Here’s why Nintendo ditched Link as Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom protagonist

Nintendo has provided fresh details on why Zelda was chosen as the protagonist for the series’ latest game, Echoes of Wisdom.

In the latest Ask The Developer blog, series producer Eiji Aonuma discussed the game’s development with Nintendo director Tomomi Sano (the first female director of a Zelda game) and Grezzo director Satoshi Terada.

Initially, Link was to be the protagonist in Echoes of Wisdom, Aonuma explained, but the developers realised that if he still had a sword and shield there would be no reason to use the copy and paste gameplay of the echoes, the game’s new concept.

Added Terada: “Echoes plus a sword and shield… They just didn’t work well together. There is a wide variety of echoes, so to get the most out of the gameplay, we decided to stick with echoes only.”

Aonuma replied: “If that’s the case, it must be someone who doesn’t fight with a sword and shield, right? Who in the series would be a good fit for these powers and bring their insight to them? Well, that would have to be Princess Zelda.”

Aonuma then discussed the courage required to make Zelda the protagonist, given the series’ long history.

“Over the years we’ve been working on the Legend of Zelda series, many people have often asked us, ‘Will Princess Zelda ever be the protagonist?’ and said, ‘I’d like to play as Princess Zelda’,” said Aonuma.

“When asked this question, I’ve always thought, ‘Of course, as long as it makes sense for the game and does justice to her as a character to be the protagonist,’ and answered that way. I had been trying in vain to figure out what would really do justice to her. But when I saw the team struggling to identify the ideal protagonist for this game, I thought, this is exactly the game for her!”

However, the development team then struggled to come up with a suitable story to send Zelda on an adventure. She’s a princess after all!

“Just having monsters roaming around Hyrule wouldn’t be enough to motivate Princess Zelda to directly fight them,” said Aonuma. “We tried brainstorming all sorts of ideas for what kind of situation would necessitate that the princess take matters into her own hands.”

In fact, the game’s story was only completed last summer during a nine day boot camp.

Lastly, Aonuma discussed the difficulty of developing a new story in the Zelda series while honouring its history and timeline.

“These days, even for us, it’s not easy to touch on the lore of the Legend of Zelda series,” he said. “When you address the history of the Legend of Zelda, you naturally have to be conscious of how things have been expressed previously in the series.

“But when we think about a new game, we need to think about new developments while being mindful of the past games in the series, so the scope of what you can do becomes increasingly narrow if you think in the same way every time. On top of that, because the series has been running for a long time, players are interested in its history and lore.

“So, when we’ve adopted a game plot that was not in line with the other games in the series because we prioritised the gameplay, we’ve been told by our fans that it didn’t make sense. We realised that even if the developers didn’t intend to make nonsensical changes, players could interpret otherwise.”

He continued: “Even with this title, we had no intention of establishing any new theories in the series’ lore. Link goes on an adventure every time and experiences many things. But Princess Zelda has always had to take a step back in the Legend of Zelda series. But this time, Princess Zelda is on her own adventure, so the story takes on a different perspective than before. I think that’s why we were able to create something new in terms of the story as well.”

It’s perhaps this reasoning that led to Nintendo placing Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom outside of the Zelda series’ established timeline.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom will release later this week on Nintendo Switch.