When Nintendo claimed that the new The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would give players “unprecedented freedom,” it wasn’t kidding.
In an interview with Polygon, famed producer Eiji Aonuma revealed that gamers can finish the game without completing the story.
E3 2016: 7 ways Breath of the Wild is reimagining The Legend of Zelda series
“Users may not actually get the full story depending on how they play this game and how they strategize and solve puzzles,” Aonuma said. “Users are able to go to the very end goal without revealing why Link woke up the way he did and where he did. Whether you want to reveal the storyline and find out why Link woke up, or you want to just go straight to the goal, that’s an option totally up to the user.”
This means that if gamers want to, they can go straight to the final boss right from the get-go. “Anybody who can go straight to the goal without doing anything else — there’s two possibilities,” said Aonuma. “Either they’re a really good gamer, or they could be somebody that’s a little bit crazy. But it’s not impossible. I created the game like that.”
While this might be ideal for speedrunning, it may not make for the best gaming experience. But Aonuma might be egging speedrunners on. “Maybe it might be fun for fans to compete in a challenge for who can clear it first,” he said.
Although Breath of the Wild was one of only two games Nintendo showed off during its E3 presentation, it’s clearly generating a lot of hype. Among all the games and announcements at E3, the latest Zelda is by far the most talked about online.
A release date has not been set for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but it will land sometime in 2017 for both the Wii U and Nintendo’s next console, code-named the NX.
