Nintendo: The first tests of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild failed completely

Nintendo described its first phase of testing as a miserable failure The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The developers of the Japanese company rarely give interviews or make presentations. This information is not new, but it was revealed a few years ago during a Computer Entertainment conference. The game’s trailer was never posted online, nor was it ever translated from Japanese, but now thanks to the Game Maker Toolkit YouTube channel, we’re getting a chance to find out the details.

The test was disastrous because the majority of the players got stuck in a particular lane. About 80% of players saw the Sheikha Tower from afar and got stuck on a path that leads directly to the destination, never straying from their chosen path. Nintendo aimed for just the opposite – an open world that encourages exploration and experimentation.

Nintendo thought this was a serious problem and set about fixing it. What they came up with was the “triangles” theory – blocking the player’s view of the horizon with smaller and larger obstacles, such as hills or trees, to entice the player to explore around them to see what they were hiding, gradually gaining a better view of what they were hiding.