Game Developers Share the Most Mind-Blowing, Inspiring Elements of Tears of the Kingdom

“None of it is ‘cheating’ or ‘going against the designers’ intentions’ because it’s all within the realm of what’s intended. The intention was to give the player a plethora of toys and a sandbox in which to play with them. Nintendo doubled down on letting the player win however they wanted to. I could see other studios and games benefitting from letting their grip loosen on the ‘intended solution’ to the puzzles and challenges they throw at players.”

Finally, Retro Studios artist Taylor Rohrig calls out how Tears of the Kingdom benefits greatly from building off another masterpiece, Breath of the Wild. Specifically, returning to the same Hyrule feels like revisiting a real-world place for the first time in years. Rohrig also notes that Nintendo stepped up its game in the character department this time, fleshing out the people Link interacts with on his second trip through this Hyrule.

“I feel like everywhere I go I’m genuinely meeting new people, new NPCs that are making the world feel like, ‘Yeah, Hyrule is coming back, what I did in the first game actually matters, people are able to rebuild and live their lives,'” Rohrig says.

What Should the Industry Take Away from Tears of the Kingdom?

In the years following Breath of the Wild, many games have tried to recapture its essence. We’ve seen more games than ever with stylized grass waving in the wind, ambient piano soundtracks, and paragliders in the wake of Zelda’s success. But few games have replicated its true secret recipe: Unparalleled exploration and player freedom. So, I asked these developers what lessons the industry should take from Tears of the Kingdom, and what takeaways big game companies might end up taking instead.

Returning to Rohrig’s point about Hyrule feeling more alive in Tears of the Kingdom, Mumbach thinks more games could benefit from building off the worlds established in their predecessors rather than creating brand new worlds with each new entry. We’re already starting to see this fairly often — God of War: Ragnarok and Spider-Man 2 come to mind as two recent examples, while the Yakuza series successfully returned to the same map for over a decade — but Mumbach thinks even more developers should take note of this practice. Mumbach says he would love another game that takes place in Skyrim, for example, where towns, people, and the environment have all undergone massive shifts.

Developers were torn on whether major studios will incorporate building mechanics into games following Tears of the Kingdom’s mainstream success in that department.

“I hope the Tears of the Kingdom-style building is not shoehorned into games where the core design philosophy was originally not created with that in mind,” Covington says. “Now, for games that do have creative sandbox building in some form or fashion, I definitely think those creative teams will be taking a hard look at how Zelda has implemented their systems and physics, but I don’t think it will make such a monumental splash on the industry in the way that Breath of the Wild called out all open-world RPG designers.”

Mumbach says he “guarantees” executives at big game companies are telling their development teams that their games need building mechanics. But that doesn’t mean we’ll see building mechanics in all the finished products, as most dev teams will likely push back and say systems like that will take too much time — and too much money — to create.

“I don’t think we’ll see a bunch of people trying to make this game. I think that they’ll be having conversations about it, but I think ultimately it’s a unicorn. It’s not a thing you can just go out there and emulate.”

Tears of the Kingdom was created under extremely rare, near-perfect conditions. For starters, Nintendo built this game with seemingly-unlimited time and budget, as an interview with series producer Eiji Aonuma revealed the game was delayed a year purely for polish. Nintendo Switch’s historical sales success also meant there was no rush for Nintendo to deliver Tears of the Kingdom a second before it was ready.

Plus, there’s the fact that the Zelda team started development with Tears of the Kingdom’s engine, overworld, combat, art direction, and more already in place from Breath of the Wild, giving them a massive head start in creating new content and systems right from the jump. Finally, the Zelda team — led by Aonuma and longtime director Hidemaro Fujibayashi — is filled with experienced, senior developers who have been working on the franchise for many years. All of these elements came together to allow Nintendo to develop a generational game under circumstances that will be difficult for anyone — including Nintendo itself — to repeat.

“I don’t want to be negative, but even if most developers took the correct lessons from Breath of the Wild and now Tears of the Kingdom, I’m not confident most of them would be able to do anything meaningful with them,” James says. “I don’t think Zelda’s design is something that can be learned or copied without incredible effort — Nintendo is just full of world class talent working in an environment that’s letting them realize their full potential. The result is masterpieces like Tears of the Kingdom.”

For developers creating games at work while playing Tears of the Kingdom in their free time, it can be daunting to feel like Nintendo has set a bar that’s impossibly high to reach. But the devs we spoke to are up to the challenge, understanding that every team making games has something valuable to share with the rest of the industry.

“It is a big inspiration,” Rohrig says. “The Legend of Zelda series as a whole is what got me into wanting to be a game developer. So anytime I play anything Zelda it is usually some spark of inspiration, I want to have an impact on someone like Zelda had an impact on me. And if anything I can do in my game development can create a story that can be that for someone else, then I’m going to be happy.”

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over seven years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.