"Hyrule is big. Really, really big. You won't believe how vastly, hugely mind-boggingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the street to the alchemist, but that's just peanuts to Hyrule!"
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Or so the opening line of the Hitchhiker's Guide to Hyrule would open, if Eiji Aonuma's recent comments are to believed.
Speaking with GameReactor, the director of the current franchise spoke on what he can accomplish with the Wii U system. "A huge, seamlessly unfolding world is something that can't be achieved if the hardware isn't advanced enough," he responded when asked how the studio was transitioning to the new world teased in last year's demo.
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"Ever since we made the very first generation of Legend of Zelda games though," he added, "we've had as large a world as can be realized with the hardware, so you could say it was inevitable that we've now done the same with the new Wii U title."
Zelda games are quite large. The original N64 Majora's Mask required use of 4 MB expansion pack just to run. In fact, the total amount of landmass in all of the previously released console Zelda games will be but a small percentage of what Aonuma wants to present next time. It's...really, really large.
How large? "In terms of the scale of the new Zelda world on Wii U, I always think of Kyoto as my base." Aonuma announced last summer. Kyoto is one of the main cities in the Honshu province of Japan and is about 320 square miles.
Skyrim, on the other hand, is only about 20 square miles.
"When I first showed off the new Zelda game on the Wii U," Aonuma said, "it seemed everyone was very excited and started proclaiming that a Zelda game had at last become open world! Zelda games have always allowed you to roam and explore a huge world."
"What's changed now is that the hardware has progressed to the point that you can now explore this vast world seamlessly; the underpinning of the game hasn't changed."
It sounds exciting. No matter how big, the next Zelda title would push even the Xbox One and PS4 to its limits. Let us hope the Wii U can handle it.
