A lot of good stuff has been pouring out of E3 2016 and one of them is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Those at the conference had the good fortune of seeing the demos in person while others have had to make do with streams to check out Nintendo's latest offering. If you lucked out and missed anything, don't fret! Here's over an hour of gameplay footage you can watch to learn more about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
There's a lot to take in with the game, starting with its open-world setting. Never before has Nintendo allowed Link to explore so much of his environment and use literally everything for a number of purposes, like rolling boulders over enemies, felling a tree to create a bridge and collecting ingredients for cooking.
The Zelda games have always had an RPG element to them but exploration mostly meant players going where they have to in order to achieve a goal. Yes, you can break a few pots here and there and even run around with a chicken, but Breath of the Wild offers the first time players will be so immersed in their environment.
Fans may have a lot of questions after seeing the gameplay footage and they may expect more details to be revealed as the days leading to Breath of the Wild's release pass.
What is clear at this point is that Link will be male. Eiji Aonuma, producer for the Zelda series, said that poor communication led fans to believe that the character will have a gender spin-off. He added that he had no intention of misleading fans, offering an alternative explanation why Link will remain male.
"If we made Link a female we thought that would mess with the balance of the Triforce," he said.
The producer explained that In the Zelda universe, the Triforce balance is represented by Princess Zelda, Link and Ganon. With Princess Zelda a female, turning Link into a female as well was seen as upsetting the balance.
Fans of the Zelda series, however, argue that Zelda, Link and Ganon are just personifications of the traits that actually represent the Triforce: power, courage and wisdom. Additionally, there is little proof that the Triforce is guided by any gender.
In 2014, a female Link protagonist was introduced in Hyrule Warriors. However, Linkle was more of a feminine variation of Link instead of an actual female Link. Linkle and Link's only similarities were how they looked and the form of their names. In terms of backstory and fighting style, the two differed.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is set to come out on March 2017.
