Zelda Echoes of Wisdom’s original concept would have led to a completely different game

The release of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is quickly approaching and the developers have shared some interesting insights into how the game was created. In an interview published by Nintendo, director Tomomi Sano and producer Eiji Aonuma discussed many of the early concepts developer Grezzo experimented with.

According to developer Satoshi Terada, the team flirted with the concept of Link using a “copy and paste” mechanic that allowed Link to create his own dungeons by duplicating the items within them. This became known as the “edit dungeon” mechanic because the gameplay was created by the player and not the developer. When this idea was presented to Aonuma, he suggested that these items be placed all over the game instead of just in dungeons, which eventually led to the creation of the Echoes mechanic.

The Echoes mechanic that we see today does offer a large amount of creativity and freedom when it comes to approaching the game’s world, so it looks like Grezzo made the right decision. But that doesn’t mean the concept of a create-your-own Zelda game wouldn’t be fun as well. Dungeons are arguably the biggest part of the Zelda franchise, with each one usually containing an item or boss that Link must defeat to complete the game. With so many dungeons to draw inspiration from, players most definitely have their own ideas on what dungeons they’d like to create.

The origins of the Echoes mechanic feels very similar to the origin story of Super Mario Maker, which started out as a development tool before being pitched as a full game. Since that franchise has sold well and been critically praised, it might not be totally out of the realm of possibility to expect a Zelda dungeon maker later down the line.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is set to be released on Sept. 26.