Creating a Champion Curiosities

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Master Works is an extensive book all about the development of the latest Zelda title. It got released a year ago in Japan and now found its way to the West with Dark Horse's English publication under the title Creating a Champion. By now I went through the entire thing once and took note about certain parts that caught my interest.

The book is divided into four sections, where each section starts with a double page in the design of the loading screen from Breath of the Wild, which is a nice idea. Every section adds another Divine Beast, starting with Vah Ruta, and the last one comes in the red color of Master Mode. The first section collects all the beautiful illustrations and the second section goes through the entirety of the game's artwork and development drafts with descriptions for many things. The third section extensively goes through the history of this new Hyrule and its people. The last section then finishes things with some developer commentaries.

Page 83: Whip and Hookshot

This page shows some early drafts for the Champions, where it's interesting that originally instead of the Rito there was supposed to be a Kokiri. We knew this for quite some time now, but it might also explain, why the Rito feel so underdeveloped in this game - because they weren't even planned in the beginning.

What's also interesting is the weapon types of the depicted Champions. In addition to the short sword, great sword and spear, the Kokiri is holding a whip and the Gerudo a "Hookshot-like" weapon, which is simply a hook on a chain. And it's a shame that both didn't make it.

Given, the whip probably would have been another one-handed weapon type like the different swords, boomerangs and rods, instead of a weapon type of its own, but it still felt absent in the game. The "Hookshot" on the other hand is a chained weapon using two hands, which could have had various abilities, like using it to climb ledges more quickly. It even has the potential to become its own weapon type in the next game, where different balls & chains could be thrown into the mix...

Page 94: The Many Faces of Hyrule

In the Developer's Notes on this page they mention that they actually used a tool for face generation for both the Hylians and the Sheikah, where the faces of the side characters changed on a daily basis. This is good to know and also explains why many of the characters in the game feel so terribly generic...

Page 102: Sheikah Ghost

On this page we can see the ghost of a Sheikah woman, where this probably was supposed to be Dorian's dead wife, the mother of Koko and Cottla. She is depicted in the same ghostly style as the Champions and King Rhoam, but this never made it into the final game, sadly. Well, they probably didn't want to put her on the same status as the Champions in the game, but meeting the spirits of characters could become a more important part in the sequel.

Page 149: Wizzrobe Wonder

Here we can see what the Wizzrobes in Breath of the Wild actually look like under the robe, which is funny and disturbing at the same time. It's a dark creature with a crazy smile, where the head is attached directly on the torso and the pointy top of the robe is supposed to give the illusion of a neck.

They also have the draft for a more serious-looking version of the Wizzrobe with a mask and an Asian design influence. I personally like that one a lot more.

Page 196: Almost All the Armor

The book features artworks of all weapons and all the armor pieces in the game - all except three of them, for a total of 104 pieces. What's missing? They did leave out the Salvager set, the one to promote Xenoblade Chronicles 2. It's like the only thing from the game that didn't find its way into the book, which is curious, because this armor set got released some time before The Champions' Ballad DLC and the book has all the other DLC and amiibo stuff.

Maybe it's because this particular set of armor got ripped straight out of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and therefore didn't have to be designed. But it's still weird that they wouldn't show it in some form.

Page 203: Dragonfly Spy

There were lots of ideas that they had for the Sheikah Slate and its items, including the Hookshot and the Beetle, which both didn't make it into the final game. Page 203 shows us, how the Beetle might have looked like on what was called the "Conductor" at the time. It was actually the eye on the back on the Sheikah Slate, which could be detached and then turn into a dragonfly. This looks like a really cool idea and I would have loved to have this rune. Maybe in the next game...

Page 232: Hyrule Castle Town in Full Glory

Here we have an actual early ingame shot of Hyrule Castle Town from before Calamity Ganon destroyed it. What's weird here is that you can see the temperature and sound meters in the bottom right corner, as if this was something run during the game, so you could explore it. It probably means nothing and this was just used for the cutscene, where the Guardians destroy the town, but they've still put quite some detail into it.

Overall it's certainly a place, which is missing a memory. It would have been nice to see Hyrule Castle Town in its prime, before it got destroyed. They could have used this for another carefree memory scene, where Link and Zelda go shopping together or so...

