'The Legend of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom' uses the same map as 'The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild' because they still had "new ideas" they wanted to explore from the predecessor.
On why the interactive Hyrule map is unchanged in the sequel, series producer Eiji Aonuma explained during an interview with the game's development team: "Although the previous title, The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, has its own conclusion, we started to come up with new ideas that we wanted to bring to life in this already realised version of Hyrule, so our direction in making a sequel did not change."
The title's director Hidemaro Fujibayashi further explained: "Just like somewhere you know inside and out, we understand where everything is in Hyrule from Breath Of The Wild, and because of that, we believed it was possible to create new gameplay.
"For this reason, in the initial proposal, we clearly stated, 'The setting will not change’ as an important concept. Even when I shared this with the team members here, there were no objections, and we were all aligned on that idea from that point onward."
Technical director Takuhiro Dohta said that knowledge of the previous game is going to be useful for the sequel.
He explained: "If a location were completely unfamiliar to you, you’d probably be hesitant to dive down from the sky, but because it’s a world that you’ve already explored in the previous game, these transportation methods make sense."
However, it's not vital, with Anonuma stating: "The new gameplay ideas we packed into this title are all things that can be solved intuitively, so I think first-time players can rest assured that this game is easy to get into."
Fujibayashi added: "The same goes for the story too. We put in some effort to make sure that it feels comfortable for both first-time players and those with experience of the previous game.
"For example, we’ve prepared a character profile feature that players can see anytime during their adventure, so it’s easy to understand the relationship between characters, even without knowledge from the previous title."
'The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom' launches for Nintendo Switch on Friday (12.05.23).
