Nintendo
Will Princess Zelda ever be a playable character? The Tears of the Kingdom devs hint at the possibility
Eiji Aonuma isn’t giving a definitive no on Princess Zelda being playable in the future of the Legend of Zelda series.
Although The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom came out this year, having won the Best Action/Adventure Game award during The Game Awards 2023, and contains dozens or even hundreds of hours of content, fans of the saga can’t help but wonder about what’s to come. While there are some who advocate for a more limited game, there are also fans of the more open formula that was introduced The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and was perfected in its most recent delivery. However, there is something that not many take into account... what if Link were not its protagonist? Or at least not the only one?
A playable Princess Zelda? Nintendo does not rule it out
In an interview with IGN, both Eiji Aonuma and Hidemaro Fujibayashi, heads of the development of Tears of the Kingdom, have not ruled out that in the future we will be able to control Princess Zelda.
“Yeah, it is interesting when you think about the name of the series, the Legend of Zelda, but Link is always the main character,” observes Aonuma, when asked about this possibility. “And Link has been the main character, and Zelda has always been involved, and they have a relationship and their own rules in each of the games. But it is true that, I think there’s always room for thinking about this type of thing and Zelda’s role. And there may be some sort of possibility for something like that in the future”.
“I will leave it to everyone’s imagination [whether Link and Zelda are in a relationship],” Aonuma said about the relationship between the two most popular characters in the saga. “I don’t think that Zelda is a type of game where the development team says, ‘This is what Zelda is, this is what the story is, this is what the game is.’ Everything that the development team wants to convey has already been placed into the game. And the rest is up to the player’s imagination, and their reflection on how they feel… what they’ve experienced in the game.”
What there is no doubt is that the players, precisely by encouraging their interpretation to Nintendo, will continue to speculate about the future of both, as well as the entire saga. Meanwhile, let’s continue enjoying Tears of the Kingdom on Nintendo Switch.