Zelda Universe sits down with Eiji Aonuma

DANIEL ÅKERMAN: I wanted to ask, how has your relationship to the fans changed? Because, in the old days, you had to rely on market analysts and the press. But, nowadays, you have the internet, you have fan sites, you have Miiverse, where you can connect to fans directly. Has that changed your connection to the fans or your perception of the fan base?

EIJI AONUMA: It certainly has changed. When I started, the voices I was hearing were heard indirectly. Someone did a market analysis like you said, and I heard the results of that. Now, with fan sites and Miiverse, its almost as though we’re sitting in the same room, kind of like we are right now, because there’s no go-between; it’s direct. But with regard to how fan voices or fan opinion affects my daily work and my creative process, I certainly have the fans in mind when I’m creating something, and I want to create something that will make them happy, but it’s my creative responsibility to also give them something they didn’t know they wanted. An element of surprise always has to be there, because I’m a creative person; it’s my job. If I just took the opinions of fans, I’m just gathering information, I’m not creating my own ideas. In that sense, I like to leave a little bit of distance between myself and my fans, because it’s that distance that allows me the space that I need to, again, deliver something that you guys don’t expect.

And with regard to the kind of opinions or fan response that I really want to hear, it’s “What stayed with you?” What left an impression? What made you feel happy? What made you feel sad? That kind of information is really helpful to me. I understand that people will have specific requests with regard to a certain dungeon, or “We want to see this particular item in the game,” or something like that. But even more than that I really value the emotional experience that people have, and as a creator it’s very important for me to leave an impression, and I’d like to hear what those impressions are.

JASON RAPPAPORT: Along that lines, though, we obviously do have a very active user base that likes to voice a lot of their opinions about the Zelda series. They may not know whether or not you guys look at what they say – which I would love to believe that you do, because we care. And I’m just wondering: what is the largest change, or the most important change, that you’ve made to the Zelda series as a whole because of feedback from fans?

EIJI AONUMA: Hmm… I think the project that reflects our reaction to fan opinion is probably Twilight Princess. The incentive for us to create that different version of the Zelda universe was certainly as a result of The Wind Waker criticism that we received. Fans were saying that it wasn’t what they were looking for, it wasn’t what they were hoping for, so that’s why we went with this different graphic presentation. So I think that’s probably the one, the biggest change that we made.

I still remember eight years ago at E3 when we ran that first video of Twilight Princess. It was received very well; there was a standing ovation! So I still remember that moment very well.