Tag: The Legend of Zelda

Eiji Aonuma says it’s game over for linear Zelda games

If you’re hoping the next Zelda game is a return to the old days of eight dungeons and a linear path, well, you probably shouldn’t

[anyclip-media thumbnail=”undefined” playlistId=”undefined” content=”PHNjcmlwdCBzcmM9Imh0dHBzOi8vcGxheWVyLnBvcHRvay5jb20vYW55Y2xpcC13aWRnZXQvbHJlLXdpZGdldC9wcm9kL3YxL3NyYy9scmUuanMiIGRhdGEtYXI9IjE2OjkiIHB1Ym5hbWU9IjE5OTgiIHdpZGdldG5hbWU9IjAwMTZNMDAwMDJVMEIxa1FBRl9NODMzNSI+Cjwvc2NyaXB0Pg==”][/anyclip-media]

If you’re hoping the next Zelda game is a return to the old days of eight dungeons and a linear path through them, well, you probably shouldn’t. IGN spoke with series producer Eiji Aonuma during The Game Awards 2023, after Tears of the Kingdom won best action game, and he suggested there’s an element of “the grass is greener” when people look back fondly on older Zelda games.

“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,” Aonuma said. “But I also think that with the freedom players have in the more recent games in the series…there still is a set path, it just happens to be the path that they chose. So I think that that is one thing I kind of like to remind myself about the current games that we’re making.”

“But also, it’s interesting when I hear people say those things because I am wondering, “Why do you want to go back to a type of game where you’re more limited or more restricted in the types of things or ways you can play?” But I do understand that desire that we have for nostalgia, and so I can also understand it from that aspect.”

Which doesn’t sound too promising for fans of traditional Zelda style. Aonuma said his goal is creating more ways for players to chart their own path, so it seems pretty likely the next Zelda – whatever it might be – will follow the same open-world style as Tears of the Kingdom.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. Aonuma and his team grew quite a bit between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, as the sequel’s open world felt more alive, with new people, more secrets, and a more complex series of dungeons that took advantage of the open-world, non-linear design in ways that Breath of the Wild couldn’t.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

Zelda movie director envisions it as a ‘live-action Miyazaki’ film

The Zelda movie director Wes Ball wants to make Nintendo’s next movie like a “live-action Miyazaki” movie

[anyclip-media thumbnail=”undefined” playlistId=”undefined” content=”PHNjcmlwdCBzcmM9Imh0dHBzOi8vcGxheWVyLnBvcHRvay5jb20vYW55Y2xpcC13aWRnZXQvbHJlLXdpZGdldC9wcm9kL3YxL3NyYy9scmUuanMiIGRhdGEtYXI9IjE2OjkiIHB1Ym5hbWU9IjE5OTgiIHdpZGdldG5hbWU9IjAwMTZNMDAwMDJVMEIxa1FBRl9NODMzNSI+Cjwvc2NyaXB0Pg==”][/anyclip-media]

The Zelda movie director Wes Ball wants to make Nintendo’s next movie like a “live-action Miyazaki” movie. That’s a pretty broad statement, as the Studio Ghibli founder’s works run the gamut from cozy comedy to wartime tragedy, but Ball narrowed down what he meant a little in an interview with EW.

What Ball has in mind is “this awesome fantasy-adventure movie that isn’t like Lord of the Rings, it’s its own thing,” he said. “I’ve always said, I would love to see a live-action Miyazaki. That wonder and whimsy that he brings to things, I would love to see something like that.”

That vision is just a vision for now, though. Ball is finishing post-production on Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and plans on taking a rest before diving into the Zelda movie script. 

“It’s going to be awesome,” Ball said. “My whole life has led up to this moment. I grew up on Zelda and it is the most important property, I think, that’s untapped IP, if you will. So we very much are working hard to do something. We’re not just trying to do it because we can. We want to make something really special.”

