Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Developers Explain How They Merged Breath of the Wild With the Warriors Series
Posted on November 27 2020 by Emi Curtis
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is a pretty accepted idea at this point, but when it was first revealed, it was rather left field as a concept for a lot of people. Continuing from our previous article reporting on Famitsu‘s own Nishikawa’s interview with Eiji Aonuma and the team at Koei Tecmo, another portion of the interview went into discussing the process of how exactly Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity came to be.
Given the non-canon nature of the original Hyrule Warriors, it was a very odd choice to set the next game in the actual world of Breath of the Wild. Nishikawa observes this and asks what exactly was the background behind such a concept coming to be. Aonuma, producer of the Legend of Zelda series, offered this explanation:
I was not the originator of this idea, but it actually came to me from Breath of the Wild’s Director [Hidemaro] Fujibayashi and Art Director [Satoru] Takizawa. The first time I heard the idea for “a Warriors-themed on the battle of the Great Calamity,” I also felt great interest, but since it would be quite difficult to actually bring to life considered it just a “what if” sort of notion. Afterwards I kept being asked, “So, whatever happened with that idea?” and it eventually became, “We have a formal proposal ready!” So in that way their commitment to the idea induced me to eventually approach discussion with Hyrule Warriors Producer Mr. Hayashi.
Yōsuke Hayashi, the producer for Age of Calamity, followed that up with input of his own:
From our side at Koei Tecmo, after the previous Hyrule Warriors was completed our team had continued to discuss, “What kind of form would work if we were to make a new Hyrule Warriors?” So then when Mr. Aonuma brought forth that proposal, I thought, “Here’s the puzzle piece we were missing.” The Warriors series up to this point has mostly been a sort of all-star-type roster of diverse playable characters, but I think we were able to bring forth a new direction with this project.
Ryōta Matsushita, the director then added:
I too felt that that would be the perfect setting from an action game perspective which would require him to be mowing down enemy forces…
… That is extremely important as a game developer, but also all the members of the development team are fans of Breath of the Wild, so more than a sense of pressure, it would be closer to say that we all had a sentiment like, “How could we forgive ourselves for making a mediocre product in the world of our beloved Breath of the Wild?” There were many conflicts between people’s fandom of Breath of the Wild which you won’t see on the surface.
The deep love for Breath of the Wild within the staff is something that seems to have really shaped Age of Calamity in a lot of regards, lending an odd sense of reality to how some people playfully called Age of Calamity‘s plot an “official fan fiction” given its questionable canon to Breath of the Wild‘s timeline. Matsushita actually brings up the team’s love for Breath of the Wild once again as Nishikawa asks if the team went back to the game to research the UI and fonts used:
Certainly we received documents from the Zelda team, but also we had many Breath of the Wild enthusiasts on our CG team, and everyone had progressed quite far into Breath of the Wild — they had all obtained the “Hero Set.” Everyone had it [laughs]. We called it a “location hunt” whenever we needed to check how an area was in the world of Breath of the Wild, and no matter whose save data we used for the location hunt, everyone’s completion was pretty good so we were easily able to check out the area we needed.
In case you’re unaware, the Hero Set in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild could only be obtained after completing all 120 Shrines within the game. It’s not exactly a small feat by any means, so to have an entire team with that much progress in the game is a testament to just how much love went into this project.
The interview also focused on the characterization and development process of the Champions and their personalities. Nishikawa started with asking how exactly the team decided how some characters would appear, especially those who were seen in a different way in Breath of the Wild, such as Purah, Robbie, Impa, and Sidon. After Aonuma gave the explanation of how Breath of the Wild set their foundation, Matsushita followed up with the development process:
We were very happy to have suggestions from our company accepted regarding the designs for characters such as Impa, Purah, and Robbie. And since all of the characters had rich though fragmentary personalization from Breath of the Wild, we used those as clues and made sure to align with the Zelda team and not contradict their ideas of establishments on those characters in order to excavate what their 100 years ago form would be. This process reminded me of how Link regains his memories from small triggers in Breath of the Wild.
Nishikawa then followed up by asking about the story and characterization elements that went into it, to which Matsushita replied:
The four Champions in Breath of the Wild are characters only existing in memory, so they are only encountered for a short time. But each of them was depicted with a depth that conveys what kind of person they were and what their relationships were like. That’s why even in the developmental stages for the scenes of this game our development team was able to propose and consult with the Zelda team and confidently say things like, “In this situation Mipha would say something like this,” or, “Daruk would take this action.”
The challenge is certainly evident in taking these small fragments and making them into something even deeper and more developed, enough to tell an entire story with them. By and large, it seems the biggest element that went into the successful translation of Breath of the Wild into a game of the Warriors genre was ultimately a lot of love for the original content. It’s a simple answer, but people are often surprised how direct the video game development process can be at times.
What do you think? Do you think Age of Calamity would’ve differed some if the team had had less of a personal connection to its origin? Do you think the characterization for the Champions seemed to fit with Breath of the Wild? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: Famitsu
Translation by Dark Isatari
Emi Curtis is an associate editor with Zelda Dungeon, having originally joined the team in late 2020. She is a freelance artist, programmer, and streamer with a healthy love of both the creative and analytical. She can frequently be found playing RPGs and Adventure games, her favorite of which being The Wind Waker. She is also quite fond of playing Zelda Randomizers. Currently, she hosts a tabletop RPG series on Twitch and operates a freelance illustration business. She can be found on Twitter and Twitch as her VTuber alter-ego Gwen Myoty, creating nerdy artwork, dungeon mastering tabletop games, and playing RPGs.
