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Although Nintendo producer Eiji Aonuma began thinking about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as soon as Skyward Sword was finished, production of the Switch version only began last spring, the acclaimed game maker has told Eurogamer.
“Regarding the Nintendo Switch version, it was spring last year when we made a firm decision to also release on that platform,” explained Aonuma. “Obviously that required some adjustments to the development process and changes to be made, and to continue developing the Wii U version alongside Nintendo Switch, that was spring last year.”
Aonuma also confirmed that although Wii U was soon to be phased out in favour of the Switch, Nintendo “never considered not releasing the Wii U version, and changing development solely to Nintendo Switch – that was never on the cards”.
Whilst you might think the Wii U edition would suffer as a result of resources being spread more thinly because of Switch development, Aonuma says work on the Switch version actually helped improve the game Wii U owners will be playing.
“Obviously a major difference between developing for Wii U and a major thing we had to change for Nintendo Switch was the controls,” he explained. “Wii U has the Wii U GamePad, and we originally envisaged making major use of that for the controls. Of course on Wii U you have two screens – the main screen, and one on the GamePad – but the Nintendo Switch has one screen. That was a major change, but we achieved it a lot more easily and quickly than we expected. In the end we’re happier with how the controls came out, having made those changes. I feel that the control system we landed on was better than what we originally had.”
From a gameplay perspective Aonuma says the game delivers the “same experience on both platforms,” but there will be technical differences, notably loading times.
“One small difference is that the loading times on Nintendo Switch are slightly faster,” he revealed. “That really stems from the media that the game is on – on Wii U it loads from a disc, whereas on Nintendo Switch it’s on a Game Card, so it’s a result from that.”
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will launch March 3 alongside the Nintendo Switch.
Source: Eurogamer
