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Aonuma was born as Eiji Onozuka [1] on March 16, 1963, in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. [2][3] He graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts in 1988 with a master's degree in composition design, working on animated puppets called karakuri. [4][5] After graduating, he was interviewed at Nintendo. Aonuma met Shigeru Miyamoto during the interview ...
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By Kat Bailey
Updated: Dec 11, 2023 5:18 pm
Posted: Dec 11, 2023 2:00 pm
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have frequently been hailed as the refresh the series needed, but there remains a contingent of fans who still prefer the old ways. They're the fans who have fond memories of Wind Waker and Ocarina of Time, and wouldn't mind returning to the days of intricate, if relatively linear, experiences.
"Well, I do think we as people have a tendency to want the thing that we don't currently have, and there's a bit of a grass is greener mentality," said producer Eiji Aonuma, who has been with the Zelda series since it first went to 3D on the Nintendo 64.
Aonuma and his colleague, director Hidemaro Fujibayashi, were on hand for The Game Awards 2023, where Tears of the Kingdom won the prize for Best Action-Adventure Game. In a new interview with IGN, they reflected on it success, talked about why they didn't put much stock in the chronology of the series, and explained how they came up with some of its biggest twists.
Yes, I miss the classic design.
No, it should keep the Breath of the Wild formula.
Was it stressful thinking that players could discover the Master Sword in a lot of different ways? For example, just going to the dragon, or seeing the memory first. I used a guide to get there, but the design aspects and the storytelling seems very complicated to me.
Fujibayashi: We built the game so that it's an enjoyable experience for the player. And we certainly spent a long time discussing this with some of the main contributors to the game, and really thinking about how we would build the game such that if someone were to, say, discover the dragon without having seen anything else, that we could maybe perhaps conceal it a little bit, make it a little bit mysterious.
There's a lot of hard work in figuring out how to accomplish all of this. But this is all tied to this idea that there's this certain sense of accomplishment and joy when you're working hard towards something and you unravel this deep mystery. We want the player to be able to enjoy that and for us to be able to enjoy that as well. So in that sense, I would say it's certainly a lot of work. It's certainly a lot of hard work, but it wasn't stressful...[I]n creating this game, we didn't want to create a game where players can't do something because we don't want them to see it.
We wanted to create a game where people can discover in their own way, and that was a point that we made sure that we didn't do.
Aonuma-san, after Skyward Sword's launch, you said you were growing tired of the Zelda formula and you wanted to change it. You also said you continued returning so that you could retire with no regrets. Following the success of both the Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, do you feel like you've achieved your goal to leave your mark on Zelda? Or do you still have unfinished business with the franchise?
Aonuma: Wow, did I really say that? I don't remember clearly all the things I said in the past, but I'll trust you on that...So in creating Zelda, there are times when you're doing the same thing in the same field over and over. There are times where you wonder, am I going to be doing this over and over, how am I going to continue doing this?
Yeah, and at times like that, I think it is really good to be surrounded by a staff like Mr. Fujibayashi and the team that we have who will... they can make all sorts of suggestions and suggest new types of things that I think we can carry forward in the series as we go. And that is one of the things that happened this time as well with Tears of the Kingdom. Thinking back on the past, I worked as a director in the series, and that was a difficult role; where it's on you to determine what will be the main features; what direction to take the game.
Now I'm in the role of a producer, so those difficult decisions may be with the rest of the team now, but I'm really looking forward to going forward and being with them... working with them together... as we think about the future of the series in my role as a producer. And so, yes, I do think there is still a lot of fun for us to be had with the series as we go forward.
Blogroll photo credit: Kat Bailey / IGN.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
- Kat Bailey
May 12, 2023 · Tears of the Kingdom producer Eiji Aonuma and director Hidemaro Fujibayashi sat down with The Verge to discuss how they found their footing with the latest Zelda.
- Charles Pulliam-Moore
May 12, 2023 · Nintendo’s Eiji Aonuma and Hidemaro Fujibayashi offer a rare glimpse into the development process for the hotly anticipated sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
May 9, 2023 · Hello, I’m Eiji Aonuma, the producer of The Legend of Zelda series. My first role in the series was designing dungeons for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1).
Oct 9, 2023 · Nintendo developers Eiji Aonuma and Hidemaro Fujibayashi exclusively reveal how they followed one of the best video games ever made. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been a huge...
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Dec 19, 2023 · Polygon sat down with Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma and Tears of the Kingdom director Hidemaro Fujibayashi. There, Fujibayashi spoke at length about the writing of Rauru and the team’s approach to...
