Zelda Tears of the Kingdom was almost complete before the postponement in 2022: it reveals Aonuma

With 10 million copies of Zelda TOTK sold in just three days, the Nintendo masterpiece inevitably ends up at the center of the attention of the general press. The latest Washington Post article thus offers Eiji Aonuma the opportunity to reveal an important anecdote about the development of Tears of the Kingdom.

To the microphones of the prestigious US newspaper, the producer of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingom reflects on the importance of the work done by his team for evolve and expand the gaming experience of the series.

As Aonuma himself points out during the interview, the fundamental commitments on which he has concentrated over the last year have been theoptimization and the need to ‘transmit the TOTK philosophy’ to enthusiasts.

For example, the Nintendo exponent reveals that since March 2022, at the announcement of the postponement of the Zelda BOTW sequel, the development of Tears of the Kingdom was already practically completed: “We wanted to make sure that everything was 100% compliant with the quality standards we had set ourselves“. Over the past year, therefore, the Aonuma team has focused almost exclusively on optimization and ‘code polishing’ work to ensure a smooth launch.

As for the ‘TOTK philosophy’, Aonuma recalls the Zelda Tears of the Kingdom video from February’s Nintendo Direct and says that “with that trailer, people didn’t understand what the gameplay elements of the new Zelda could be, they didn’t know what the fun offered by the gaming experience could be”. It was precisely this awareness that prompted him to create one 13 minute video demonstration on the most crucial aspects of Zelda TOTK’s amazing emergent gameplay.