Zelda Wii U’s open world was revealed for the first time at the 2014 Game Awards as the culmination of this night celebrating our favorite pastime.
Check out Zelda Wii U in action!
Following an introduction by Reggie, President of Nintendo of America, and an amazing musical piece featuring Imagine Dragons & Zelda composer Koji Kondo, Nintendo revealed the first actual in-game footage of the 2015 Wii U Zelda! A game that remains unnamed so far.
As you can see in the video above, this is easily the most beautiful, most fully-realized Zelda world ever. This will be the first Zelda game with a truly open, sandbox-style world like modern, Western RPGs (granted, very Zelda has had an open world, but in a more retro-sense).
Here is the same video above but zoomed out so you can see Miyamoto & Aonuma.
Miyomoto and Aunoma proceed to show off many great features of the game, the first is Link riding Epona! The horse sequences return, only this time it looks more realistic and beautiful than ever!
Epona even automatically dodges trees!
I swear this is one of those amazing tiny touches of innovation that only Nintendo would think of! They always do the best they can to streamline in ways that other developers don’t think of…
At one point Link runs to the top of a high mountain spot where he can see the whole world laid out before his eyes and stretching to the horizon. In this Zelda game, just like in Skyrim or other Western RPGs, you can actually explore each and ever mountain top and every place that you can see with your own eyes! This is nothing new in the RPG world but is a big deal for the Zelda franchise.
Link then takes a leap of faith and bounds off the ledge… but instead of falling, he whips out a parachute and glides to safety!
Here is the original E3 2014 Zelda Wii U reveal trailer.
They note that because the world is so massive, and is so open, they are making it a point to have a lot of high towers, mountains and other areas from which to see the vastness of the world from upon high.
It is also here where we get to see Link mark the map, set a beacon, which then appears on the map. So you can mark a place you see in the distance from first-person view, then head to that point on your map which appears on the Wii U GamePad. You can also zoom in & out on the map which reveals that this will be one heck of a giant world… They note that we’ve only seen a small part of it.
Nintendo is spending a lot of time working on small details, like making Epona dodge horses automatically, so that the player feels like the traversal is very free and laidback, allowing the player to focus on other aspects of horseback riding instead of where you are headed.
You barely have to touch the Control Stick to have Epona bound off in a direction and keep speeding forward, you can then swing Link’s sword, or go into first-person and shoot arrows by physically moving the GamePad (hopefully you can also do this with the control stick like in the old games).
The world will be very detailed, for example fruit will grow on trees, that you can pick and eat. And there will also be wildlife and bugs roaming the fields, as well as enemies in the final game for sure.
You can even leap off of Epona, at which point a bullet-time slow motion effect allows you to aim your bow and take out enemies with ease. A metallic sound tells you whether your arrows have hit their mark or not.
The video ends with a very interesting viewpoint of a horde of horses who begun running alongside Epona as Miyamoto and Aunoma talk about some other titles that are in development, including Star Fox Wii U (which will hit before Zelda next year) and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D which will hit in early 2015 for 3DS.
I am very, VERY EXCITED about The Legend of Zelda Wii U! Even though the footage shown was pretty “boring” footage, it will still exciting and exhilarating to see how Nintendo have realized Hyrule in sandbox form, and to see how far it has progressed since the initial reveal video was shown.
The game looks much more fully realized at this point, and Nintendo is confident that it will be in our hands by Winter of 2015. It looks absolutely beautiful. I can’t wait to see REAL direct-feed footage of it.
2015 cannot come soon enough! And with that, Nintendo stole the show at the 2014 Game Awards!
How excited are you for The Legend of Zelda Wii U?