Breath Of The Wild Almost Had Touch Controls
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild comes out officially tomorrow as part of the Nintendo Switch launch lineup. The game is massive in scope, and early reviews paint it as a masterpiece of gaming. However, according to some of the development team, it was originally going to have touch controls via the Switch screen.
“When we were developing the game for the Wii U, we had touch features implemented as you have seen,” Breath of the Wild director Hidemaro Fujibayashi told IGN. “Once we began to develop the game in tandem for the Switch, we aimed to provide the same gameplay experience across both on Switch and Wii U.”
But, as time went on, they realized there was a problem with doing so.
“In doing our testing without the touch features we noticed looking back and forth between the Gamepad and the screen actually took a little something away from this type of Zelda game,” he said.
So, they did away with the touch ability for the Switch, and as soon as they did that, they felt the game was much better.
“Without the touch features it actually turned out to be a really strong gameplay experience,” he explained. “After more experimentation and testing out, we realized that this is the best way to experience the game. That’s how we ended up with the current gameplay style in the production version.”
The team have no regrets, because they knew it was the right move, and the best decision for the game.