Zelda and Super Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto is co-producing the film with Avi Arad (Into the Spiderverse) and Arad’s production company Arad Productions. Nintendo will finance more than half of the film, while Sony Pictures Entertainment will also finance the film and distribute it film theatrically worldwide. 

“By producing visual contents of Nintendo IP by itself, Nintendo is creating new opportunities to have people from around the world to access the world of entertainment which Nintendo has built, through different means apart from its dedicated game consoles,” Nintendo said in the original press release. “By getting deeply involved in production with the aim to put smiles on everyone’s faces through entertainment, Nintendo will continue its efforts to produce unique entertainment and deliver it to as many people as possible.”

Written by Josh BRoadwell on behalf of GLHF

Nintendo is making a live Zelda movie with the Spider-Verse, Morbius producer

Nintendo is making a live-action Legend of Zelda film with Into the Spider-Verse producer Avi Arad and Maze Runner director Wes Ball

[anyclip-media thumbnail=”undefined” playlistId=”undefined” content=”PHNjcmlwdCBzcmM9Imh0dHBzOi8vcGxheWVyLnBvcHRvay5jb20vYW55Y2xpcC13aWRnZXQvbHJlLXdpZGdldC9wcm9kL3YxL3NyYy9scmUuanMiIGRhdGEtYXI9IjE2OjkiIHB1Ym5hbWU9IjE5OTgiIHdpZGdldG5hbWU9IjAwMTZNMDAwMDJVMEIxa1FBRl9NODMzNSI+Cjwvc2NyaXB0Pg==”][/anyclip-media]

Nintendo announced out of the blue that it’s making a live-action Legend of Zelda movie. Zelda and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto will co-produce with Into the Spider-Verse producer Avi Arad, and Wes Ball will direct.

The Big N made the announcement in a surprise press release following its quarterly earnings and said that while Nintendo and Arad have worked on the film behind the scenes for years to get the vision for it right, the Zelda movie is finally entering production now.

Arad has an extensive – and checkered – resume. He produced the hit Into the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and the 2000 X-Men movie, but though he was also responsible for Morbius, the film so bad that it became an internet meme.

Ball is known for the Maze Runner film trilogy, and he’s directing 2024’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

Miyamoto is co-producing the film with Avi Arad and Arad’s production company Arad Productions. Nintendo will finance more than half of the film, while Sony Pictures Entertainment will also finance the film and distribute it film theatrically worldwide. 

“By producing visual contents of Nintendo IP by itself, Nintendo is creating new opportunities to have people from around the world to access the world of entertainment which Nintendo has built, through different means apart from its dedicated game consoles,” Nintendo said in the press release. “By getting deeply involved in the movie production with the aim to put smiles on everyone’s faces through entertainment, Nintendo will continue its efforts to produce unique entertainment and deliver it to as many people as possible.”

The live-action Zelda movie comes after Nintendo broke its own sales records with 2023’s Tears of the Kingdom and broke box office records around the world with the Super Mario Bros. movie. The latter released in April 2023 and has grossed over $1 billion as of November 2023.

Miyamoto said on Twitter that since production has only just begun, it will be a while before the film is ready for release. Nintendo didn’t say if the Zelda movie will follow a new storyline or adapt one of the series’ many games.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

KFC gave this Zelda Tears of the Kingdom player a $10k chicken trophy

One Zelda Tears of the Kingdom player completed a speedrun Kentucky Fried Chicken created and got a chicken trophy worth $10,000

[anyclip-media thumbnail=”undefined” playlistId=”undefined” content=”PHNjcmlwdCBzcmM9Imh0dHBzOi8vcGxheWVyLnBvcHRvay5jb20vYW55Y2xpcC13aWRnZXQvbHJlLXdpZGdldC9wcm9kL3YxL3NyYy9scmUuanMiIGRhdGEtYXI9IjE2OjkiIHB1Ym5hbWU9IjE5OTgiIHdpZGdldG5hbWU9IjAwMTZNMDAwMDJVMEIxa1FBRl9NODMzNSI+Cjwvc2NyaXB0Pg==”][/anyclip-media]

One Zelda Tears of the Kingdom player completed a speedrun that Kentucky Fried Chicken created and got a chicken trophy worth roughly $10,000. KFC ran the competition around the world in partnership with Speedrun Espanol and called it The Recipe Run, a nod to the speedrun’s requirements and the restaurant chain’s “secret recipe” motif (thanks, VGC).

