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Much like its 2017 predecessor, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was a near-instant classic, continuing the story that began with Breath of the Wild and building on the unique gameplay mechanics that debuted in the first game. But according to Nintendo, Tears of the Kingdom was almost given a different title, and it’s one that will make perfect sense to anyone who’s finished the game.
“One of the candidates for the title that made it to [the] end [of development] was ‘Tears of the Dragon,'” producer Eiji Aonuma explained in the game’s art book, which was released in Japan at the end of August. “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’d emphasize the Light Dragon, after all.”
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Now Playing: The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Video Review
So, why exactly would having “Dragon” in the game’s title be a bad thing? According to Aonuma, the game’s development team feared it would give away a major spoiler far too early. Tears of the Kingdom includes four dragons that can be seen soaring through the skies of Hyrule, and they each drop some pretty useful loot. But one of the dragons has a secret.
Be warned: We’re getting into major spoiler territory here, so if you still haven’t finished the game, we recommend checking out some of our other Tears of the Kingdom content.
The Light Dragon–which drops so seriously useful loot, including the iconic Master Sword–is actually Princess Zelda. To make a long story short, Zelda is running out of options to protect Hyrule from Ganondorf’s evil, and decides to consume a magical stone that allows her to restore the Decayed Master Sword to its former glory.
Doing so has the intended effect, but it comes at a price, costing Zelda her humanity. As she flies into the clouds, Zelda sheds a tear, which splits off into 11 Dragon Tears that can be found all throughout Hyrule when playing as Link. As such, Tears of the Dragon made perfect sense as a title, but it too came with a price: potentially spoiling the Light Dragon reveal for eagle-eyed players and lore-loving game theorists. Nintendo wanted to use dragons in the game’s logo, but feared combining a dragon-heavy imagery with a dragon-based title might make the plot twist a bit too obvious.
“But nothing else good was coming to mind, and we were running out of development time,” Aonuma said. “We went through many words, and then one time a staff member suggested, ‘What about Kingdom?’ With ‘Tears of the Kingdom,’ it felt like the phrase could connect to the Light Dragon to us, and we could use dragons in the [game’s] logo. With the title decided, the logo finally became what it is now.”
Thus, the game’s title was swapped from Tears of the Dragon to Tears of the Kingdom, and the rest, as they say, is Hyrule Historia.
The Top 8 Ways Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Improves On Breath Of The Wild
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