The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomdirector Hidemaro Fujibayashi says he was too busy working on the game to play FromSoftware’sElden Ring. The comment came in response to questions about whetherElden Ringmight have influencedThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
The comparisons betweenTears of the KingdomandElden Ringmight seem odd on the surface, but they don’t come out of nowhere. Both games are open-world games and have some similar mechanics. Meanwhile,Elden Ringdirector Hidetaka Miyazaki citedBreath of the Wildas one of his inspirations, alongsideSkyrim,The Witcher 3, andShadow of the Colossus. Given that, it wouldn’t be too surprising if the inspiration flowed both ways, andTears of the Kingdomdevelopers borrowed some ideas fromElden Ring.
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This question arose during a recent interview withTears of the Kingdomproducer Eiji Aonumaand director Hidemaro Fujibayashi. However, Fujibayashi denies taking inspiration fromElden Ring, saying he didn’t even have time to play the game while developingTears of the Kingdom. He went on to say that even if he had played the game, he wouldn’t have taken ideas from it. Instead, he says that when Nintendo makes a game, the studio tries to come up with new ideas instead of looking at what other studios are doing.
Responding to a follow-up question from the interviewer, Fujibayashi acknowledged thatZeldagames are not always the first to do something. However, he would never deliberately take something from another game. Fujibayashi says he’s “too proud” to do that and always looks for original ideas. That includes not taking too many ideas from earlierThe Legend of Zeldagames, with Fujibayashi saying any similarities betweenOcarina of TimeandTears of the Kingdomare coincidental.
As an example of what he’s talking about, Fujibayashi cited a 3D system in2013’sThe Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, where it looked like Link was jumping at the player. This had surprised Nintendo’s then-President Satoru Iwata, who told Fujibayashi he didn’t know that was possible. “I was really, really happy to hear that,” said Fujibayashi, “because to me that’s the core of game development: figuring out things that no one else has thought of.”
That isn’t to say thatTears of the Kingdomwas completely free of outside influences. Fujibayashi talked about how he drew from his own life experience rather than from other works. Specifically, he spoke about how being a father influences his work. He wanted the game to have an underlying message, and he says his parenting influenced the screenplay he wrote.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomis out now for Nintendo Switch.
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