During Part 2 of Nintendo’s “Ask the Developer” Interview published on September 23rd, one of the key talking points was about how the development team was driven by the core idea of “being mischievous.” This idea was born out of the desire to allow players freedom with how they navigate puzzles and traverse Hyrule in Echoes of Wisdom. “Over time, most of the restrictions we thought were necessary at the start of development were no longer needed. It even led us to allow things that we worried at first would provide too much freedom,” Eiji Aonuma explained.
Such freedom led to the inclusion of over 100 echoes and played a massive role in developing the Bind ability. If you need a refresher, the Bind ability allows you to bind with an object so that it can copy your movements or allow the player to mimic the movement of the object itself.
One of the key elements of “being mischievous” was to keep a sense of realism with the way objects interact with each other in the environment. “For example, if you roll something like a spike roller along the ground, that’s a lot of work, because it can hit all kinds of things, but if we didn’t allow for this possibility, it wouldn’t be fun,” Aonuma laughed. The development team even kept a document that explained what “being mischievous” meant if they felt like they weren’t sure what to do or felt that it was too vague of a concept. Tomomi Sano explained that they wanted players to be “able to find uses for echoes that are so ingenious it almost feels like cheating should be part of what makes this game fun.”
Unsurprisingly, the team used the Myahm Agana Shrine from Breath of the Wild as inspiration for how creative players can be when faced with puzzle solving. Sano recalled how some players were able to flip the apparatus so that they could easily slide the ball into the hole without having to deal with the maze. “It’s like finding a secret trick in the game, just like the old days… If this kind of solution isn’t allowed, then it’s not fun,” Aonuma added.
It’s clear that the developers are excited for players to get their hands on Echoes of Wisdom so that they can find out for themselves just how many ways they can have fun playing as Princess Zelda. You can read the rest of the interview on Nintendo’s website here.
