Aonuma on what changed to make Zelda: Skyward Sword HD possible

A remake of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was once deemed “close to impossible” by series producer Eiji Aonuma, but we know that Switch eventually received a new HD version. Aonuma has now commented on what changed since he made those original comments.

When Aonuma was originally speaking about a re-release of Skyward Sword in 2019, he pointed to the game’s controls as being an issue. Moving from motion controls to buttons wouldn’t be an easy task. Those problems were solved though and we did get a new Switch version a couple of years later.

When asked about changed, Aonuma told Game Informer:

“During our interview back then, I probably mentioned that it seems like it won’t be possible, but I also probably had in my head at the time that this is a challenge that we would like to take on if we had the opportunity. As you’re aware, obviously, the Nintendo Switch is a system that does feature motion controls, and the first thing we would need to accomplish in bringing Skyward Sword to the Switch will be making sure that the motion controls from the original game felt good on that system; that would be the first thing we would need to take care of. But, of course, eventually, there would be a need for us to, as you mentioned, come up with a way to make sure you can play the game without using motion control. I thought that if this was something we could accomplish and we had a good way to do it, then it would be okay to proceed with creating a remake.

So, at the time when we were having our interview, I don’t think that I probably had that idea firmly in my mind, but I’m someone who receives input from a lot of different people, and once the right idea comes to us, presents itself, or someone comes up with it, then the path kind of opens, and we’re able to proceed. I think that’s what happened this time. I think that’s what happened this time as well. That’s kind of another representation of that tenacity I mentioned previously.”

Nintendo ended up teaming up with Tantalus to create Zelda: Skyward Sword HD on Switch. The same studio was behind Zelda: Twilight Princess HD.