You may take a look at Tchia and recall Hyperlink’s glider in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. You may additionally be reminded of the open water crusing from The Wind Waker. However developer Awaceb co-founder Phil Crifo thinks there’s a greater comparability: Grand Theft Auto.
“Regardless that it’s very completely different by way of tone and theme, I feel the way in which [GTA developer Rockstar] is ready to construct fictional worlds based mostly on actual locations, and take these actual locations and make them get the essence of a spot constructed right into a online game world, has been an actual inspiration for the way in which we handled our rendition of New Caledonia,” Crifo instructed Polygon.
In 2023, Polygon is embarking on a Zeldathon. Be part of us on our journey by means of The Legend of Zelda sequence, from the unique 1986 recreation to the discharge of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and past.
Tchia, the brand new open-world recreation a few little one exploring the wilderness, is ready in a fictional model of New Caledonia, a small island nation within the Southwest Pacific. It’s the place Crifo and a number of other different members of the event group grew up; all of the voice actors are native to the island, too. Rockstar has lengthy created fictional stand-ins for precise locations, like Liberty Metropolis (New York), San Andreas (California), Vice Metropolis (Miami), or Los Santos (Los Angeles). For the builders at Awaceb, making an open-world playground meant drawing inspiration from Rockstar’s capacity to transmute actual geography into enjoyable.
“Once you grew up taking part in GTA with your mates, everybody had that second whenever you’re like, ‘Are you able to think about if GTA was happening in our hometown?’” Crifo mentioned. “We did somewhat little bit of that with Tchia.”
As an alternative of drug sellers and weapons, nonetheless, Tchia is in regards to the titular little one and her capacity to rework into something in her atmosphere — rocks, a digital camera, a chicken, or a bit of flaming coal. Kind of like if Grand Theft Auto 5’s Trevor Philips may flip right into a baseball bat or a stained T-shirt.
Crifo mentioned creating New Caledonia in Tchia was much less about nailing the geography, and extra about invoking the spirit of the archipelago. “What’s the vibe? What’s it like residing there? What are individuals like? What are the nitty gritty particulars that give it a scent, a style. It’s very difficult to do,” Crifo mentioned. Tchia is filtered by means of the lens of a fantasy childhood in New Caledonia, dripping with the islands’ tradition and influences. It’s journey and exploration and nostalgia wrapped up in a singular tradition.
It’s that childhood sense of surprise, then, that evokes the Legend of Zelda comparability. Regardless that Crifo mentioned he’s not a Legend of Zelda superfan, Breath of the Wild sparked concepts for Tchia’s growth, like its choreographed landmarks or its glider, which permits Tchia to drift over large swaths of land. Awaceb is a group of 12, so reaching the dimensions or grandeur of Breath of the Wild wasn’t an possibility. However it nonetheless manages to evoke a powerful sense of place, nonetheless.
Tchia’s defining attribute is its tactile nature, Crifo mentioned. You’ll be able to have Tchia contact issues, decide them up, throw them. However it’s also possible to turn into them, and really feel the burden of an object’s motion. This shape-shifting enhances the music and devices in Tchia, which use precise chords in rhythm minigames. Awaceb wished gamers to have the ability to really feel the essence of the place; Crifo pointed to climbing coconut timber. There’s a weight to Tchia because the branches sway and dip the upper she will get. You’ll be able to really feel the snap and fling when she makes use of the tree as a catapult to get world wide. (Coconut tree climbing, Crifo mentioned, is a giant factor in New Caledonia; everybody’s received their very own method.)
“Miyamoto all the time mentioned that Zelda stems from his childhood, exploring caves and roaming across the wilderness,” Crifo mentioned. “Tchia was constructed with the exact same inspiration behind it. Now we have comparable roots in that sense, which grew into very comparable crops.”