Nintendo compares original Legend of Zelda to Breath of the Wild, showing how far series has come

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will tear up the Zelda rulebook that's been established since 1997's Ocarina of Time, offering up a much more open game with new elements of survival. For all it changes and introduces, however, the game is also harking back to the original NES game in a big way.

Developer Nintendo has addressed this in a post directly comparing screenshots and in-game landmarks between the 1986 adventure and Breath of the Wild for Wii U and Nintendo Switch.

These include the famous sequence from the original when hero Link meets an old man, who offers him a sword and says "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this.".

In Breath of the Wild, another old man introduces Link and the player to the Great Plateau, "birthplace of the entire kingdom of Hyrule". He then directs the player to the Temple of Time, and later appears to task the player with a quest that will eventually lead Link out of the starting location.

The old man was seen in the extensive look at gameplay Nintendo live-streamed during E3 2016 in June, where Nintendo fully revealed the game for the first time.

Other screenshots, embedded below, show off the recreation of "Glasses Rock" from the 30-year-old original, as well as comparisons between the use of log rafts in both games and the recurrence of the original game's skull shape in the open world.

This skull shape takes the form of an enemy hideout – and the article describes a method for dispatching of the goblins within, quickly. Make a note of that.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will launch in 2017, and is expected to be a launch title for Nintendo Switch – the gaming giant's new home and handheld hybrid console.

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