Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom almost had a title that gave away a big twist

A recently released art book for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has revealed that it was planned to have a different title. And that original title might have spoiled one of the game’s biggest twists.

Obviously, know that major spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will follow. If you haven’t finished the game yet, read at your own peril.

Nintendo released the Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom “Master Works” art book in Japan on August 30, 2024. Thanks to this, Legend of Zelda fans got a fascinating first look at a great amount of concept art for what was one of 2023’s biggest and most critically acclaimed games. However, a very interesting piece of new information didn’t come from the art itself, but from something the producer of the game, Eiji Aonuma, revealed in the book.

This new tidbit was translated from the book by Nintendo Everything and says that, according to Aonuma, the original title for the game was going to be The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Dragon. Those who have played the game in its entirety will immediately recognize that this would have been a big problem, since this subtitle contains a huge story spoiler.

Aonuma agrees. “Letting it slip that the Light Dragon is Zelda would have been a problem, and this had an effect on the title too,” said Aonuma.

Aonuma and his team managed to prevent this spoiler with a clever change

The team struggled to figure out a way to incorporate the dragon imagery into the logo, without giving away the whole thing. Nothing good was coming to mind, until someone on the team suggested “Kingdom” and thus, they decided to change it to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

“It felt like the phrase could connect to the Light Dragon to us, and we could use dragons in the logo. With the title decided, the logo finally became what it is now”, said Aonuma.

It makes sense now, as Tears of the Kingdom went quite a while without an official subtitle. “As for why we’re holding back on the name, you’ll just have to stay tuned because, obviously, Zelda names are kind of important”, said Nintendo’s Bill Trinen back in June 2021.

Fortunately for Nintendo and for Legend of Zelda fans, the change from Tears of the Dragon to Tears of the Kingdom was a brilliant decision that let players experiment a perfectly crafted plot twist without suspecting anything.