The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Ascend Ability Was Born Out Of A Cheat Code

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been captivating and engrossing fans since its release on May 12th, 2023. Still taking place in Hyrule, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom completely changes the way players approach the world in comparison to The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild with the addition of new abilities. One of the game’s new abilities, Ascend, allows players to travel through ceilings and up structures instead of having to climb them. While it is a necessary ability for some of the game’s puzzles it can also be heavily exploited in the game for a number of other purposes. Speaking to Polygon, director Hidemaro Fujibayashi noted that this new addition to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom actually grew out of a developer cheat code.

The Ascend ability was actually the result of a debug feature that we have in the game… When I was exploring the caves, I would get to the destination where I was trying to get to, and once I checked it out, I would just use the debug code to get to the top. And I thought, Well, maybe this is something that can be usable in the game.

Hidemaro Fujibayashi – Game Director on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Series producer Eiji Aonuma also noted that “these cheat code-style abilities, it did create some issues for us.” While the ability started as a bug it still had to be perfected to be fully implemented as a fully-fledged feature for players.

Speaking further in the interview with Polygon Fujibayashi also spoke a little on one of the game’s areas that players have been loving. The Depths.

It kind of plays into what we talked about earlier — this idea of vertical play. We created the Sky first. But then we thought, There’s not enough in terms of distance. So then we thought, Maybe we can look to the ground to provide more distance.

When you’re talking about the Sky, there’s just the idea of skydiving down to the Surface. But if we were to, say, have a chasm, you can dive even further, and have even more fun doing that.

On top of that, there’s also the idea of expanding the amount of exploration and the amount of discovery that you can have within the game. The Depths, as this place to explore and expand — not only in the sense of adventure, but also in terms of distance — really suited the game.

Hidemaro Fujibayashi – Game Director on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom