A new “Ask the Developer” interview from Nintendo goes over The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom development process. It’s part of a series of interviews about the upcoming game with people like Producer Eiji Aonuma, Director Hidemaro Fujibayashi, Technical Director Takuhiro Dohta, Art Director Satoru Takizawa, and Sound Director Hajime Wakai. This first part is dedicated to members of the team talking about how the goal during development was always to create a The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel with Tears of the Kingdom.
Aonuma started out by saying ahead of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel development, the team wanted to see “if we could make it possible for players to continue exploring the world after they’ve reached the game’s ending” with Tears of the Kingdom. He then noted that “we started to come up with new ideas that we wanted to bring to life in this already realized version of Hyrule, so our direction in making a sequel did not change.” Fujibayashi followed that up by saying when they started to begin work, “ in the initial proposal, we clearly stated ‘the setting will not change’ as an important concept.”
Some of the additional concepts also came up. The team specifically mentioned the ability to go from the sky to the ground and back again. They also cited the ability to dive from above to below. Aonuma and Fujibayashi also noted this entry will still be welcoming to old and new players, with Fujibayashi specifically referencing the Character Profile option to find out who people are.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will come to the Nintendo Switch on May 12, 2023.
