“The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – New Info on Gameplay, Development, and More”

Friday’s release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom brought with it a lot of new information and findings. Interesting facts about the new Zelda are coming at us from all sides, and it would be a shame to ignore them. As we are not fans of the world of Hyrule, it is naturally not within our power to capture everything individually and devote a separate article to each report, otherwise we would not write about anything else for a few days. But it is certainly worth paying attention to at least telegraphically summarize the most important things from the last few days.

Zelda as the main controllable heroine

Before the release of Tears of the Kingdom, there was a lot of speculation as to whether Zelda would have a more active role in the novel, as fans often wish. It does not look like that. But the authors do not rule out that we could play as Zelda in the future. Producer Eiji Aonuma in an interview for a magazine Vanity Fair stated that gameplay is most important to developers. And if some kind of gameplay turns out to be better suited for Zelda in the lead in the future, they could go in that direction. But it’s still too early for that, because according to Aonum, naturally, at this point, the team doesn’t know what the next installment will be. It’s worth remembering that a playable Zelda appeared in the Hyrule Warriors spin-off, or the damned non-canonical Zelda’s Adventure from 1996 by Viridis Corporation for the Philips CD-i.

The Ascend ability was originally only for developers

From a magazine interview Polygon it turned out that one of Ascend’s new abilities, which allows the player to float through the ceiling of a room or cave to a higher floor, was actually created as a debug cheat for the developers. It’s said to be Aonum’s favorite new skill, as he says he likes to cheat in gameplay and likes to find places to use it. Game director Hidemaro Fujibayashi then revealed that it was not originally intended for players to the full version. But then it occurred to them that this trick would actually be useful in the game. Which, of course, brought with it additional challenges and difficulties. When the authors allow the player to walk through the ceiling basically anywhere, they also had to take a number of things into consideration. For example, it was necessary to make sure that the players would be able to continue and that they would not encounter any problems. The result is fun, but according to the authors, it took a lot of time to implement properly.

The Legend of Zelda movie? The authors would be interested in that

In the same interview, there is also a little bit about a possible film adaptation. The authors of the game are asked if the recent success of the animation with Mario can somehow encourage the chance of a similar picture with Link and Zelda. Aonuma openly said that was something he would be interested in. But it doesn’t matter, according to him, naturally only on him. Fujibayashi commented that maybe the response of the fans can play an important role in this matter…

Copied sticker in limited edition style

The company Dbrand also rode on the popularity of the new Zelda, in a rather unorthodox way, as pointed out by the magazine VGC. The infamous maker of unofficial PS5 skins, who once fell out with Sony, has released Tears of the Kingdom-style decals for the Switch, Joy-Con, and dock. Cheekily named set Clone of the Kingdom is not a distant inspiration, but describes the design from the recent official limited edition direct from Nintendo. Although they differ in detail, at first glance one might think they are the same motif and product. In The Power of Plagiarism section of the official website, Dbrand questions the high price of the new limited edition Switch and offers its own solution. For $50, you can have a full set of unofficial decals for the classic Switch, the OLED model, and even Valve’s Steam Deck. The crown is then put on the message on the print of the dock, which can be translated from cryptic symbols as: “GO FUCK YOURSELF LAWYERS”

Source: Nintendo/Dbrand

Aonuma finished the new game twenty times

In an interview that appeared directly on the website Nintendo, Eiji Aonuma revealed that he played Tears of the Kingdom from start to finish about twenty times. According to him, the detours are even more interesting this time than in the last game, and if you don’t just follow the main story, you will discover a completely new game, according to Aonuma. In his own words, he was surprised at what a person can do.

The Wii U was limiting the development of Breath of the Wild

In the same interview, however, it is also heard that Breath of the Wild, which was in development for the aging Wii U in addition to the Switch, meant that the developers sometimes had to limit themselves. Takuhiro Dohta stated that there were a number of ideas that they wanted to implement, but it would not be technically possible. Therefore, the work on Tears of the Kingdom started with the authors starting to put together a list of ideas that they could not implement in the previous game.

Other interesting things are worth mentioning from the shorter reports. Perhaps the development of Tears of the Kingdom participated Japanese studio Monolith Soft. Princess Zelda voice actress Patricia Summersett again she recalled, that when she went to the casting for the first time, she didn’t know what the role was. All she knew was that it was some princess in a fantasy world.