Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was almost called Zelda: Tears of the Dragon

Nintendo has spoken about the name for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and revealed that there was strong consideration for calling it Tears of the Dragon instead.

That tidbit comes from Eiji Aonuma, the game’s producer. Aonuma was speaking about Tears of the Kingdom in the newly-released art book, indicating that the Tears of the Dragon name could cause issues since it would “emphasize the Light Dragon”. Only after another member of the team suggested “Kingdom” that the final title materialized.

You can read our full translation below (some spoilers for those who haven’t played the game).

“Letting it slip that the Light Dragon is Zelda would have been a problem, and this had an effect on the title too. One of the candidates for the title that made it to end was ‘Tears of the Dragon’.

But it would be a bad idea to have the keyword ‘Dragon’ in the title, and we wanted to have dragon patterns in the logo, but decided otherwise. It’d emphasize the Light Dragon, after all (laughs). But nothing else good was coming to mind, and we were running out of development time…

We went through many words, and then one time a staff member suggested, ‘What about Kingdom?’. With ‘Tears of the Kingdom’, it felt like the phrase could connect to the Light Dragon to us, and we could use dragons in the logo. With the title decided, the logo finally became what it is now.”

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available on Switch worldwide, and we have coverage on the art book here. You can also grab a copy of the book directly here.

Are you glad Nintendo ultimately decided to use the Tears of the Kingdom name? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.

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