Zelda producer was against using the word Triforce in Echoes of Wisdom, led to Prime Energy

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom features the use of the Triforce for its story, but rather than actually calling it that, the game uses “Prime Energy” instead. The developers have now shared noteworthy information about the decision to use a different name.

The Trifroce is one of the more iconic elements of the Zelda series. However, Nintendo and Grezzo made the active choice to avoid using that word. In fact, series producer Eiji Aonuma was specifically opposed to using the Triforce. Aonuma indicated that “Triforce” brings along certain expectations, and that’s also why the team “purposefully made the setting and time ambiguous.”

You can read our translation of what Aonuma and co-director Satoshi Terada shared about the Prime Energy / Triforce as it relates to the story in Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom in a Famitsu interview below. If you haven’t completed the game, you may want to come back to this later.

As for the story, the Triforce returns with the name ‘Prime Energy’. Recently in the Zelda series we’ve been seeing the Triforce less. Has its existence become this ‘Prime Energy’ thing that the development team is hesitant to touch?

Aonuma: I was the one who said “Get the Triforce out” this time!

Terada: It had become necessary. For the story we simply had to include the Triforce.

Aonuma: It’s the same with the point about Link not being able to speak that I touched upon earlier. For a long time now the Triforce, and the relationship between Zelda, Link, and Ganon forms a base, without which nothing could form. So we discussed the fact that the story focused on acquiring the Triforce. However, if we went ahead and simply went with ‘the story of the Triforce’, since the image we have created up until now of what the Triforce is so strong, one would automatically imagine the story must have the same structure and flow.

So instead, we purposefully made the setting and time ambiguous. It wasn’t a situation where the king, royal family, and everyone already knew about the Triforce, and in fact even the word had been forgotten. Instead it was a setting where all that remains is a vague legend of something called the ‘Prime Energy’ that sleeps in the world, which allowed us to greatly expand the adventure. So, we avoided the word ‘Triforce’ in the story. But then I suppose it does later appear big and clear to anyone that it clearly is the Triforce (laughs). But at that point, when you see it hopefully you think ‘I knew it!’

As for what Aonuma was referencing above about Link speaking, the original plan was for the character to in fact talk before the team went in a different direction. You can read more about that here.

Those interested in Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom can pick it up now on Nintendo Switch.

Translation provided by SatsumaFS, Philip Proctor, and Simon Griffin on behalf of Nintendo Everything.