Staff from Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity talked about the game’s grass

Staff from Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity talked about the game’s grass

In a recent edition of the Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream, several of the main team members engaged in the development of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity talked frankly about their experiences working on the game. Masaki Furusawa, director Ryouta Matsushita, producer Yousuke Hayashi, and art director Yuu Oohashi took part in the conversation.

One of the team’s most difficult problems in developing the game is probably not what you’d expect: grass. It took the team half of the development time to get it perfect, according to the employees and it required hundreds of individuals from various departments throughout Koei Tecmo.

Creating the grass of Hyrule

Is the scope of Hyrule Field from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time properly mirrored in the game?

Matsushita: The goal was to go with something a bit different at first, but it turned out to be a really accurate replica in the end. The universe of BotW found its way onto the battlefield in spades. Having said that, there were several elements that we had to replace out.

It makes it seem as though even grass grows in the same manner.

Oohoshi: Sure… That grass took a long time to grow!

(everyone laughed)

Furusawa: Wasn’t it a huge annoyance?

Oohoshi: Touching up the grass in the game took roughly half of the production time. The ambiance of Hyrule Field was very difficult to imitate.

Furusawa: We had to recreate the location in such a manner that players would be stunned.

Oohoshi: It’s the start of the game, so it’s something we really wanted to concentrate on.

Furusawa: We asked Nintendo’s Zelda team how they generated the grass in BotW, and even though they gave everything down to the tiniest details of their methodology, we were still unsure whether we could replicate it. We also explored if there were any other options since the game contains a lot of grass.

Oohoshi: We tried a lot of various things to make the grass stand out as one of the game’s strongest elements.

Matsushita: Didn’t the entire corporation be pulled into the grass muck?

How many hundreds of people were there, Oohoshi? (laughter)

Matsushita: To say we were in constant contact with development personnel, CG departments, background, and technical support is an understatement.

About Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity 

In Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity for Nintendo Switch, go into Hyrule’s past and battle to save the kingdom from ruin!

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity creates a unique and thrilling experience by combining action-packed gameplay with the lush sceneries of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

The destiny of Hyrule hangs in the balance a century before the events of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Bring your armies to the battleground, then face off against Calamity Ganon in the final fight for survival.

On November 20, 2020, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity was published globally for the Nintendo Switch.