The goal was to see who could cook a fried drumstick the fastest, though there were a few stipulations to keep things interesting. Players had to prove they started the run empty-handed, with no clothes, no ingredients – nothing. The next step was traveling to Goron City and speaking with Gomo, a Goron chef who Zelda fans dubbed the Colonel Sanders of Hyrule as soon as they laid eyes on him.

After that, they were set loose in the open-world game to find 11 herbs, oil, and a drumstick for the recipe. The 11 herbs bit was literally just a bit, since you can only use five ingredients in a given recipe, and the only thing contestants were able to purchase was the oil. You can’t actually find or create oil in the wilds of Hyrule. They were free to fast travel using any active waypoints or get around with Zonai devices, but glitches and other unorthodox methods weren’t allowed.

Dozens of influencers and speedrunners took part, scouring the land for Hyrule Herbs, Spicy Peppers, Armouranth, and unsuspecting birds, but French speedrunner Kreuss ended up setting the record in 1:07:80. For their fast fowl work, they earned a golden drumstick trophy valued at nearly $10,000, while other contestants won free KFC food.

Whether the Recipe Run becomes a permanent fixture of the Tears of the Kingdom speedrun scene remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the current fastest record for finishing the entire game is quite a bit shorter, clocking in at 43 minutes. Not that speed is everything. One player recently beat the entire game without ever leaving the Sky Islands until the final battle.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

This fan beat Tears of the Kingdom without leaving the Sky Islands

One dedicated Tears of the Kingdom fan beat the latest Zelda game without ever leaving the Sky Islands or completing a temple

[anyclip-media thumbnail=”undefined” playlistId=”undefined” content=”PHNjcmlwdCBzcmM9Imh0dHBzOi8vcGxheWVyLnBvcHRvay5jb20vYW55Y2xpcC13aWRnZXQvbHJlLXdpZGdldC9wcm9kL3YxL3NyYy9scmUuanMiIGRhdGEtYXI9IjE2OjkiIHB1Ym5hbWU9IjE5OTgiIHdpZGdldG5hbWU9IjAwMTZNMDAwMDJVMEIxa1FBRl9NODMzNSI+Cjwvc2NyaXB0Pg==”][/anyclip-media]

One dedicated Tears of the Kingdom fan beat the latest Zelda game without ever leaving the Sky Islands or completing a temple. Reddit user Black_Hand_Gotthard explained their process in a few comments on Reddit, including the hardest part: surviving without a paraglider (thanks, Polygon).

They also posted a picture of the in-game map that depicts a fully-explored set of Sky Islands and absolutely nothing on the surface – no Shrines, no Skyview towers.

Normally in Tears of the Kingdom, Link completes the Temple of Time on Great Sky Island and dives hundreds of feet before landing back in Hyrule in the safety of a small pond. 

The intended journey – if you can call anything intended in a game that lets you build a spanking machine to defeat the final boss or create Korok torture devices  – is to travel the land, awaken six sages, and put Ganondorf to rest for good. 

Finished the game without ever visiting the surface.
byu/Black_Hand_Gotthard intearsofthekingdom

Black_Hand_Gotthard just didn’t take that leap and navigated the sky archipelago using a mix of cleverly deployed Zonai devices and plenty of fairies to mitigate fall damage. They eventually grabbed the full Glide Armor set, which removes fall damage entirely. 

