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, Aonuma and Takizawa discuss the limitations of Wii U and how they affected The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild compared to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom:
Zelda Devs on Wii U Limitations and Differences between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom:
Takuhiro Dohta: “Actually, the previous title, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, was originally developed for Wii U (7), so there were restrictions in development. There were a lot of ideas we wanted to implement during its development, but we made clear decisions on what we wouldn’t do in that game. For example, we decided that it wouldn’t involve flying. Then Aonuma-san kept saying, ‘If flying is out of the question, I want to dig underground!’. And we’d respond, ‘Oh no! Please don’t make us develop that too!’.”
(7) Released in 2012. A home console that features games that link the screens displayed on both the TV and the handheld Wii U GamePad.
Eiji Aonuma: “It was just my natural response when playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Like, ‘Man, I want to dig a hole right here’.”
Takuhiro Dohta: For The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, we began by compiling and implementing ideas we couldn’t include in the previous title. We wouldn’t have been able to do so had we made a completely new world, so developing in the same setting as the previous game was significant in this sense as well.
Satoru Takizawa: “The entrances to cliffside caves might be a good example.”
Takuhiro Dohta: “In the previous title, the cliffs could only be climbed up, and the cliffsides were bare.”
Satoru Takizawa: “I think that players who find a cliffside cave in this game might start wondering, “Is there one in the cliffs over there too?”. When a place – even one that’s already familiar – is augmented with something of worth, you begin to see the world in a different light. Even as the game’s developers, we started seeing the landscape in a different way while working on the game. I believe the way players explore Hyrule will change too.”
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 3.
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)
