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Why Zelda Producer Thinks Mario Maker Won’t Work

• Jacob Chambers
• December 19th, 2023

Nintendo has previously rejected the idea of a Mario Maker-style Zelda game, and despite the long time between updates, it appears the Japanese video game company still doesn’t like it.

Series producer Eiji Aonuma told Polygon that Nintendo doesn’t want to “force” players to be creative in Zelda but rather “encourage” them.

When asked “directly” about a Mario Maker-style Zelda game, he said:

Eiji Aonuma: “There are people who want the ability to create from scratch, but that’s not everyone. I think everyone delights in the discovery of finding your own way through a game, and that is something we tried to make sure was included in Tears of the Kingdom; there isn’t one right way to play. If you are a creative person, you have the ability to go down that path. But that’s not what you have to do; you’re also able to proceed through the game in many other different ways. And so I don’t think that it would be a good fit for The Legend of Zelda to necessarily require people to build things from scratch and force them to be creative.”

In 2015, Mario Maker producer Takashi Tezuka called a “Zelda Maker” game a “difficult task.”.

The Chamber Dungeon was added to The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening for Switch because Shigeru Miyamoto requested “Mario Maker-like gameplay” even though there is no Zelda Maker game planned.

Some indies have tried to recreate Mario Maker’s magic in a Zelda-like setting. Super Dungeon Maker, released on Switch earlier this year, has garnered attention.