds of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.”
If you’ve been itching to return to Hyrule with a bird’s eye view, now you can know that it’s bigger than before, yet just as inviting as it’s always been.
Readers can check out our review of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom here.
Boss
I wonder what’s next chapter for the zelda series in the future, I hope we are not getting more breath of the wild sequels, I would love a new 3D zelda game with that kind of open world freedom but I miss those beautiful well crafted dungeons that you couldn’t just cheese trough with weird physics mechanics.
Agreed. I always say BotW did the new take on Zelda games while still feeling like Zelda perfectly while TotK strayed a bit too far off, and feeling too same-y to BotW. The runes in BotW still felt like tools you would find and use in a Zelda game but the runes in TotK just… didn’t.
From what I can tell, EoW looks like it’ll offer near-BotW levels of freedom to complete your goals while adhering to the old-school formula more closely than the two 3D Switch entries did, and I’m very excited for it.
Hopefully a non-linear overworld and structure but dungeons that are still deliberately crafted.
They should build upon the stuff they tried in ALBW but for a 3D Zelda game.
Well, that’s unfortunate. I’m scrolling through the titles of your articles and see this spoiler. I’m getting the game later today, and now I already have an idea of how long I’ll be playing it before I even boot it up on my Switch. Maybe post this a few days after launch next time. Just a suggestion. Kind of reminds me of when games tell you you’ve collected so many items out of a certain number. That kind of spoils how far along in the game you are. I don’t like knowing that. Maybe I’m just too picky.
You can figure out the rough size of this overworld within 30 minutes of starting the game. I wouldn’t call this a spoiler.