Zelda developers explain why the series may not get Mario Maker

In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, players weren’t just playing through another story set in Hyrule. The sequel to Breath of the Wild took the sandbox elements of the previous game several steps further, allowing players to use a new range of powers to construct machines, weapons and tools using objects in the world. By introducing this Tears of the Kingdom encouraged players to be truly creative and push the boundaries of building in the game.

Fans responded to this new level of freedom by inventing impressive creations and sharing them online. Since Nintendo released the game, fans have turned sophisticated items like skateboards into complicated machines like a mechanized Kaiju that looks like Godzilla. Given the game’s emphasis on creativity, Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma and game director Hidemaro Fujibayashi asked about the possibility that fans would ever get a Zelda game that focused solely on developing their own creations Super Mario Maker. From the sound of their answers, it seems unlikely that Nintendo will release a Zelda game that’s all about level or dungeon creation.

“When we develop games like Tears of the KingdomI think it’s important that we don’t make creativity a requirement. Instead, we bring things into play that encourage people to be creative and give them the opportunity to be creative without forcing them to,” Aonuma said through an interpreter in a personal interview.

Image: Nintendo/Nintendo EDP

In Super Mario Maker And Super Mario Maker 2Players can design their own Mario levels from scratch using an in-game editor. This has allowed players to create custom levels of all kinds in Mario. Players can create extremely difficult levels that will challenge even the most experienced Mario players, or create crazy creations that turn a Mario level into an homage to Splatoon. Regardless of the approach, this is a huge aspect of the Super Mario Maker games They rely on the creativity of the players.

Now it’s no secret that the developers of Tears of the Kingdom were inspired by fan reactions Breath of the Wild. The developers saw players push the creative boundaries Breath of the Wild, and later they developed a game that reinforced those sandbox elements. With this in mind, Zelda fans have long wondered if a version of Zelda could ever come out that works like Mario Maker – where players can create or design dungeons or worlds. But when Aonuma was asked directly about a Mario Maker-style game for Zelda, he had an interesting answer about the nature of Zelda games and what they offer players.

Image: Nintendo

“There are people who want the opportunity to create something from scratch, but that’s not everyone,” Aonuma said. “I think everyone enjoys the discovery of finding their own way through a game, and that’s something we really wanted to take into account Tears of the Kingdom; There is no one right way to play. If you are a creative person, you have the opportunity to take this path. But that’s not what you have to do; You can also continue the game in many other ways. So I don’t think it would suit The Legend of Zelda to necessarily require people to build things from scratch and force them to be creative.”

Given Aonuma’s reaction, it seems unlikely that Zelda will ever get its Mario Maker equivalent. If we were to get more creative elements, they would obviously need to be embedded into a larger game where players could do things in different ways. So if you’re hoping for a Zelda builder, you might be better off finding other games that currently offer similar options – which, luckily for us, already exist.