How Grand Theft Auto, Zelda, and a Southwest Pacific nation inspired Tchia

you can see tachiya and call back link’s glider The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, You can also remember the open water flowing from here the wind Waker, But Phil Crifo, co-founder of developer Avaseb, thinks there’s a better comparison: Grand Theft Auto.

“Even though it’s very different in terms of tone and theme, I think the way [GTA developer Rockstar] being able to build fictional worlds based on real places, and taking those real places to get the essence of a place they created in a video game world, similar to the way we treated our rendition of New Caledonia has been a real inspiration to him,” Crifo told Play Gamez.

In 2023, the Zeldathon is starting. Join us on our journey through The Legend of Zelda series, from the original 1986 game to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and beyond.

tachiya, the new open-world game about a child exploring the jungle, is set in a fictional version of New Caledonia, a small island nation in the South West Pacific. This is where Crifo and several other members of the development team grew up; All voice actors are local to the island as well. Rockstar has long created fictional stand-ins for real locations such as Liberty City (New York), San Andreas (California), Vice City (Miami), or Los Santos (Los Angeles). For Avaseb’s developers, creating an open-world playground meant drawing inspiration from Rockstar’s ability to turn real geography into fun.

“When you grew up playing GTA with your friends, everyone had that moment when you were like, ‘Can you imagine GTA happening in our hometown?’ Crifo said. “We did a little bit with tachiya,

Instead of drug dealers and guns, though, tachiya is about the titular child and his ability to transform into anything in his environment – ​​rocks, a camera, a bird, or a piece of flaming coal. if like Grand Theft Auto 5Trevor Phillips can turn into a baseball bat or a stained T-shirt.

Crifo said in forming New Caledonia tachiya was less about supplanting geography, and more about invoking the spirit of the archipelago. “What’s the vibe? What’s it like to be there? How are the people? What are those finer nuances that make it smell, taste. It’s very difficult to do,” Crifo said. tachiya Filtered through the lens of a fantasy childhood in New Caledonia, dripping with the culture and influences of the islands. It’s adventure and exploration and nostalgia wrapped in a singular culture.

Image: Avaseeb/Kepler Interactive

It’s that childlike sense of wonder, then, that evokes the Legend of Zelda comparisons. Even though Crifo said he’s not a Legend of Zelda superfan, breath of the wild gave birth to ideas for tachiyaevolution, like its choreographed landmarks or its glider that allows Tachia to swim across vast areas of land. Awaseb is a team of 12 people, so achieving this scale or grandeur breath of the wild There was no option. But even so, it still manages to create a strong sense of place.

tachiyaThe defining feature, Crifo said, is its tactile nature. You can touch things, pick them up, throw them. But you too can become them, and feel the weight of the motion of an object. It caters to shape-shifting music and instruments tachiya, which use real chords in rhythm minigames. Avesebe wanted players to be able to feel the essence of the place; Cripho indicated to climb the coconut tree. There is a weight to the tachia because the higher the branches the more they bend and dip. You can feel the snap and fling as she uses the tree as a catapult to travel around the world. (Climbing a coconut tree, Crifo said, is a big deal in New Caledonia; everyone has their own technique.)

“Miyamoto always said that Zelda stemmed from his childhood, exploring caves and roaming the woods,” Crifo said. ,tachiya It was created with the same inspiration behind it. We have similar roots in that sense, which evolved into very similar plants.”