Breath of the Wild map started life as a scale version of Kyoto

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Breath of the Wild developers used the city's map to place Hyrule's landmarks

Breath of the Wild
(Image credit: Nintendo)

A new video has revealed that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild began life as a prototype based on a map of the Japanese city of Kyoto.

In a video published earlier this week from DidYouKnowGaming?, several intriguing facts about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are revealed. At the very beginning of the video, it's revealed that one of the very first decisions made by Hidemaro Fujibayashi, game director of Breath of the Wild, was to build a prototype of the game's map of Hyrule on the scale of Kyoto, the Japanese city in which Nintendo's headquarters are located.

The video outlines that this was done to convey how huge the developers intended the map of Hyrule to be. The development team then thought about all the smaller details in Kyoto, like how often you'd run into post boxes, and considered this a template for how often you should encounter landmarks in Breath of the Wild's Hyrule.

It's a fascinating detail in a fascinating video. If you're looking to uncover some little-known facts about Nintendo's astounding game, we'd absolutely recommend giving the full video a watch, where you can uncover amazing details like the castle at the centre of the Kyoto prototype that Fujibayashi insisted they include, and many more details.

This is certainly one excellent way to celebrate The Legend of Zelda's 35th anniversary, which occurs this year in 2021. Recently, Nintendo revealed Skyward Sword HD, a remaster of the 2011 Wii game for the Switch, which is due to release later this year in July. Outside of that, rumors have persisted of a Twilight Princess/Wind Waker HD double pack release for later this year on the Switch, but Nintendo has yet to announce anything else Zelda-related outside of the Skyward Sword remaster.

For a complete list of all the games confirmed to be coming to the Switch at some point in the future, head over to our upcoming Switch games guide for more.

Hirun Cryer
Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.