A conversation with The Legend of Zelda: tears of the kingdom

Tears of the Kingdom: A Game-Theoretic Perspective on The Legend of Zelda: The Adventures of Link and the Blue Pig-God

Five years ago, Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and took a huge risk. In keeping with the style of play that’s popular in the game industry, it made Hyrule an “open world” where you can play as many characters as you want. Breath of the Wild sold 29 million copies, more than every other 3D Zelda game combined. It received perfect scores from all the critics it was critiqued against. Streamers are trying new ways to play.

Let’s shift gears and talk about the story for a little bit. Tears of the Kingdom feels like a different game to Breath of the Wild in that it’s in its own narrative space. What important elements were you looking for in Tears of the Kingdom that weren’t included in Breath of the Wild?

Tears’ story begins several years after Zelda and Link obliterated the blue pig-god Ganon. The duo are exploring a rocky network of tunnels deep beneath Hyrule Castle. There, they use torchlight to look at hieroglyphs depicting an alliance between the ancient civilization of Hylians and the demon king. (Guess who?!)

A skeleton with red hair is one much livelier than a typical skeletons, because they disturb it deeper into the cave. After a cataclysm, Hyrule Castle explodes skyward, and Link, inevitably, loses Zelda and all but three of his 20 hearts. He wakes to find that someone has performed some ramshackle surgery, replacing his hand with a black claw, and that he is high high up, among stone islands speckling the sky.

Whereas Breath offers players the surface of the world to play in, Tears adds the sky. Link can skydive anywhere, even if the clouds clear at the end of the training island. Hayao’s love of flight is something that runs deep in this newest iteration of the game. In the previous game, players climbed the map towers. Now they bungee to the heavens, Link scanning the area for landmarks with his ancient Nintendo Switch (we mean Sheikah Slate, obviously).

Link’s descent does not stop with the ground. Across Hyrule, pits have belched out of the earth, oozing pink and black sludge, known as Gloom. They look bottomless but they are gateways to the depths of TOTK, a dark world that is pitch black. The deep shadow initially worried me, but Link must drive out the darkness with Brightbloom seeds, which burst into light when planted, and Lightroots, which permanently illuminate the surrounding area. They reveal a land—steeped in eerie navies and heather-purple—of mines, mountains and monsters, almost the same size as Hyrule.

What brought them to tears? Eiji Aonuma and Eiji Fujibayashi: Two Conversations about their connection with the game Tears of the Kingdom

That knowledge, Aonuma and Fujibayashi told me during a recent conversation, was what gave them both the confidence to trust in some of their wilder creative instincts as they began working on Tears of the Kingdom. The pair explained that the trust they relied on was what led to the next wild thing.

This interview was conducted through interpreters. The transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity. As a spoiler warning, this interview also includes some details from Tears of the Kingdom’s story that you might want to avoid if you haven’t dug into the game yet.

Eiji Aonuma. We knew we were creating a world that would have many different objects, tools and items for the people to interact with, and we wanted to have a function in the game where you could combine things. Through interacting with all of the things we were filling the world with, we wanted people to have this feeling along the lines of, “Oh, I was able to do this! What would happen if I tried this? We wanted to kind of put players’ imaginations to work — to get you thinking proactively from your own end about what might be possible.

We’re hoping that people will have that creative thinking process over and over again as they play through the game, and maybe even that they will carry that kind of thinking — that creativity and expanded imagination — into their real lives.

We wanted newcomers to have the same sense of awe and excitement as if they were playing Breath of the Wild, but obviously this time with Tears of the Kingdom.

HF: One of the core ideas of Tears of the Kingdom is this idea of being able to build things. After Breath of the Wild we came up with one of the first core ideas. We started to see people uploading wild movies of people doing crazy things, and I realized we were probably going in the right direction. This isn’t the wrong direction.” I felt that it provided me with confidence to move forward with the plan we had for Tears of the Kingdom.

That idea of looking for the next wild thing, the next joyful thing, the next surprise is something that the team really gets a lot of joy and happiness out of. With Breath of the Wild, they were able to get the confidence that it’s okay to take these kinds of risks. So, it really wasn’t about worrying about whether this risk is okay or not, but instead, “What’s the next surprise we can provide?” which made development a really joyful experience.

EA: One thing we definitely observed with Breath of the Wild was people taking pride in the things they accomplished and finding their own playstyle, creating videos, and uploading them to social media. In that, I think you could see that people had this strong feeling of like, “This is the way I play, and I found this. This is my own unique kind of accomplishment within the game.” We were happy to see that because we made a game with a lot of elements and tools in order to have that kind of experience. Seeing those things charged us up with the energy to put even more of those types of elements into Tears of the Kingdom and to fill the game with more and more tools that would surprise people and allow them to find their own playstyle and feel that uniqueness in playing the game their way.

Once we set upon that, there wasn’t really a problematic issue of like “is this going to be the right way forward or not,” but instead, I think we really had the confidence that we were making a game around a solid idea, and that gave us the confidence to go forward.

HF: You mentioned the physics engine, and it’s exactly as you described. We used to talk about the idea of a kind of fake physics. For example, if something is big, then it must have more power. If the thing is big, then it must move more. It doesn’t have to be physics, but we try to make it feel right when you look at it or experience it, and that is something that we put a lot of time and focus into.

