https://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-skyrim-influenced-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/1100-6455780/

When you think about massive, open-world, systems-heavy games, there's a good chance Skyrim and Zelda: Breath of the Wild come to mind. In spite of six years between them, they share a lot in common: they're enormous RPGs with ambient activity everywhere, secrets to discover, and hidden areas to complete. As it turns out, this isn't a coincidence. The Breath of the Wild developer was, in fact, inspired partly by Skyrim.

We recently sat down with game director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and producer Eiji Aonuma to discuss the genesis of Breath of the Wild and how the developer pulled off such a huge game. They explained that they didn't look to other titles for elements or features to pull from them. In fact, Fujibayashi doesn't actually play that many games at all.