Elden Ring didn’t inspire Tears of the Kingdom because Zelda devs were too busy to play it

There’s no way The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was inspired by elden ringbecause everyone who did was too busy doing just that.

It’s not exactly a secret that Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki has drawn a lot of inspiration from the Zelda series over the years. Elden Ring itself is no different, with an equally impressive open world that really encourages you to explore it. But the same cannot be said the other way around, since in a new interview by RTL New (translations of nintendo everything), Tears of the Kingdom director Hidemaro Fujibayashi, and producer Eiji Aonuma talked about their influences and where they get ideas from. It turns out that Elden Ring is not one of them, because they did not even have time to play it.

“I’m sorry, but we didn’t really get a chance to play the game,” Fujibayashi said. “We were too busy developing Tears of the Kingdom, which resulted in us not really being able to play the game. However, we did hear about it.” Tears of the Kingdom is a pretty massive game, so it’s not surprising that it took up most of the developer’s time. Also, Tears of the Kingdom was basically made last year, and the rest of the time was spent polishing it, so it’s not like there was time for inspiration anyway.

However, the most interesting thing is that Aonuma’s explanation for not being inspired by other games is for another reason: he is “too proud”. The longtime producer of the Zelda series said, “Of course, there are situations where you create something that is similar to an existing game. But I would never try to put other people’s ideas into my game. I’m too proud for that.” I’m always looking for original ideas.” Nintendo is known for its uniqueness in the industry, so hearing that that’s the Aonuma mindset when it comes to game development isn’t exactly surprising.

While Elden Ring and Tears of the Kingdom are somewhat comparable, there is one place they are not, and that is in sales. Tears of the Kingdom managed to sell 10 million copies in its first three days, a much faster feat than Elden Ring’s 13.4 million in its first month.