Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom director used Breath of the Wild to demonstrate Link’s new abilities during early development

Nintendo has shared some interesting insight into the early development behind The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, specifically how some of Link’s new abilities were initially designed using Breath of the Wild.

Hidemaro Fujibayashi, the game’s director, came up with the idea of attaching objects. To show this to the team, he “tried creating vehicles using only the mechanisms and parts available in the previous game and presented them.”

Fujibayashi and Eiji Aonuma said in a recent interview:

Link’s abilities shown in Aonuma-san’s recent gameplay video were completely new and different from those of the last game. But when you say they have been completely redesigned, do you mean all his abilities are different?

Aonuma: Yes, they are all new. You’d be wrong if you thought the abilities were the same as before. (Laughs) In particular, one of the things that sets this title apart, the fun of attaching objects to each other, was something that Fujibayashi-san brought up in the early stages of development, saying, “This is the gameplay I want to implement in the sequel!”

Fujibayashi: Back then, I tried creating vehicles using only the mechanisms and parts available in the previous game and presented them.

For instance, I used spinning cog wheels as tires and attached four of them to a board to create a car. I also made a paddle steamer by attaching boards to those self-rotating cog wheels. By assembling stone slabs into a gun barrel and using a Remote Bomb, I also created a cannon that shoots Ancient Spheres. I attached it to a car to create a tank. (Laughs) By showing these ideas, I proposed that if Link had the ability to attach things together, we could create this new kind of gameplay using materials we already had available. This was how we came up with the idea of creating vehicles with the Ultrahand ability in this title.

You can check out footage of the prototype on the official interview page here.

Later in the interview, we get to hear more about the amount of work that went into the Ultrahand and Fuse mechanics. Aonuma again chimed in on this, along with technical director Takuhiro Dohta and art director Satoru Takizawa.

I see, so the idea of attaching objects together to create something was present from the early stages of development. Watching Aonuma-san’s gameplay video, it was intuitive and easy to understand what you can do by attaching things.

Dohta: The object-to-object combinations are something our designers and programmers put a lot of effort into adjusting because of the sheer number of variations. I want players to experiment with lots of combinations and find their favorite.

Takizawa: Not only can you attach objects with the Ultrahand ability, but you can also build weapons with the Fuse ability, so the variety of combinations is truly massive. Our staff worked hard to make special adjustments to each item to ensure players wouldn’t be disappointed and think, “This isn’t what I expected…” Thanks to their efforts, we developed lots of attractive weapons that could be created with the Fuse ability. You can create a spear that looks like the Grim Reaper’s scythe, for example.

Aonuma: But you see what looks like glue bulging out in between the attached objects, right? At first, I was shocked and thought, “What?! Are we really going with this?” (Laughs)

Takizawa: Did I just get called out…?! (Laughs) But I’m pretty sure that was the most obvious way to express whether the objects are attached or not. I’m quite confident of that. (Laughs)

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will be available on May 12, 2023.