During ‘The Game Awards 2014’, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma showed off brand new footage of the upcoming ‘Legend of Zelda’ title for the Wii U.

In the video below, the famed game developers give a rundown of the newest ‘Legend of Zelda’ by showcasing some new gameplay of its open-world exploration.

It starts off with Link running up to the edge of a cliff where a vast world view can be seen. It is shown by Aonuma that markers can be placed anywhere on the game’s vast map, to which he then places one onto a tower seen off in the distance. He then pulls up the actual world map in the game, which looks to be one giant continent. Aonuma asserts that covering the distance between the edge of the cliff to the edge of the map itself would take a very long time to walk to.

However, it is revealed that Link won’t be on his own to trek long distances. Link’s famous horse Epona is  back this time around, and players will be able to freely ride her across the map. Aonuma showed how controlling Epona will be simple requiring little input from the player. Because of this, players are given much more freedom while riding Epona to do things like control the camera, swing Link’s sword and shoot arrows.

Lastly, Aonuma gives a glimpse at one of the game’s new abilities, which allows players to have Link vault off of Epona into bullet-time slow motion to precisely shoot enemies with arrows before he hits the ground.

Aonuma states that him and his team are working hard on the title, and that he is confident the game will release for Wii U by next year.

First announced during E3 2014, the newest entry in the ‘Legend of Zelda’ franchise is a bit of a departure from previous games. Instead of the more linear format that past games took on, the new ‘Legend of Zelda’ for the Wii U takes on more of an open-world game structure with areas being much more larger and expansive in scope.

The newest ‘Legend of Zelda’ title will release for Wii U sometime in 2015. 

Source: Nintendo