The sky’s the limit in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom quite literally, but the acclaimed 2023 open-world adventure wouldn’t be possible without Nintendo pushing the very limits of the mobile Switch’s hardware capabilities.
Talking to Polygon, veteran Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma opened up about how advancements in technology not only make games prettier, but also give developers more freedom to bring grand ideas to life.
“The idea of having a seamless game experience is not just restrictions being lifted – it also greatly influences the game design as well,” Aonuma said.
Interestingly, Aonuma attributed Zelda dungeons, which defined the series before Breath of the Wild and have been profoundly influential to action-adventure and RPG game design, to simple hardware limitations.
“In the past you needed there to be a situation where there was an entrance and an exit, and that’s why we needed dungeons,” he added. “But now these things can all be connected. The freedom has been made possible by the evolution of the hardware, and that has positively influenced the game design side as well… It brings joy to us, when we see how people play. We wanted to make everything possible for them.”
Assuming Aonuma was referring to Tears of the Kingdom there, which it seems he was, Nintendo delivered on that vision and then some. I have fond memories of a simpler time, back in May 2023, when it seemed like every day Tears of the Kingdom players were coming out with increasingly terrifying machines made from the tools available in the game. More broadly, Tears of the Kingdom, and Breath of the Wild to a lesser extent, are technical marvels that set the benchmark for what’s possible on an aging, mobile machine like the OG Switch.
Almost three years after launch, Tears of the Kingdom is still surprising me with new ways to interact with its systems in ways you would think to be game-breaking, and although Aonuma is likely too humble to admit it, that’s more of a testament to the Zelda team’s ingenuity than the capabilities of the Switch.
As Zelda devs experimented with contraptions that made Tears of the Kingdom great, director realized Breath of the Wild had unused potential: “That’s why I thought a sequel would be a good idea.”
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