Fans of games (or anything) love drawing comparisons – when you’ve got one critically acclaimed massive open-world game you’re undoubtedly gonna hear about another one. So it’s only natural that people would mention The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and last year’s Elden Ring in the same breath. But were TotK’s developers inspired by Elden Ring at all? The short answer is nope – “We did hear about it, though.”
This comes from a Dutch RTL Nieuws interview with the game’s Eiji Aonuma and Hidemaro Fujibayashi (as translated by Nintendo Everything). When asked if Elden Ring was an inspiration for Tears of the Kingdom, Fujibayashi said that development on the game occupied their time so much they weren’t really able to play any other games, and that even if they did have the time to do so, they wouldn’t reuse ideas from other sources: “When we make a game, we come up with a general concept to come up with new ideas based on that.”
Aonuma clarifies that there are obviously situations where you make games similar to existing ones, but “…I would never try to put the ideas of others in my game. I’m too proud for that. I’m always looking for original ideas.” Their comments also make sense from a development timeline perspective – Elden Ring came out only a little over a year before Tears of the Kingdom’s release, when it would have been far into development, closer to completion than beginning. So while the question is understandable, it’s pretty apparent that the TotK devs were simply too busy to incorporate Elden Ring concepts into the game.
Thanks to Eurogamer
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Written by Amelia Fruzzetti
A writer and Nintendo fan based in Seattle, Washington. When not working for NinWire, she can be found eating pasta, writing stories, and wondering about when Mother 3 is finally going to get an official localization.
