Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was actually done a year ago, but held for fans

Eiji Aonuma, the franchise director for Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda franchise, says Tears of the Kingdom – The Legend of ZeldaIt was actually ready for release more than a month ago but was kept for polishing to ensure that nothing would disappoint fans when it launched.

In a revealing interview with the Washington Post, Aonuma says his development team was caught off-guard by a perceived lack of enthusiasm — a remarkable observation considering the level of anticipation for Tears — In response to Nintendo’s second gameplay trailer released in February. Aonuma led a demonstration of 13 minutes at the beginning of March.

“People had not gotten their heads around the gameplay elements or where the fun might be,” Aonuma tells the Post. The March Nintendo Direct had a major purpose: to clarify. Tears of Kingdom’s signature machine-making gameplay mechanism, where players construct their own devices to solve puzzles and progress through the game.

That emerged from the meta-game that Aonuma observed in players of 2017’s The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild as they went back into the game, years after its release, to develop creative means to overcome boss fights or traverse the game’s enormous open world.

There are other details from the discussion worth reading but, in sum, it’s interesting in that Aonuma understands (as good software developers do) that he is not his user; in games, a creative builds things to respond to the audience interest, even if they might seem whimsical. And perhaps Tears of Kingdom The franchise could have started in March 2022. However, a poor release would have caused a lot of damage, especially given how much attention this franchise has received and how passionate its fans are.

Polygon spoke with Aonuma, as well as Hidemaro Fubayashi the game director. The Legend of ZeldaTears Of The Kingdom launched May 12, and the two mentioned a lot of the same themes: it’s a game of big swings, but one that still takes them very seriously and very carefully.