Okay, so, when you’ve performed by means of all (or most of) Tears of the Kingdom and have the Master Sword, then you already know the place it’s — it is embedded within the head of the Light Dragon. And who’s that Light Dragon? Well, it is none apart from Zelda herself.
And Aonuma says that he and the staff knew “very early on” that they needed Zelda to show right into a dragon. The concept for the Master Sword being in her head got here “probably immediately after that”:
“So if you were to consider the whole development process, from one to 10, I’d say the dragon decision was probably somewhere between one and two. And the decision to have the Master Sword on the dragon’s head was three to four, although we did know that the Master Sword should probably be on the dragon somewhere.”
Fujibayashi continues by speaking concerning the “great time paradox” as one of many central themes — early on within the recreation, Zelda is flung again to the distant previous, after all — and the primary thought from the staff was “‘Okay, well how can we use the Master Sword with that theme as the background and get the Master Sword into Link’s hands once he no longer has it?’”. So the staff landed on the “grand” dragon.
Some gamers, nonetheless, won’t have gathered the entire Dragon’s Tears and even know that Zelda is the Light Dragon. And that is as a result of you may get the Master Sword at any time when (so long as your stamina is excessive sufficient, anyway). And Fujibayashi admits that the staff “spent a long time discussing” the open construction of the sport and the way this would possibly have an effect on the Master Sword’s acquisition.
The approach the staff acquired round this was by concealing the dragon “a little bit” and making it “a little bit mysterious”. The participant would want to take many steps to perform the whole lot and perceive why the sword is there, however Fujibayashi tells IGN the next:
“But this is all tied to this idea that there’s this certain sense of accomplishment and joy when you’re working hard towards something and you unravel this deep mystery. We want the player to be able to enjoy that and for us to be able to enjoy that as well. So in that sense, I would say it’s certainly a lot of work. It’s certainly a lot of hard work, but it wasn’t stressful…”
Aonuma agrees with Fujibayashi, and goes so far as to say that that is a side of contemporary open-world video games — “the games of today are ones in which that can accept a player’s own decisions and give them the freedom to flexibly proceed through the game”. The collection’ producer additionally says that this type of design philosophy can carry “additional development costs”, possible due to how open then recreation must be to permit that flexibility.
The interview provides us loads of insights into Tears of the Kingdom, which received Best Action / Adventure Game at The Game Awards 2023 final week. This interview passed off earlier than TGA, however its win is a testomony to the open nature and construction of the sport.
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