No trips to the surface also meant no visits to The Depths, where most players get extra materials to upgrade their Zonai battery. Gotthard finished with one cell and, they said, a ton of Zonai charges. They also used the Zonaite Armor, which significantly reduces how much power your devices use. 

There aren’t that many ways to get charges in the sky, so it’s unclear how long – and how many Blood Moons to reset the enemies who do drop the charges – the run took.

In the end, Black_Hand_Gotthard interacted with the Light Dragon and used a Wing device to approach Hyrule Castle. They dropped down below the castle, went through the boss gauntlet that awaits players who didn’t clear the temples, and defeated Ganondorf.

The reason why Black_Hand_Gottard did all this?

“Smoked a little too much Sundelion and got a (at the time) brilliant idea,” they said.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

Nintendo says no Zelda Tears of the Kingdom DLC is planned – yet

Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma says Nintendo has no plans to make Tears of the Kingdom DLC, unlike other Zelda games on Switch

[anyclip-media thumbnail=”undefined” playlistId=”undefined” content=”PHNjcmlwdCBzcmM9Imh0dHBzOi8vcGxheWVyLnBvcHRvay5jb20vYW55Y2xpcC13aWRnZXQvbHJlLXdpZGdldC9wcm9kL3YxL3NyYy9scmUuanMiIGRhdGEtYXI9IjE2OjkiIHB1Ym5hbWU9IjE5OTgiIHdpZGdldG5hbWU9IjAwMTZNMDAwMDJVMEIxa1FBRl9NODMzNSI+Cjwvc2NyaXB0Pg==”][/anyclip-media]

Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma says Nintendo has no plans to make Tears of the Kingdom DLC, unlike the company’s approach to other Zelda games on Switch. Aonuma made the comments in a recent interview with Famitsu, translated by Twitter user Genki_JPN, where he said the team thinks they’ve done all there is to do in this version of Hyrule.

“We have no plans to release additional content this time, but that is because we feel like we have done all we can do to create play in that world,” Aonuma said. “The reason we decided to make a sequel to the previous game in the first place was because we thought it would be worth experiencing new ways to play in Hyrule.”

Nintendo teased DLC for Breath of the Wild, TotK’s predecessor, before the game even launched and even locked some of the open-world game’s features behind it, such as fully powering up the Master Sword. Age of Calamity, the series’ most recent Warriors spinoff, also had a few small expansions, with new missions and other minor additions, but it seems like the pre- and post-Calamity world of Hyrule has finally run its course.

The news is perhaps a little surprising in light of previous Zelda games, though Nintendo rarely stays with one idea or location for long. Mario Galaxy 2, one of the best Super Mario Bros. games, was billed as an accident created from leftover ideas that Nintendo cut from the first Galaxy, for example, and even Monolith’s visions for Xenoblade Chronicles change dramatically with each new game in the series. 

As for what the next Zelda game or possible DLC may be, that’s anyone’s guess, though Aonuma said it won’t be similar to Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

“We may return to the same world,” Aonuma said. “Whether it is a sequel or new work, I think it will be a completely new way to play, so I hope you will look forward to it.”

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

[mm-video type=video id=01fvcjnp6fsbvxksdqgj playlist_id=none player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01fvcjnp6fsbvxksdqgj/01fvcjnp6fsbvxksdqgj-63f0de0fb272e8e5052147565eaa6662.jpg]

Fan rearranges classic RPG tune using Tears of the Kingdom devices

One Zelda fan build a small orchestra and rearranged the classic Chrono Trigger track “Corridors of Time” in Tears of the Kingdom

Zelda fans have built everything from computers to industrial-strength Korok barbecue machines using Tears of the Kingdom’s Zonai devices, and the latest innovation is a music machine arranged to play “Corridors of Time” from the SNES classic Chrono Trigger.  Twitter user bran8bit posted a set of videos on Twitter showing the devices in action, and while it took four different setups and some creative arranging, the end result sounds almost identical to Yasunori Mitsuda’s classic SNES song.

