London, October 2011. Thousands are crowded into the Hammersmith Apollo, one of the city’s most famous theatrical venues, to hear a concert of music commemorating the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda. It’s an emotional night. Host Zelda Williams recalls how much the series she was named after meant to her growing up, and her voice audibly cracks at the memory. As Koji Kondo plays a delicate piano solo of Grandma’s Theme from The Wind Waker, grown men can be seen dabbing their eyes. Kondo rises from his seat and the audience stands, too, applauding wildly, a number of them clad in the familiar green tunic, tights and pointed hat of their hero.
How did this simple fairytale fantasy inspire such passion, such devotion?
Kyoto, 1986. Buoyed by the success of Super Mario Bros. a year earlier, game designers Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka are putting the finishing touches to their latest creation, The Legend of Zelda. It is designed to be Mario’s polar opposite: a slow-paced adventure with multiple routes open to the player. Despite complaints that such an approach will prove confusing to players, Miyamoto bullishly reinforces his decision by removing the sword from the player’s inventory at the outset. The reason: he wants players to communicate, to share ideas on how to beat the game. Even from the start, The Legend of Zelda was designed to be a game that people would talk about.
The first seeds of its development were sown in the mind of a young Miyamoto as he explored local forests and caves as a boy, “stumbling on amazing things”. It wasn’t just the great outdoors that provided rich creative material: childhood memories of being lost in the labyrinth of shoji doors and tatami floors of his family home were the inspiration for Zelda’s dungeons.