Video games go through various changes during the planning and development stages, so it’s no surprise to hear that at one point a different title was seriously considered for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
This information comes from new Zelda art book ‘Master Works’and game producer Eiji Aonuma reveals that there was a period during this lengthy sequel project when the title could have ended up as ‘Dragon tears‘. Now we will add a spoiler alert from here because apparently there was concern that this title would “emphasize the Light Dragon”.
Here is the translation, courtesy of Nintendo Everything:
Eiji Aonuma: “To leave out Light Dragon being Zelda would have been a problem, and that had an impact on the title as well. One of the contenders for the title that ended is ‘Dragon’s Tears’.
But it would be a bad idea to have the keyword ‘Dragon’ in the title, and we wanted to have dragon patterns in the logo, but we decided otherwise. It would make Light Dragon stand out though (laughs). But nothing else good came to mind, and we were running out of time for development…”
In the end, one person from the team suggested that the word “Kingdom” be incorporated into the title, and so “Tears of the Kingdom” became the final name, and “dragons in the logo” could also be used. The team also felt that this new title still has connections to Light Dragon.
Even when the name ‘Tears of the Kingdom’ was finalized, Nintendo decided to refrain from an official reveal to avoid sharing too much information.
You can learn more about the new Tears of the Kingdom: Master Works in our full book review here on Nintendo Life. Aside from the possible name change, this new book is filled with tons of other trivia covering gameplay elements like Ultrahand and the game’s final boss fight.