Central to these and other musical efforts in Tears of the Kingdom is the stake device, a long piece of Zonaite that you can embed in the ground up to the top. Some dedicated builders discovered that if you aim a Zonai beam emitter at these stakes, they emit sounds at differing pitches depending on how deeply embedded the stakes are in the ground.

Bran8bit built several devices to make this work. The one playing the melody is a single beam emitter attached to a wheel device, which itself is on a stake attached to a wagon wheel that’s on one looks like maybe a stabilizer or a small wheel. A similar setup is on the other side for balance, and in front of the emitter is a row of 16 stakes arranged in a repeating pattern.

The second device is similar, but the stake setup is more complicated. Bran alternates between different heights and even verticality depending on which part of the track he’s at. The third setup uses a few stakes and what looks like light devices, and the fourth is even more clever. Bran put a large wheel on a spoke and attached some stakes, cooking pots, and poles in positions where they’d bump against bundles of wood placed at different heights to create a muffled thwump sound.

For the percussion, they used the sound of Link running and jumping on stone pavement.

The whole thing is incredibly clever and creative and must have taken hours of building and testing to get it just right, and the end result is impressively accurate compared to the original piece from nearly 30 years ago.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

[mm-video type=video id=01g4jezm69zs2smg6vy7 playlist_id=none player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01g4jezm69zs2smg6vy7/01g4jezm69zs2smg6vy7-e00a9c897798ae67dc9dab6aeed5e80c.jpg]

Tears of the Kingdom sales reach another significant milestone

We already knew Tears of the Kingdom sales were off to a strong start, and it turns out they didn’t slow down after launch

We already knew Tears of the Kingdom sales were off to a strong start, and it turns out they didn’t slow down after launch. Mat Piscatella, executive director at Circana (formerly the NPD group) posted his monthly breakdown of sales across the games industry on Twitter, and Tears of the Kingdom wasn’t just the best-selling game of May 2023. It’s already the second best-selling game of the year.

Hogwarts Legacy from Warner Bros. remains the year’s best-selling game, though Warner Bros. reported digital and physical sales for that one. Nintendo doesn’t report digital sales, so the Zelda game may have surpassed Hogwarts’ sales.

Tears of the Kingdom’s enthusiastic welcome isn’t too surprising. Launch sales reached over 10 million in less than a week, and entire communities sprang up around the game just weeks after release, including the Hyrule Engineering group, dedicated to building devices both outlandish – sometimes to torment Koroks – and practical, such as a scale to see how much Link weighs. 

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which launched near the end of 2022, is the third best-selling game of 2023, with Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Resident Evil 4 remake close behind. Resident Evil 4 remake also shattered Capcom’s previous sales records for the series.

Elden Ring rounds off the top 10, with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and The Last of Us Part 1 not far behind.

Meanwhile, Tears of the Kingdom’s launch also boosted its prequels popularity. Breath of the Wild rose from the 28th best-selling game of April 2023 to the 18th best-selling game of May.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

[mm-video type=video id=01h08c3fhd3ry75gcx73 playlist_id=none player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01h08c3fhd3ry75gcx73/01h08c3fhd3ry75gcx73-8618fc5f51931a98de0a1b436c7018d8.jpg]

Tears of the Kingdom fan works out how much Link weighs using apples

One curious and dedicated Tears of the Kingdom fan worked out Link’s weight using apples and a makeshift scale in the Zelda game

One curious and dedicated Tears of the Kingdom fan worked out Link’s weight using apples and a makeshift scale, and it turns out he’s one tiny hero. Reddit user RecommendationOk6824 posted a video showing the scale in action before using it to see just how weighty Link is.

