Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom programmers share some of their amazing feats

Plus: First look at InKonbini, an upcoming game about a Japanese convenience store, and tons more GDC '24 highlights

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of he Kingdom’s developer-only voxel view of the game world. Image: Nintendo (slide snapped by Game File)

Two Nintendo programmers helped kick off the third day of this year’s Game Developers Conference with an impressive presentation about the physics and sound for 2023’s acclaimed The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

They had a full audience in a packed room that seated more than three thousand game creators.

The Nintendo developers had built a great game, but it wasn’t easy. They were here at GDC to explain how they pulled it off and maybe provide some inspiration.

From the start, Tears of the Kingdom was meant to be a Zelda game focused on player creativity. Players would be able to combine in-world objects to craft vehicles, catapults and other contraptions, basically making anything imaginable.

“The more I thought, the more I worried,” Takahiro Takayama, Tears of the Kingdom’s  physics programming lead, said, as he explained how he felt when he learned the game’s core concept.

“But in life it’s sometimes important to have the courage to push forward.”