After The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, it’s time for Zelda Maker

We almost had a The Legend of Zelda video game where players could create their own dungeons. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, which launches later this week, lets players obtain “echoes” of items and enemies, which they can explore, fight, and solve puzzles with. A new Ask the Developer interview from Nintendo revealed that this gameplay idea came from the original concept for Echoes of Wisdom: an “edit dungeon” concept where “players could create their own The Legend of Zelda gameplay,” according to Grezzo game director Satoshi Terada.

Ultimately, the team went in a different direction after recognizing the potential of the echoes mechanic created for the “edit dungeon” concept. While I’m still quite excited to play Echoes of Wisdom, part of me is disappointed that we aren’t getting a The Legend of Zelda dungeon maker game. It’s OK that Echoes of Wisdom went in a different direction, but this is an idea Nintendo should certainly return to in the future.

The Zelda dungeon-maker game we didn’t get

It’s not uncommon for game developers to experiment with different gameplay concepts or ideas early on in development to find what works. Terada explained that in one of these early concepts, “Link could copy and paste various objects, such as doors and candlesticks, to create original dungeons.” Later in the Ask the Developer interview, Nintendo director Tomomi Sano said that this “concept involved copying various things during your adventure out on the game field, then bringing them back to create a dungeon in a dedicated place.”

While something like Super Mario Maker 2 is a level creator first and foremost, it seems like this “edit dungeon” concept for Echoes of Wisdom was mixing dungeon creation with the exploration expected from a 2D Zelda game. When The Legend of Zelda series Producer Eiji Aonuma finally went hands-on with Grezzo’s work, he liked the dungeon-creation idea but was more intrigued by being able to “place items that can be copied and pasted in the