One of my favorite things about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are the small Koroks tucked away in various parts of the world, waiting to be discovered. They exist as a secondary challenge to the exploring player, a reward for the inquisitive that provides far more than just another step towards an expanded inventory. There's something incredibly gratifying about wandering from the beaten path towards a peculiar flower or lonely rock and finding a hidden Korok. It's the kind of collectible that I'll never stop pausing my adventure to uncover, even long after Calamity Ganon has been defeated and the world of Hyrule has been returned to peace.
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Of course, there's so many of the reclusive creatures that it's practically impossible to find them all, which means players dedicated to completing 100% of Breath of the Wild will definitely have their work cut out for them - at least until the Korok Mask is released.
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The Mask, which was announced earlier this year as part of the game's first major DLC pack, will function as a type of "Korok-detector" by vibrating and making noise whenever Link comes close to a hidden Korok. As part of the countdown to the DLC's launch, Nintendo has started posting additional information about the expansion's contents, providing bonus trivia and added details about each new item in developer posts on the game's website.
The post for the Korok Mask has been particularly interesting. For example: The Mask is obviously modeled after a Korok, but this Korok in particular is from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which released way back in 2002 for the GameCube.
The post went into detail about how the original inception behind the idea of the Koroks in Breath of the Wild, stating that:
"There are many suspicious locations in this vast world of Hyrule. So during development, we started saying things like, "It would be fun to discover something if it were placed at a location like this, don't you think?" Initially, we placed some random rocks in spots like these, just as an experiment."
The developers would decide that random rocks were neither intriguing enough nor particularly challenging, eventually resulting in the decision to instead hide small Koroks scattered around Hyrule's more remote areas. It's an insightful look into Nintendo's development process for their games, hinting at a level of passion for the company's projects that isn't associated with many other studios.
The most interesting bit of trivia comes from the original placeholder for the Koroks. The developers used a small stone object, which longtime fans of the franchise should have no trouble recognizing.
Via Zelda.com
Via Zelda.com
It's actually the pedestal from which players withdrew the Master Sword in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
Check out the next DLC countdown post for information about the pack's Phantom Armor set, which will arrive with the rest of the content on June 30th. Stay tuned to Nintendo's official Twitter account for constant updates about Breath of the Wild, as well as any future news about the rest of the company's upcoming projects.
