When Super Mario Maker was released on the Wii U, it turned a lot of heads. Why? Because it was unexpected. No one thought about a game that would let them create Mario levels and share them online. But it was a hit, and its sequel on Nintendo Switch did even better! So, since it worked for the Mario franchise, could it work for The Legend of Zelda franchise? Possibly. But in an interview with Polygon, series producer Eiji Aonuma shared his thoughts on the idea, and he wasn’t too excited about the notion:
“When we’re creating games like Tears of the Kingdom, I think it’s important that we don’t make creativity a requirement. Instead we put things into the game that encourage people to be creative, and give them the opportunity to be creative, without forcing them to. There are people who want the ability to create from scratch, but that’s not everyone. But 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 to 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.”
When you think about it, this does seem like a logical thing. Plus, Mario levels are FAR less complex to structure than a Zelda dungeon.