Saturday, January 14, 2017

Breath of the Wild: Playable Characters?

Here are some of the new artworks for Breath of the Wild, showing some of the more important characters in the game:




What do these artworks all have in common? They all look like they were made for Hyrule Warriors 2! With the reveal of Fire Emblem Warriors, I suggested that this new project is a good thing, because Koei Tecmo should wait for Breath of the Wild, before they start developing Hyrule Warriors 2, since the new Zelda epoch might deliver lots of good material for the sequel. And as it turns out, Nintendo is already playing fully into Koei Tecmo's hands with their character designs...

Look at them, everyone is holding a specific weapon fitting their characters. Zelda is equipped with the Sheikah Slate, the "Here it comes!!!" Goron has a some kind of hammer sword and the Zora girl uses a trident, probably stolen from King Neptun himself. Also, both the Goron and the Zora girl wear a blue scarf, much like the Rito with the Bow from the previous trailer.

And then it struck me: I already had the feeling that there are multiple Heroes of Hylia, where both Princess Zelda and the Rito, who's equipped with a bow, might be playable characters in the game. And this might be the case with other new characters here as well. Probably Zelda and all four protectors / riders of the Four Giant Guardians might accompany Link through parts of his adventures, especially if they explore the dungeons together that might be inside those Giant Guardians. We even already saw Link together with the Gerudo girl in front of the giant camel:


You would be able to switch between characters for some "coop" play, which isn't even a new thing. We already had this in the Wind Waker with both Medli and Makar, who were also playable characters at your side for the duration of one dungeon. And of course there was Phantom Zelda in Spirit Tracks or Gongoron in Phantom Hourglass. This simply might be the next evolution of the system, where an entirety of five additional characters is playable next to Link. At least they all look like they are ready for the part!

And with this Breath of the Wild would offer the ability to play as different races again, which is one of the coolest features of both Majora's Mask and Hyrule Warriors. They might also use this for some actual coop multiplayer, where a 2nd player can join via Wii U GamePad or something. But that's taking it maybe a little too far...

We'll see about this, in the very least it should be clear that these characters will play an important role in the story. But hopefully they will be more than just that!

2 comments:

K2L said...

Playing as Zelda once again would be neat. And it would also make "female Link" dreamers shut up already.

Unknown said...

The Goron seems to be wielding a broadsword-type thing like the Dark Nuts from Twilight Princess. But all of these heroes/companions seem battle-ready and it'll be a slight disappointment if they aren't playable at some point.

Buuuut, on the plus side, all of them are definitely strong candidates for Hyrule Warriors!