With the experience of Breath of the Wild, people have come to understand what physics are in this world. There were a lot of ideas we felt we could have added to Breath of the Wild but might not have been as fun. But with the sequel, because we’re going back to the same world, we thought this might be the great opportunity to add these things in. It’s the concept of going to some place that you’re super familiar with; you know, where you’ve been, and yet being able to experience new gameplay because of these new uses of the physics engine. That’s something that was present in the very early stages of planning for this project.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/23721063/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-interview-aonuma-fujibayashi

Observer-Tears of the Kingdom: When Breath of the Wild Developed, It Started to Fly in a Very Slow Tempo

When Breath of the Wild was being developed, monitor testing was important because it helped you determine aspects of towers difficulty that were tripping players up or exactly the right type of difficulty that you wanted. What kind of insight did monitor testing reveal as you were building Tears of the Kingdom?

HF: With the Zonai gear, we had a group of people that have very, very rich imaginations, and so they would create a lot of devices that were kind of infinitely powered and infinitely looping. Someone would say that they can fly forever. Is this… Okay? We had assumed that this would happen, but we were a little surprised that it could be done so easily.

It was part of the game experience to be able to find a solution yourself, so we didn’t want to squash it all together. But at the same time, if we were to let everything fly, then it might have kind of broken the game. So, there was an unexpected difficulty in really trying to figure out where the limit was and how to adjust that limit, such that it really provides people with the room to expand and push their creative envelope but at the same time keep the game balance so that it actually functions as a game as well.

I kind of serve as the lower end of that spectrum because we are speaking about observing difficulty and adjusting difficulty based on monitor testing. [laughing] I test to make sure that someone like myself can get through something at all, and if I can clear it, then we know it’s not too hard for the lower end of the spectrum of players. There are many players who are willing to go deep, experiment, and try out the limits on what we can do. When we discovered through monitor testing that this game could support that full breadth of players and that people across that entire spectrum can play and safely get through the game, that was the moment we knew Tears of the Kingdom was really coming together.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/23721063/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-interview-aonuma-fujibayashi

What is Princess Zelda going through in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom? EA: The genesis and development of the story of the Legend of Zel’dovich

HF: I think the kind of major theme from Breath of the Wild was the struggles of Princess Zelda and the growth she goes through and what accomplishments she achieves and what kind of a person she becomes. We focused on having this as a single title at the time of Breath of the Wild. But as we started to think about a sequel, the natural next step we thought people would wonder about is, “What’s Zelda going to do next?” So that was kind of a core theme that we were wanting to tackle with this new entry.

We wanted to explore what that means more specifically and more practically through the idea of hands and hands being hand-in-hand, whether it’s characters holding hands or Link using his hands to activate some of its abilities. This hand concept really evolves into this idea of connecting or making connections with others. In this title, she is going back in time to meet a king, a queen, and the demon king, and so she is thinking about the path she is on. She is going through growth, experiences and figuring out what type of person she is going to be. That’s a key factor in this narrative.

EA: With the previous game, or I should actually say with the opening events of this game, I’m sure you’re aware there’s a pretty important event that takes place, and this kind of sets the stage for the story. That event also kicks off a number of great mysteries that you experience as you’re playing through the game. The key to getting those mysteries unlocked is for the player to be active. If we think back to the story of Breath of the Wild, where there were also many mysteries, but that was a story that was happening somewhat separately that you observed.

In Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, we saw the struggle of a beloved character, a character that has grown up or really come into her own. I am very excited for the players to see this grown-up, experienced zed out in her role in the game.

EA: Throughout the Legend of Zelda series, I think the relationship between the three pillar characters of Zelda, Link, and Ganon is a really important point for the stories of these games. One way the larger story was expressed in Breath of the Wild is by how Link and Zelda battled against Ganon in his calamity form.

The idea of having a newspaper and a publishing company started to evolve into there being journalists and reporters. If Link could become a journalist and do some of his own research, he could possibly make a salary from that. So, of course, we thought that this would provide an even greater opportunity for the player to be deeply involved and immersed in the world of Hyrule — this Hyrule.

HF: [laughing] This came up as an idea from one of the staffers [Satoru Takizawa] that was in charge of this section. We wanted to make sure that the information we gave to the player didn’t get into his head. We needed to find a way of somehow sharing all of this interesting detail in a natural and comfortable way. We tried to come up with many different ideas in Breath of the Wild, but we discovered that it’s really difficult to do that in a way that really feels natural and yet provides enough.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/23721063/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-interview-aonuma-fujibayashi

Sidon – A Legendary Character in the Clash of The Shining Infinity Spinors: Whom Did You Want to Be?

Compared to Link and the other video games, Ganon has always had the most creative reimagining across from game to game. Who did you want this person to be? I have to ask, did you have any discussions internally about the aesthetic of Sidon? Why is he so attractive?

From my perspective, of course there’s the understanding that Ganondorf is, of course, the evil antagonist, but he also plays almost as important a role as the main hero who stand in contrast to each other as part of this legend. So my only request I made was that because he’s such an important character at the same level as the protagonist, was to really make him a very cool, very awesome demon king.

The staff is a veteran of the franchise and has the ability to think about the needs of the entire team. There is a part of this person that is very protective of the love they have for them and their designs. My request to make him how he is really made me remember the sparkle in the person’s eyes as they heard it. Seeing that love, I was pretty sure that I could leave it to them, knowing that they’d make something out of it.