Page 255: Ancient Tree Stump

This is just a random note. The actual double page here deals with the amazing Astral Observatory below Hyrule Castle, but at the right side they go through some other notable locations from Central Hyrule with screenshots: Satori Mountain, the Lost Woods and ... the Ancient Tree Stump.

It's kind of weird, why they would put the last place on the same level of importance as the other two, but seeing this screenshot and the way they described this, it reminded me somewhat of Level 1 from the first The Legend of Zelda game or the Gnarled Root Dungeon from Oracle of Seasons (which is the same thing, really). And maybe this place was supposed to be a reference to these classic dungeons?

Page 290: Welcome to Tarrey Town

The Hudson statues at the entrance of Tarrey Town here are absolutely hilarious and should have been in the final game.

Pages 296 & 297: Goron City

The Faces of four Goron Heroes carved into the rocks behind the village, which looks a lot like Mount Rushmore in these drafts. With the final version the focus was clearly on Daruk instead.

Also, Goron City looks in its rough design a lot more like what I would have hoped originally. It's large and has multiple layers, similar to the Goron City in Ocarina of Time, and railtracks going around the whole thing. The final version of Goron City felt somewhat underwhelming and it would have been nice, if the place was somewhat larger and layered, like an actual open-cast mine.

Page 337: Epona Co.

This is a nice detail that never really got mentioned in the game, if I'm not mistaken, but all the stables are run by a company called "Epona Co.", a horse good maker. So, they named their company after the "horse of legend".

Page 356 to 413: The History Section

Creating a Champion has a dedicated history and timeline section with over 50 pages just for Breath of the Wild alone. The legends from previous games are only a side note here, so things date back to 10,000 years ago and the first battle against Calamity Ganon.

And that they developed this rich history for one game alone really speaks for itself - it's a big new chapter in the timeline of Zelda and certainly an interesting new starting point for games to come.

Pages 386 & 387: Akkala Citadel

This is quite the impressive double page, where they go over in detail about the tactical functions of the Akkala Citadel, how intruders from the sea were fought off with the batteries of cannons and how the fortress ultimately fell to the Guardians. You can grasp some of this by studying the environment in the game, but it's nice to finally learn part of the story behind the Citadel.

Page 394: Mabe Village

"Watching this town disappear in a flash of light from across Hyrule Field must have made it seen like a fleeting dream."

Nice nod to Link's Awakening.

Page 397: Great Plateau Gate

This is something that you can notice in the game, if you pay close attention, or completely miss it. But there's actually a gate at the foot of the Great Plateau, which leads up to it, explaining how people got to the Temple of Time in the first place. The gateway got buried at the bottom and flooded at the top, so it's impassable in the game.

Page 413: The Zonai Tribe

This is by far one of the most interesting details found in this book, which completely escaped me, when I played and explored the game. There are the Zonai Ruins in the Faron area and apparently these come from the "Zonai Tribe", "magic wielders who vanished suddenly thousands of years ago". This sounds a little bit like the Dark Interlopers, but it probably is something else entirely. The name also sounds a little bit like the "Zuna" tribe from Four Swords Adventures, but again it's probably something else entirely.

The Zonai are also responsible for all these weird pillars with the occasional treasure chest on top that you can find in various parts of Hyrule, as well as the gigantic Lomei Labyrinths - their spiral mark is all over them. This is highly interesting and we might learn more about the Zonai in a later game.

Final Page (424): Timeline Placement

Maybe they wanted to save the best for last, but the commentary of series producer Eiji Aonuma comes at the very end of the book and at the end of the commentary he confirms that they left the timeline placement of Breath of the Wild ambiguous on purpose. We knew this since the book was released and we expected as much, once the game was released and gave no clear answer.

But the purpose was to spark the imaginations of the fans again - to have them discuss about the timeline once more, after the official timeline of the previous Zelda games got revealed with Hyrule Historia and Hyrule Encyclopedia. And this certainly worked, every since E3 2016 and to this day fans are still arguing over the branch Breath of the Wild falls into.

The book itself also states on page 361 that it's "impossible to tell which legends are historical fact and which are mere fairy tale". It's all "myth" at this point and the best thing is to view it that way. There is no real solution to this new timeline problem and that's on purpose, because Breath of the Wild takes places such a long time after all the other games that continuing the three branches would be absurd. It's in a way a soft reboot for Zelda, but at the same time it makes the fans argue and theorize again.