Earlier this month, Nintendo announced that two of Switch's best games, Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, will receive Labo VR support via free updates on April 25. The former will get a new VR mode that consists of a handful of mini-missions, while the latter will be playable almost entirely in VR. Now the company has shared a few more details on how that'll work.
In a new post on the official Zelda website, Breath of the Wild technical director Takuhiro Dohta shed some more light on the game's upcoming Labo VR update. As previously confirmed, you'll be able to toggle the VR mode on or off at any time from the game's Options menu, even if you already have an existing save file. Once the option has been enabled, you'll need to insert the Switch console into the Labo VR Goggles to view the world of Hyrule in VR.
The game's controls and content will remain the same whether you play in 2D or 3D, but you'll be able to move the in-game camera by looking around with the VR Goggles (although this can also be toggled off from the Options menu). Dohta recommends trying the VR mode "when there's something interesting to see, like a location with a great view, a favorite character, or a favorite piece of equipment."
Dohta also shared some insight into how Breath of the Wild's VR update came to be. "The idea for this started when the Nintendo Labo development team gave us a demonstration of the VR Goggles for the first time," he wrote. "The experience was quite a surprise, and I started thinking that maybe we'd be able to do something with them in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
"First, we thought about lots of different things; locations that would be nice to see in VR, enemies that would be fun to fight… In the end, The Legend of Zelda development team reached the conclusion that, rather than change the game, we should let you play it as it is, and instead just make it so that you can use the VR Goggles to see whatever parts you want."
The Nintendo Labo VR kit is available now. The package is available in two configurations. The full suite costs $80, while the Starter Set--which comes with the Labo VR game card and the materials to build the VR Goggles and Blaster Toy-Cons--retails for $40. The remaining Toy-Cons can be purchased in $20 expansion sets. You can read more about the kit in our Labo VR review.