Final Fantasy XV director says that Zelda: Breath of the Wild could be a major inspiration on his next project

With Final Fantasy XV starting to move into Square Enix's rearview mirror, Game Director Hajime Tabata has been talking recently about what's coming next. We aren't expected to see or hear anything about it for some time, mainly since it's supposed to be a game for the next console generation. However, Tabata did reveal a small nugget to Gamespot during PAX West that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild could have a significant influence on its direction.

When talking about Breath of the Wild, he said, "I've heard a lot from the dev team and their reactions to having played it. But just from hearing the stories and the feedback, you know, we can tell that it's a really complete game."

He continued:

"It's very polished, almost a perfect game in that regard. And our goals are probably to take that experience that players felt with Breath of the Wild, but with our own technology and our own know-how.

We have in our disposal to create a very, very high-quality game with a strong visual element to it, while creating a world that's really immersive and really beautiful. That's probably our goals in terms of what we want to be with our next project."

"Complete game" is a pretty accurate assessment of Nintendo's modern masterpiece. The way its massive world so naturally lends itself to discovering its many nooks and crannies by always teasing something over the horizon is next level design. Expect Breath of the Wild to define the playbook for Open World games for years to come.

That said, Tabata would not specify if the entirety of the next project would be open world (like Final Fantasy XV wasn't), but stated that he wanted to make sure that the ability for players to dive into a "massive area" would be in it.

[Gamespot]