Legend of Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom Was A Dungeon Creator First

As a seasoned gamer with decades of experience under my belt, I must say that The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom has always been one of those games that pique my curiosity. And learning about its humble beginnings as a dungeon creator game just adds another layer to its allure.

Initially, when The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom was being designed, it was originally conceived as a game centered around creating dungeons, as revealed by the game’s creators at Grezzo.

According to a Q&A session by Nintendo, Grezzo’s game director Satoshi Terada mentioned they explored several alternative methods for players to enjoy the game.

In another method, Link is able to duplicate items like doors and candles to construct unique dungeons, as Terada explained. This initial stage of development was referred to as “edit dungeon” since it allowed players to design their own adventure within the world of The Legend of Zelda.

After trying out the game, producer Eiji Aonuma expressed a desire to guide it towards a new path instead.

While I was having a great time playing, I began to realize that designing your own dungeon for others to explore is enjoyable, but it’s not a bad thing either to add items in the game that can be easily replicated and used in combat against enemies,” he explained.

From that point on, we started playing with “echoes.” Instead of constructing dungeons as we had before, the focus of the gameplay changed to utilizing duplicated items as resources to advance our own journey.

Changes were implemented approximately a year into the game’s production, as stated by Tomomi Sano, who became the first woman to direct within the Zelda series’ history.

” …It’d been that long,” said Terada before Sano chimed in confirming.

While everyone around me was engrossed in designing dungeons for our game, I found myself contemplating something unique, chuckling to myself at my thoughts. (Laughs) There’s a reason that it took me a full year to turn the traditional development approach on its head,” Aonuma humorously explained.

“After all, you can’t really see the potential for ideas to develop into solid gameplay until you can verify features and their feel, so I wanted them to try making it first. I felt that the “edit dungeon” feature they showed me had significant potential to be developed into a new way of playing the Legend of Zelda games if the gameplay was changed to use “echoes” instead. So, I thought it would be good to expand in that direction and could be even more interesting that way. However, there was one concern. Even though game consoles have larger memory capacity nowadays, the more things players can copy and paste, the more game memory is used up. I was really worried that it would crash the game.”

In a novel twist, “The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom,” which marks Zelda’s debut as a primary playable character, will be solely available on the Nintendo Switch starting September 26.

What do you think of Echoes of Wisdom starting off as a dungeon creator game? Join the conversation in the official TopMob Forums.

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