The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild‘s Map will be bigger and better than ever.
If you’re still out of the loop somehow, one of the biggest reveals from E3 2016 was Nintendo’s upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In fact, the title was recently named best in show for the Game Critics Awards, which may come as no surprise if you read our hands-on impressions of the game, or checked out our own best of E3 rundown. Sure, we knew a new Zelda game was on the way, but the studio behind the beloved franchise finally gave fans a peek at Link’s next adventure. Aside from all of the new features like cooking, shield-sliding, and crafting, one of the stand-out features from the new title is the open-world aspect. But, the only question is, how big will it be?
While we won’t have an official answer until we actually have the full game in our hands, the YouTube channel Arekkz Gaming has given fans a rough idea of what to expect in terms of map size. Spoilers: it looks like it’s going to be massive. Check out his plausible analysis in the video at the top of the page.
If you’re like us, your face probably mirrors Link’s in the image above right about now. According to what Nintendo revealed during E3, the Plateau area we got a chance to try out during the show makes up approximately two percent of the game’s map. During his hand-on with the game, Arekkz discovered that it took roughly 3:40 to walk from the north to the southern-most point of the Plateau (including scaling terrain).
By zooming out, he also estimated that the area takes up a 2 x 2 block of a 22 x 18 grid over the greyed out map that was viewable in the demo. Based on those calculations, it looks like it may take about 40 minutes to walk across the entire game world from north to south, and about 33 from east to west. Of course, this doesn’t account for the obstacles that are surely in the way, or other dimensions/realms that may come into play.
For comparison purposes, Nintendo has mentioned that the game is 12 times larger than The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which took roughly about 12 minutes to cross (not including dungeons). If this analysis is accurate, we’re looking at a massive game, at least by The Legend of Zelda standards. But at the end of the day, we won’t know until Nintendo confirms it.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is set to launch in 2017 on the Wii U and Nintendo’s yet-to-be revealed console dubbed the “NX”.
What are you hoping to see in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? Are you looking forward to a larger game? Let us know in the comments below, join the conversation on Facebook, or start one with me on Twitter: @Samantha_Sofka.
Watch below as we break down the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild trailer.
Images: Nintendo