Ryan Dinsdale
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Warning! This article features spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was almost called Tears of the Dragon, famed Nintendo developer and Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma has revealed.
Nintendo Everything translated comments from Aonuma featured in the Japanese art book for Tears of the Kingdom, in which he said the team veered away from that name in case it spoiled a major plot point for fans.
Tears of the Dragon, Nintendo thought, would draw too much attention to the Light Dragon which flies around Hyrule, and lessen the impact of the surprise reveal that (final spoiler warning) Zelda is the dragon herself.
"Letting it slip that the Light Dragon is Zelda would have been a problem, and this had an effect on the title too. One of the candidates for the title that made it to the end was Tears of the Dragon," Aonuma said.
"But it would be a bad idea to have the keyword dragon in the title, and we wanted to have dragon patterns in the logo, but decided otherwise. It would emphasise the Light Dragon, after all. But nothing else good was coming to mind, and we were running out of development time."
The Tears of the Kingdom name still makes sense, of course, as players traverse the Kingdom of Hyrule searching for tears to unlock hidden memories, which eventually reveal the true identity of the big dragon.
Tears of the Kingdom was one of the biggest games of 2023, both critically and commercially. Nintendo announced the Breath of the Wild sequel sold 10 million copies within three days, and in our 10/10 review, IGN said: "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an unfathomable follow-up, expanding a world that already felt full beyond expectation and raising the bar ever higher into the clouds."
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was almost called Tears of the Dragon, famed Nintendo developer and Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma has revealed.
Nintendo Everything translated comments from Aonuma featured in the Japanese art book for Tears of the Kingdom, in which he said the team veered away from that name in case it spoiled a major plot point for fans.
Tears of the Dragon, Nintendo thought, would draw too much attention to the Light Dragon which flies around Hyrule, and lessen the impact of the surprise reveal that (final spoiler warning) Zelda is the dragon herself.
"Letting it slip that the Light Dragon is Zelda would have been a problem, and this had an effect on the title too. One of the candidates for the title that made it to the end was Tears of the Dragon," Aonuma said.
"But it would be a bad idea to have the keyword dragon in the title, and we wanted to have dragon patterns in the logo, but decided otherwise. It would emphasise the Light Dragon, after all. But nothing else good was coming to mind, and we were running out of development time."
The Tears of the Kingdom name still makes sense, of course, as players traverse the Kingdom of Hyrule searching for tears to unlock hidden memories, which eventually reveal the true identity of the big dragon.
Tears of the Kingdom was one of the biggest games of 2023, both critically and commercially. Nintendo announced the Breath of the Wild sequel sold 10 million copies within three days, and in our 10/10 review, IGN said: "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an unfathomable follow-up, expanding a world that already felt full beyond expectation and raising the bar ever higher into the clouds."
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.