Zelda: Breath of the Wild gives players a lot of freedom and Nintendo considered giving players even more freedom through control over the weather.
In an interview with GameInformer, Breath of the Wild director Hidemaro Fujibayashi revealed an insight into a particular idea they had:
“Initially we did consider giving players control of the weather, but realised not being able to control it is much more fun. Controlling it wasn’t really fitting in this game.
In Ocarina of Time, you were in places that were just sunny or raining. That was the way the players were able to control that. Adding in the weather control would have increased the number of variables in the world.
It was more interesting to have Link against nature, not controlling it. That ended up being more natural and fun.”
Fighting nature is part of Breath of the Wild and one of the many things that make the game interesting and challenging. One could argue that less freedom in this case made for a better game.
