Eiji Aonuma Questions Fans Who Want A Return To More Traditional Zelda Games

For all the praise and accolades showered on Tears of the Kingdom this year, one can’t ignore the clamor, from at least a portion of fans, for a more traditional Zelda experience in the vein of Skyward Sword, Twilight Princess, and Ocarina of Time. The “open-air” formula of both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom has certainly been a winning one for Nintendo, but — whether due to dissatisfaction with those games, feelings of nostalgia, or something else — the desire to return to the past formula remains strong in the community.

During a recent interview with IGN, Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma and Tears of the Kingdom director Hidemaro Fujibayashi touched on the freeform nature of their latest release. Aonuma, in discussing the possibility for players to experience the game’s story out of order, declared that “games where you need to follow a specific set of steps or complete tasks in a very set order are kind of the games of the past.”

This response prompted IGN’s Kat Bailey to bring up calls from within the Zelda fanbase for a return to traditional gameplay:

It’s interesting to hear you say that because one of the discussions that I’ve seen among Zelda fans is, “Gosh, I miss the more traditional linear Zelda of the past.” And I’m wondering, how do you feel about that given the direction of the series toward a very free-form, open-ended kind of design?

Aonuma: Well, I do think we as people have a tendency to want the thing that we don’t currently have, and there’s a bit of a grass is greener mentality. But I also think that with the freedom players have in the more recent games in the series…there still is a set path, it just happens to be the path that they chose. So I think that that is one thing I kind of like to remind myself about the current games that we’re making.

But also, it’s interesting when I hear people say those things because I am wondering, “Why do you want to go back to a type of game where you’re more limited or more restricted in the types of things or ways you can play?” But I do understand that desire that we have for nostalgia, and so I can also understand it from that aspect.

“The grass is always greener,” is certainly a sentiment I recognize in the Zelda community.

The discussion of old vs. new then turned to the topic of dungeons:

Speaking personally, I really enjoyed Tears of the Kingdom’s design, and I think a lot of people were grateful for the much more intricate dungeons. I think why a lot of fans valued Ocarina of Time and games like that were the clever dungeons that felt like a very crafted, very deliberate experience. And with Breath of the Wild, especially initially, the dungeons felt quite a bit simpler by comparison…but I think there’s sort of a hunger for those very classic dungeons like the Water Temple and things like that.

Aonuma: That was kind of our intention with Tears of the Kingdom, as you mentioned, which was to put a bit more density or thoughtfulness into the design of the dungeons in the game. I mean, when we think of Breath of the Wild, one of our guiding principles was to rethink the conventions of the series, and that applied to our thinking about dungeons as well. So we kind of broke apart our previous assumptions about the way we’ve made dungeons so far with that game. And I think the result was simpler approach that you saw in dungeons in that game.

But then we did hear the desire from fans for a bit more of a designed dungeon, and that led to our approach to dungeons for Tears of the Kingdom. And so as we proceed, whenever we’re making a game, we look back at our past and then consider where we are now with the freedom that we give to the player in these games.

One of my favorite dungeons was the Wind Temple in which you climb steadily into a storm and eventually make your way into the actual dungeon, and then the boss. I was flying and diving onto it, and I don’t think I ever actually landed. It was a thrilling proof of Tears of the Kingdom’s sky theme, and it felt very connected to the world, and it felt far more elaborate compared to Breath of the Wild. I thought it was a really magnificent accomplishment. Tell me a little bit about making it.

Fujibayashi: So, first of all, I’m very happy that you liked that and that was your favorite. That makes me very, very happy. So because this is probably the first dungeon that players are going to encounter and experience, we wanted to make sure that this was representative of the gameplay experience of the entire game And as you mentioned, the idea was that to not land. And so we had been calling this the aerial battle, and within that aerial battle, thinking about how we would use arrows or like you said, dive and use your body to attack. We just really spend a lot of time thinking about what kinds of scenarios we could put in here that would make aerial battles feel good, feel right.

And like I mentioned, the idea of diving and using your body, or using bows and arrows against the big enemy, these were all new experiences… things that the player hadn’t been able to do at that time. And so what we took a lot of time and effort doing was making sure that on the player’s journey to that boss, that they learned the things that they needed to do to defeat this boss.

By being able to provide players with the slight obstacles that they can learn and grow on their path to that boss, they can have this grand experience. And again, that was a lot of hard work.

The interview ended with a bit of reflection by Aonuma regarding the future of both his career and the Zelda series as a whole:

Aonuma-san, after Skyward Sword’s launch, you said you were growing tired of the Zelda formula and you wanted to change it. You also said you continued returning so that you could retire with no regrets. Following the success of both the Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, do you feel like you’ve achieved your goal to leave your mark on Zelda? Or do you still have unfinished business with the franchise?

Aonuma: Wow, did I really say that? I don’t remember clearly all the things I said in the past, but I’ll trust you on that…So in creating Zelda, there are times when you’re doing the same thing in the same field over and over. There are times where you wonder, am I going to be doing this over and over, how am I going to continue doing this?

Yeah, and at times like that, I think it is really good to be surrounded by a staff like Mr. Fujibayashi and the team that we have who will… they can make all sorts of suggestions and suggest new types of things that I think we can carry forward in the series as we go. And that is one of the things that happened this time as well with Tears of the Kingdom. Thinking back on the past, I worked as a director in the series, and that was a difficult role; where it’s on you to determine what will be the main features; what direction to take the game.

Now I’m in the role of a producer, so those difficult decisions may be with the rest of the team now, but I’m really looking forward to going forward and being with them… working with them together… as we think about the future of the series in my role as a producer. And so, yes, I do think there is still a lot of fun for us to be had with the series as we go forward.

Aonuma and Fujibayashi have stated elsewhere that they are already looking forward to the next Zelda game, and they have ruled out the possibility of another sequel in the world of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Hopefully the direction they ultimately decide to move in pleases the entire spectrum of Zelda fans.

How do you feel about Aonuma’s statements above? Are you excited or deflated by The Legend of Zelda‘s future? Let us know in the comments.

Source: IGN

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