Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom made with originality in mind.

According to Hidemaro Fujibayashi, the director, and Eiji Aonuma, the producer of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the game’s development drew no inspiration from Elden Ring or any other prominent titles.

Despite previous statements from FromSoftware acknowledging the influence of games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild during the development of Elden Ring, it appears that the Nintendo team, particularly the top developers, was too occupied to experience that game firsthand.

Apart from being unable to play Elden Ring during the development of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Aonuma discussed the origins of the game with Dutch website RTL Nieuws.

“Sorry, but we didn’t really get a chance to play the game. We were too busy developing Tears of the Kingdom so we couldn’t really play the game. We would have heard about it.”

“Even if we had time to play games, we wouldn’t reuse ideas from that. When we make a game, we come up with a general concept and come up with new ideas based on that.” -Fujibayashi

They were asked as well if Tears of the Kingdom was made in a bubble, as compared to western developers who take inspiration from others when making games, in which he replied:

Aonuma: Of course there are situations where you make something that’s similar to an existing game, but I would never try to put the ideas of others in my game. I’m too proud for that. I’m always looking for original ideas.

When I made A Link Between Worlds, you had a 3D system when you jumped, which made it look like Link was coming right at you. When I showed this to former Nintendo president (Satoru) Iwata, he said he “didn’t know this was possible”. I was very happy to hear that, because to me that’s the essence of game development: figuring out things no one else has thought of.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been receiving overall great reviews as a follow up to Breath of the Wild, with IGN even giving them a 10/10. As fans of the Zelda series, we can’t wait to see what else is in store for us, especially for any potential DLC for the game that might prop up in the foreseeable future!

Grab The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom here!