Nintendo has released three videos detailing the development journey behind The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Each short film runs at just over 10 minutes, and features reams of commentary from key members of the dev team, who share their own unique tales of how the latest entry in Nintendo’s long-running franchise came to be.
The mini-series touches on a number of different topics, tackling everything from the game’s story and characters to its unique open-world design and mechanics.
For example, in the opening episode, art director Satoru Takizawa reveals there were some decidedly bizarre design suggestions when series producer Eiji Aonuma asked the team to reconsider the franchise’s traditional conventions for Breath of the Wild.
“Some of our younger designers came up with very unique suggestions, like the idea that UFOs could invade from space and abduct cattle, or that giant weapons could battle with laser beams while Link ran across the battlefield between them,” explains Takizawa, revealing just how different the game might’ve been.
“They actually used the development tools to make sample videos (shown in the video above) that they submitted with these proposals. But there were lots of interesting suggestions, and that provided a great starting point.”
We’ve taken the liberty of posting the first episode right here. But you can use these links to watch episode two, ‘Story and Characters,’ and episode three, ‘Open-Air Concept.’