Link almost spoke in Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

According to the developers behind The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Link came close to speaking in the game.

Series producer Eiji Aonuma shared that information in a recent interview. While the original plan was to have Link speak in Echoes of Wisdom, co-director Satoshi Terada said that it didn’t feel right. Since he hadn’t really spoken in a game before, that also made things difficult. Having Tri as Zelda’s companion is ultimately where things took a shift.

Here’s what Aonuma and Terada shared in the interview, as published by Famitsu:

Princess Zelda doesn’t have any lines this time. Is this also to help players empathize with her?

Aonuma: Speaking of the “Legend of Zelda” series, the main character doesn’t speak. So Link doesn’t speak either. But it was difficult (laughs).

If neither Link nor Princess Zelda speaks, there’s no one to move the story forward or convey it, so it must be difficult to make…

Aonuma: That’s why we needed Tri.

Terada: Having Tri there really helped us out.

So at that point, you didn’t decide to have Link speak?

Aonuma: Actually, Link was speaking at first.

Huh!?

Terada: I had Link talk a little bit…

Aonuma: Link would never say something like that. It felt really strange (laughs).

Terada: No matter what I had to say, it just didn’t feel right.

Aonuma: Nobody knew what Link was going to say. Of course he was. He’s never spoken before (laughs). So we needed a setting where he couldn’t speak, and that’s how part of the story came about.

Would you have been interested in seeing Link speak here? Let us know in the comments.

Previously, a glitch was found that lets players play as Link. We covered that here.