The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is the first game to have Princess Zelda as the playable protagonist. Despite the series being supposedly about her legend, the hero has always been Link. In a Nintendo Ask the Developer interview published Tuesday, developers on the game at Grezzo explained why Link had to hit the sidelines.
While it was also just a matter of time for Zelda to star in her own game, the team also realized early on that if they wanted to go with the echoes concept — the ability to copy and paste objects into the world to use for puzzles and combat — Link couldn’t be the one with that ability. He already has a sword and shield, after all.
“We were initially thinking that Link would be the protagonist. But when we focused on the gameplay using echoes and had Link copying and pasting things into the game field, the sword and shield got in the way. If you have a sword and a shield, you can just fight using those. There’s no need to rely on the monsters’ power, right?” Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma said. “If that’s the case, it must be someone who doesn’t fight with a sword and shield, right? Who in the series would be a good fit for these powers and bring their insight to them? Well, that would have to be Princess Zelda.”
Of course, there is also the matter of finding the right game to debut Zelda as the protagonist, something the team had looked into previously based on fan feedback.
“I had been trying in vain to figure out what would really do justice to her. But when I saw the team struggling to identify the ideal protagonist for this game, I thought, this is exactly the game for her!” Aonuma continued.
But Grezzo also had another question to answer: Why would Zelda leave her castle? She’s a princess and could just send people in her place if there was a fight. The team had to come up with a threat that was so vast and wasn’t just another monster so that Zelda would have to put herself in danger to save Hyrule itself. That’s how they came up with the rifts, which not only swallow the king, but Link, and keep opening around the kingdom. We won’t delve into the increasingly complicated Zelda lore, but there also had to be a goal that made sense with what had been established previously.
All this came from the third part of the interview series. On Monday, Nintendo published parts one and two, which revealed that Echoes of Wisdom started development as a dungeon editor where players could make their own Zelda levels (which we still want), and that it would be the first Zelda game with a female director, Tomomi Sano. Echoes of Wisdom is set to release on Nintendo Switch on September 26.
Carli is a technology, culture, and games editor and journalist. They were the Gaming Lead and Copy Chief at Windows Central…
Nintendo’s next game is all about mastering NES classics
Nintendo has announced Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, a new game coming out this July that tests players’ speedrunning skills in NES classics like Super Mario Bros. and Metroid.
A successor of sorts to the NES Remix games on Wii U and 3DS, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition draws its name from a gaming competition Nintendo held in 1990 and then briefly again in the 2010s. Its reveal trailer features previous Nintendo World Championship contestants musing about the event, only to learn that it’s returning in video game form.
Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t getting DLC or a sequel from Larian, and that’s OK
Baldur’s Gate 3 game director Swen Vincke shocked fans of the Dungeons & Dragons RPG when he revealed that the critically acclaimed game would not get any expansions and that Larian Studios would not go right into making Baldur’s Gate 4. Considering how much of a runaway success Baldur’s Gate 3 has been, it seemed like that would be the most logical continuation of things. Larian isn’t the only studio to leave behind a wildly successful game either; Nintendo has confirmed The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom also won’t get any expansions.
Those might seem like baffling decisions, both from a business perspective and from the point of view of an eager player who just wants more of a thing they love. But they become a lot more understandable when you learn to view these games as complete works, appreciate the post-launch support that has happened for a game like Baldur’s Gate 3, and turn that excitement toward whatever is coming next from these developers.
A complete work
Vincke explained to IGN that Larian had actually started to do some preliminary work on Baldur’s Gate 3 DLC but that the constraints of working within D&D 5th edition meant that work “wasn’t really coming from the heart” and that the team’s passion lied with two other projects Larian wanted to make. As a result, leadership at Larian made the decision not to work on a massive expansion or sequel to Baldur’s Gate 3 for the time being, and Vincke claims the studio was “elated” by that decision. Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma offered a similar sentiment when he revealed Tears of the Kingdom wasn’t getting DLC, explaining that “we feel like we have already fully explored and exhausted the gameplay possibilities in this world” and that “the next [Zelda] game will offer a completely new experience.”
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom isn’t our Game of the Year, but it’s the strongest No. 2 ever
When we asked our writers to give us a list of their favorite games of 2023, everyone had a different game in the top spot. We saw votes for Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Alan Wake 2, Hi-Fi Rush, and even Sonic Superstars. Baldur’s Gate 3 ultimately won out, but what stuck out to me the most following that process was how, on almost everyone’s list, the same game was in that No. 2 slot: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Released by Nintendo in May after a long wait, Tears of the Kingdom would have been the industry’s unequivocal game of the year in any other year. Although its competition was too stiff in this packed year for that to be the case, that doesn’t make Tears of the Kingdom any less of an experience. In fact, I think that earning a spot near the top on almost everyone’s personal list at Digital Trends demonstrates how widely appealing Nintendo’s latest Zelda game is and that end-of-year gaming conversations should be about uplifting great games, not nitpicking their flaws to determine which one’s the best.
Recognizing great games
Tears of the Kingdom is a monumental achievement in open-world game design. It essentially has three worlds stacked on top of each other. From almost any point in Hyrule, it’s possible to stop, look around, and find several points of interest around, above, and below yourself. That alone makes it a game that consistently delivers a sense of awe and discovery, even after dozens of hours of playtime.
