The highest praise anyone can give The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom may be that it makes Breath of the Wild, one of the most important open-world games of the past decade, if not ever, look quaint. The scope and inventiveness of Nintendo's latest open-world epic has sparked and reignited discussions of design principles, how we experience games, the capabilities of the Switch, and plenty more. Despite being a direct sequel revisiting many ideas and areas, it has managed to surprise us all over again.
Since Tears of the Kingdom's launch, much of the critique I've enjoyed most has come from game developers. I think under-the-hood dev insight is especially fascinating in discussions like these. I wanted to read and spotlight more of the game dev perspective, so I sent a bunch of developers, at all levels of production, the same prompt: tell me something you find impressive, fun, perhaps divisive, or otherwise interesting about Tears of the Kingdom.
