Nintendo is finally throwing off the veil on the new Legend of Zelda game at E3 2016. A new three-minute trailer for the next Legend of Zelda has revealed a ton of new information about the mysterious game, including its official title.
For starters, it's officially titled Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and it's easy to see why. Never before has a Legend of Zelda game appeared to be so open. Players can climb mountains and buildings like in Assassin's Creed. Trees can be chopped down to create new pathways. The environment can be unleashed on foes, as shown in the trailer when Link causes a rock slide to fall onto a group of enemies. There is collecting and cooking. Hunting is shown. The trailer shows hero Link wearing multiple sets of armor and wielding a variety of weapons, including an axe, a spear and a box.
These are all radical new elements for a Legend of Zelda game. The size of the world, the crafting, the variety of armor and weapons, these are all huge firsts for the franchise. It's almost as if Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is Nintendo's answer to massive open-world RPGs like The Witcher 3 or Skyrim. Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime introduced Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild by saying it was one of the biggest projects Nintendo had ever created, and what the company has shown so far definitely seems to back that up.
It's been a long time coming. For years, The Legend of Zelda has flirted with the RPG genre. There have always been RPG elements in Zelda games. Players can explore the world to find new pieces of equipment or hidden heart containers to increase their life points. However, there's always been limitations to what players could do. Only designated areas could be destroyed by bombs, for instance. Only certain objects could be shot with the hookshot to pull Link to new areas.
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild looks to throw all of that out of the window. Never before has there been such a huge, alive version of Hyrule of which players can explore every inch. If you see it, you can go there. Link can climb to the top of a temple for a bird's-eye view. He can chop down any tree and destroy any boulder. The sense of freedom this new Legend of Zelda delivers looks to be unprecedented.
This new trailer is just the tip of the iceberg. Tons of new details are surely to be revealed in the coming days, weeks and months ahead of the game's March release on the Wii U and NX, but so far, The Legend of Zelda's future has never looked brighter.
