Let Skyward Sword Breathe: ZELDA and A Welcome Sense of Scale

Whether it is allowing a game to breathe with the wind in the sails of Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker or the coughing up dust on the Great Plains of Red Dead Redemption, a sense of size, scale and space is something that is often overlooked in games development. Perhaps it is the fear of being labelled as boring, which causes developers to try to fill their games with non-stop action. Taking the player away from the action and the inviting them to take-in the size, feel and atmosphere of the game is an underutilised technique. As with the aforementioned games, a simple way of doing this is through travelling within the game world, in-between point A and point B the player is invited to sit back and enjoy their surroundings.

Previews of the upcoming Nintendo title The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword have exhibited new surrounds for protagonist Link. As the name suggests the game sees our hero take to the skies, riding giant birds from one, gravity defying sky-isle to the next. The seemingly expansive distances between locations are reminiscent of the sailing within Wind Waker. This is a welcome feature, as some of my favourite memories with Link have been sailing across the salty seas with the King of the Red lions. A sense of scale within Zelda games has been around since the early days of 3D gaming. A classic moment within video game history is that of a young Link emerging into Hyrule Field in Ocarina Of Time. This is fondly remembered due to the size and scale of the environment, which had never been seen before. Hopefully Nintendo can pull of these impressive environments yet again, when Link takes a deep breath and falls into the Skies later this year.