The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has been regarded as one of the best games ever made for nearly 30 years, and its new Switch 2 remake is seeing similar levels of acclaim. Part of the reason for its critical success seems to be its deep understanding of the source material, and that shouldn’t be a surprise when considering how well Nintendo has retained staff over the years–something very few other game companies have managed to do.
Speaking to GameSpot, longtime Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma acknowledged the benefits of having developers on the team who have been working at Nintendo for decades.
“I think you see a real benefit to having some very long-term-tenured staff members around who have shared the same experiences over time, because every time you get to the next step, it’s easier to discuss how to proceed, or if you’re going to do something new,” Aonuma said via an interpreter. “When you have new staff coming in, of course you want to make sure that you’re bringing everyone up with a lot of discussion, explaining how to do things, why you’re doing things certain ways, as well as the language that you’re using. But that takes some more time, as well. So you need a bit of a balance.”
Despite not having everyone move from one Zelda project to the next, enough developers have remained at Nintendo to provide a consistent throughline.
“And so you do see the Zelda team change over time, but there is a continuity of core staff–certainly at least from one project to the next–so that we have that base that we can build from and bring up new staff with it,” Aonuma added. “And this is something that I think Nintendo has done for a very long time, even since Miyamoto [was] originally working on projects like this. And it contributes to some of the sense of continuity that you do feel in games in the Zelda franchise, for example.”
“Continuity” might not be the first thing you think of when Zelda gets mentioned, but Nintendo certainly knows what it’s doing with Zelda as of late. In our Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake review, Steve Watts said, “By approaching this remake with a degree of reverence and respect for the source material, Nintendo has shown that a true masterpiece can stand the test of time.”