One of the main reasons The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is currently a frontrunner for Game of the Year is because the title felt so robust and “complete” that you almost forgot how long it took to release. The game featured Link going through a familiar yet different version of Hyrule that had been torn apart and “opened up” by a reborn Ganondorf. You weren’t just going on the land to get to where you needed to be. You were going through the sky and underground, too. One might think that each part took an incredibly long time to make, but not all did.
In an interview with Famitsu, director Hidemaro Fujibayashi noted that The Depths was actually something they put together rather quickly. Specifically, when he came up with the idea for The Depths and told the game design team what they wanted, they could build up a sold prototype “in a short period of time.” He also noted that the section took time to fully detail, but it wasn’t as long a process as other parts of the game.
The director also revealed that The Depths and the surface world had a unique “relationship” that he wanted to explore:
“The Depths and surface have an inverted relationship; areas that are high up in the surface are instead low in the Depths, and conversely, low places and rivers on the surface become tall walls in the Depths. When originally creating the surface area, level designs were separated by rivers so if you were to make the terrain inverted, the areas themselves would be similarly separated by rivers and you would have another naturally terrain-created level. So I wanted to try investigating this idea, and after conveying some of the conditions we talked about to a programmer, they quickly finished a prototype.”
Even Producer Eiji Aonuma was impressed by how quickly The Depths would be able to come together and thus allowed them to continue. That’s good because this section was unique within Tears of the Kingdom because it was a “darkness-filled” area where players could explore, light up, fight monsters, and discover special treasures and quests. Plus, it added another massive layer to the game that players couldn’t wait to explore.
This proves that the team was thinking about everything possible to make Link’s newest adventure one of his greatest. Many would agree that they succeeded on that front.
