With just days to go before the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo has published a brand-new instalment of their “Ask the Developer” interview series. This time around the interview was all about Tears of the Kingdom and had the likes of Eiji Aonuma answering the many questions that were out before him and other members of the development team.
During the interview, Dohta and Fujibayashi were asked about the gameplay changes we can expect to experience in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom:
Zelda Devs on Creating New Gameplay Mechanics for Tears of the Kingdom:
Takuhiro Dohta: ” In contrast, we made some fairly big changes to the gameplay. In The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, if players wanted to travel from the the sky to the ground, they had to select it from the map, but in this game, you can dive from the sky directly to the ground without any interruption.
On top of that, players can also ride on flying vehicles and so on, offering even more freedom within the same setting as the previous game. If a location were completely unfamiliar to you, you’d probably be hesitant to dive down from the sky, but because it’s a world that you’ve already explored in the previous game, these transportation methods make sense.
Adding the ability to dive from the sky was also partly due to Aonuma-san and Fujibayashi-san’s persistence, right?”
Hidemaro Fujibayashi: “Yeah. I’ve wanted to make this happen ever since The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Thinking how satisfying it’d be to dive from the sky and jump directly into the water. In this title, diving is not just about enjoying an exhilarating, seamless means of travel, but it also brings more value as a tool for gathering infomation about the surface by surveying it from above.”
For the full interview, why not click here to check out Ask the Developer Vol. 9, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Chapter 1.
Ask the Developer | The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Participating Developers)
- Eiji Aonuma | Senior Officer, Entertainment Planning & Development Division (Producer)
- Hidemaro Fujibayashi | Entertainment Planning & Development Department, Production Group No.3 (Director)
- Takuhiro Dohta | Entertainment Planning & Development Department, Programming Management Group (Technical Director)
- Satoru Takizawa | Entertainment Planning & Development Department, Design Management Group (Art Director)
- Hajime Wakai | Entertainment Planning & Development Department, Sound Management Group (Sound Director)
