Breath of the Wild Dev Talks Creating The Smells Of The Game

A recent translation of various interviews with the developers behind The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has revealed a few interesting notes about how the game was brought to life. While creating a feeling of immersion is key in so many modern RPGs, one particular human sense resonated with Art Director Satoru Takizawa: the sense of smell.

The original story behind this appears in the newest Breath of the Wild book, Master Works, which features stories about how the game was made from the development team themselves. The translation, created by Source Gaming's Matt Walker, explains Takizawa's focus on creating a sense of smell without the actual option for the player to breathe in any of the in-world scents.

Walker's translation notes that while smell, obviously, isn't something can be brought to life on Nintendo Switch in a literal sense, it can be replicated in creative ways. Here's how Takizawa and his team tackled it:

"Obviously, smell isn't something that can be portrayed by video game systems, the artists worked with the graphics programmers, environment designers and effect designers from the beginning with the goal of creating the kind of world that a player could exist in and even get a sense of the kind of smells that exist within it. The kind of world that you could walk around in, and even before the sound effects were implemented, get a sense of how it sounds. Another goal he had put a lot of weight on was being able to create a sense of the air of the environments – how the air feels humid in tropical environments, how the sun is stronger in the desert."

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is now available for Nintendo Switch. Master Works is available now in Japan.

Source: Source Gaming