The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom producer Eiji Aonuma has revealed that he’s finished the upcoming game 20 times.
In a recent Ask the Developer interview with Nintendo, via GamesRadar, Aonuma explained that he kept playing the open-world game over and over in order to debug it, amounting to 20 total clears.
“I wonder how many times I’ve played the game to debug it,” Aonuma pondered. “I’ve played this game from start to finish about 20 times, and I can say that it’s more fun with detours, even more so than in the previous game.”
The series producer added that he’s “never felt bored once” and would often “rush ahead” and play through the entire story first during each playthrough so he could explore other content in the game, like side quests.
“I even discovered something new the other day while shooting the gameplay demonstration video,” Aonuma added.
During the same interview, game director Hidemaro Fujibayashi finally revealed that Tears of the Kingdom would have dungeons. Art director Satoru Takizawa went on to explain that “Making a ‘wide variety’ was pretty challenging. The four Divine Beasts [which were featured in Breath of the Wild] were the dungeons in the last game, and they shared similar designs.
“This time, the dungeons are huge and each carry their own regional look and feel, just like traditional The Legend of Zelda games. We think they will provide a satisfying challenge for players. They were certainly a challenge to develop!”
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom launches on Nintendo Switch on May 12. Preloading is available now.
In other gaming news, Team Cherry has announced that its highly anticipated sequel to Hollow Knight – Hollow Knight: Silksong– has been delayed.