The scale itself is pretty ingenious, as is basically every Tears of the Kingdom creation in the Hyrule Engineering subreddit. RecommendationOk used some of the building materials available at one of the dozens of Hudson construction sites in the Zelda game, two Traveler’s Swords, a stabilizer Zonai device, and some mops, where the mops act as the scale arms, the swords join the platforms together, and the stabilizer keeps it all from moving until you activate the device.

Working Scale – Guess Link’s Weight
by u/RecommendationOk6842 in HyruleEngineering

They tinker a bit with a Korok, because of course they do, and then decide to see how much Link weighs. The answer is 10 apples, and it’s kind of mind blowing. The world’s biggest apple weighed in at about four pounds, so if you multiply that by 10, the hero of Hyrule’s maximum possible weight clocks in at a whopping… 40 pounds.

Assuming he’s in his early 20s as some players deduced and is roughly 5’2”, as others calculated, that’s about 100 pounds shy of what’s considered a healthy weight. 

Then again, Zelda spent 100 years holed up in Hyrule castle keeping Calamity Ganon in check and, presumably, didn’t stop for a light dinner or a midnight snack, and she turned out okay. Maybe Hylians are just built different.

Either way, the engineering community is more excited over the discovery of a working scale, since it means they can find reference points for how heavy Tears of the Kingdom considers certain items to be, which makes figuring out complex builds easier.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

[mm-video type=video id=01h08c3fhd3ry75gcx73 playlist_id=none player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01h08c3fhd3ry75gcx73/01h08c3fhd3ry75gcx73-8618fc5f51931a98de0a1b436c7018d8.jpg]

New Tears of the Kingdom glitch lets you get rich using meat clubs

There’s a new Tears of the Kingdom duplication glitch around, but this one’s all about getting rich with meat and the Zelda game’s Autobuild

There’s a new Tears of the Kingdom duplication glitch around, but this one’s all about getting rich with meat (thanks, Eurogamer). Where previous glitches in the Zelda game let you duplicate anything from weapons to diamonds, this new one gives you nearly two dozen pieces of frozen meat at hardly any cost to yourself.

YouTuber No Hypothesis first posted the glitch in action, and Austin John Plays explained it in more detail and showed it working – and not working – with other items as well. The glitch involves Autobuild, so make sure to visit the Great Abandoned Mine in the Depths to pick that ability up if you haven’t already.

Get at least two pieces of Gourmet Meat – most large animals have a chance of dropping it – and fuse it to a stick of some kind. It can be anything from a tree branch to a club. Do it again, and then stick the two meat clubs together using Ultrahand.

That counts as a construct, which means it gets saved in your autobuild history. Repeat the process until you have 21 meat clubs stuck together, and then head for a snowy region. Anywhere around Rito Village before you clear the Wind Temple would work, though it frequently snows around the Hebra stable as well.

Equip one of your meat clubs. If it’s cold enough, the meat will freeze and fall off. Activate Autobuild, and select your pile of 21 clubs – but don’t build it. Hold it in the air for a few seconds, and you’ll see a shower of meat come tumbling down, where it instantly freezes. Just make sure you’ve got about 50-60 Zonaite to make start the build.

Austin John Plays showed the glitch works with raw whole bird as well as Chu Chu Jelly, though it seems to only work with Red Chu Jelly for some reason.

The biggest cost in all this is the Zonaite, though if you’re farming the Depths after every Blood Moon, you should have enough to get plenty of money without stopping to find more Zonaite.

Frozen Gourmet Meat sells for about 40 Rupees, so this little trick gets you almost 1,000 Rupees each time. The only limit to how many times you can do it is how much frozen meat you can hold (999), so this is an excellent way to fill up your wallet with little inconvenience to yourself – at least until Nintendo patches it out again.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

[mm-video type=video id=01h08c3fhd3ry75gcx73 playlist_id=none player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01h08c3fhd3ry75gcx73/01h08c3fhd3ry75gcx73-8618fc5f51931a98de0a1b436c7018d8.jpg]