Wii U limited the possibilities for Breath of the Wild
If using the Wii U and BotW in one sentence confuses you, I won’t blame you. Many may have missed it, but when The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild came out in March of 2017, there was also a Wii U version. Most people, myself included, see BotW as a Switch launch title, but the game was originally designed for the Wii U. Which means one of the best Switch games ever doesn’t even use the full capacity of this console!
Nintendo looks back
With the release of Tears of the Kingdom tomorrow, Nintendo takes a look back in time and shares insights into the development of BotW. It took the company quite a bit of effort to get the game to run on the Wii U. Several ideas didn’t make it to the release version of the game. The problem? “Hardware limitations.”
The Wii U was a problem from the start. It started with the lack of clarity about what the Wii U was supposed to represent at all. Is it an attachment for the Wii? No, it turned out to be a completely own console, with the Gamepad as a controller. Nintendo failed to make it clear to the customer, resulting in disappointing sales figures. The Wii U struggled to get close to 15 million units. For comparison: the different versions of the Switch together already exceed 120 million.
And that while the Wii U does have a number of immensely popular games. In addition to Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Maker, Splatoon, and Bayonetta 2 are loved by critics and audiences alike. It did not help. In the end, Nintendo chose eggs for their money. Most Wii U successes are now also available for the Switch. That is all well and good, but it should be clear that BotW is not helped with this. The Wii U was a block to the leg for the game. In a recent interview, Nintendo admits: Breath of the Wild would have been a better game as a Switch exclusive.
“Oh no, please don’t let us have to do that too!”
In that same interview, some of the Nintendo employees who worked on BotW spoke, including Eiji Aonuma. They gave some examples of the ideas that had to be abandoned due to the limitations of the Wii U. First, being able to fly, but no, that was out of the question. “But if we can’t fly, then I want to go underground!” was the reply from above. To which Aonuma responded with the quote above this heading.
If the above examples ring a bell, it’s because both ideas have been implemented in Tears of the Kingdom. There are also a number of new functions for your Sheikah Slate, such as fusing weapons and objects. From a technological point of view, the whole is a big step forward compared to BotW.
Maybe even too big a step. Keeping track of where all those objects are in relation to each other, and having to render wide vistas while flying high through the air at high speed requires a lot of computing power. Fortunately, the first reviews are promising. Despite the new features, TotK just seems to run stable at 30 fps.
The wait is almost over
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will be available for Nintendo Switch on May 12. Despite the fact that Nintendo only wanted to start sales from May 12, a number of people have already owned the game. The fact that the buzz around this fact is mainly limited to dissatisfaction with the spoilers that are now circulating online gives hope. If there was something to complain about the game, we would certainly have heard it by now. In any case, I look forward to returning to Hyrule.
