Hyrule Warriors Staff were Scared of How Zelda Fans Would React to the Reveal

Whenever any game is about to be revealed publicly, it’s safe to assume that there are some butterflies deep down in the development team’s soul. Fan reaction can go a long way during a reveal. Positive reaction can lead to acceptance, hype, and good sales. Negative reaction can taint the final product almost forever, even if all the issues are eventually addressed. In many ways, the negative reaction to The Wind Waker‘s reveal still haunts the game to this day. It should then come as no surprise that the team behind Hyrule Warriors was really nervous as they waited to see how we would react.

Yosuke Hayashi, development producer of Hyrule Warriors, explains what was happening:

“We were really scared of Zelda fans. … When the Nintendo Direct started, everyone involved with Hyrule Warriors stopped working. … They were watching it with bated breath. They see it [the announcement] come out, and they saw the reaction was actually positive! It was really positive. That gave us a lot of confidence, and let us breathe again. [laughs] … It was a confirmation of the idea, confirmation that we were going in the right direction.” — Yosuke Hayashi

This was a huge relief, but it appears Eiji Aonuma had to be that calming presence before the full relief of the actual reaction came:

“I actually had to encourage them to not worry so much, not to be so scared. [laughs]” — Eiji Aonuma

By now it is safe to assume everyone is pleased both with the fans’ reaction and the final product itself. We’ll find out for sure on September 23rd if our vote of confidence was worth it, while Japan will get their chance even sooner… on August 14th.

Source: Giant Bomb

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