There has been all sorts of information about the development behind The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, even though the game has been available to play on the Nintendo Switch for nearly a year and a half now. Nevertheless, Eiji Aonuma still has some interesting things to share about the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
You see, Eiji Aonuma recently released an art book that includes some more insight into the game, and that has been translated to English by Nintendo Everything. According to Aonuma, the game was originally going to be called The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Dragon. However, due to an emphasis on story-related matters that would resulted from this, the word “Dragon” was scrapped. Aonuma continued, saying that “we went through many words” before a staff member would suggest the word “Kingdom”. This is, ultimately, how the game’s name became The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom instead.
Tears of the dragon would have made sense. Tears of the kingdom, not so much.
Zelda is the kingdom therefore Tears of the Kingdom.
Zelda isn’t the kingdom… She’s apart of it .. but it’s not entirely her… So no .. princess peach isn’t the mushroom kingdom.
Yes it would have honestly.
ok boomer
There was all that time back after the announcement of the game, but before the release where Nintendo wouldn’t tell us what the title was, and the explanation as that they didn’t want to spoil the story with the title. I guess it was during that tine it was still “Dragon.”
It does makes sense…. cause the Dragon is the one leaving the tears in the game right? but Tears of the Kingdom it’s a spoiler free title?
It took a while for me to understand why it was called Tears of the Kingdom. I’m thinking about that scene (spoilers if anyone doesn’t know the story) where Zelda transforms into a dragon and spreads tears of memories across Hyrule.
“Kingdom” I think is used metonymously for princess Zelda, who is the representative for the kingdom of Hyrule.
You might be right, but there is another meaning that “Tears of the Kingdom” is referring to the tears accross the kingdom of Hyrule, in other words, the tears that are now part “of” the kingdom of Hyrule after they were scattered.
Not necessarily using “Kingdom” to represent Zelda. You can also use the game’s title to imply the kingdom’s sadness due to the disappearance of Zelda and/or the return of Ganondorf.
Tears of the fandom
Tears of the Smash fans
Imagine if they did this with Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, etc, then we wouldn’t have gotten those awesome subnames. Tears of the Dragon sounds way more awesome, so it’s a shame there was a name change.
Back when they said revealing the subname would be a spoiler, it got us Zelda theory lovers thinking it was gonna be a new game changer for the lore in the same way Skyward Sword was with it’s reveal of Demise being the progenitor of Ganon by way of a reincarnation curse through bloodlines & such. But alas, it was just Nintendo being their weird, and sometimes “NintenD’oh!”, self. (I could say stupid, dumb, or idiotic, but NintenD’oh fits their name better. Plus it’s funny to me & a bit more polite & sweet. Kinda like “bless your heart” or “sweet summer child.”) shrug It’s whatever, though. Just like I got over the honeymoon phase with TotK, I’m over the disappointment phase. Moving on.