Confused why Nintendo said The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s title was a big spoiler? That’s because it had a different name for most of development

The title of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was kept a secret for a long time to avoid spoilers, as it was initially known by a different name.

Major spoilers ahead for Tears of the Kingdom, so proceed with caution.

In 2019, Nintendo announced the development of a sequel to Breath of the Wild, but it was unnamed at the time. For years, it was simply referred to as the sequel to Breath of the Wild or Breath of the Wild 2. In 2022, Nintendo finally revealed the title as Tears of the Kingdom. However, it was noted in the recently released Master Works book that the game had a different title late in development.

For context: early in the game, players encounter a new dragon on the tutorial island, a white one with a golden mane. This dragon is revealed to be Zelda herself through time travel and other plot elements. According to Master Works, the original title of the game was “Tears of the Dragon,” but concerns about spoilers led to a title change.

Series producer Eiji Aonuma explained, “Letting it slip that the Light Dragon is Zelda would have been a problem, and this had an effect on the title too. One of the candidates for the title that made it to end was ‘Tears of the Dragon’. But it would be a bad idea to have the keyword ‘Dragon’ in the title, and we wanted to have dragon patterns in the logo, but decided otherwise. It’d emphasize the Light Dragon, after all (laughs). But nothing else good was coming to mind, and we were running out of development time…

“We went through many words, and then one time a staff member suggested, ‘What about Kingdom?’ With ‘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.”

Although the title may not initially reveal much, the connection between tears and Zelda in the game’s memories becomes clearer as the story unfolds.

Tears of the Kingdom was released just last year, and Nintendo is already preparing for the next installment, Echoes of Wisdom, where players will take on the role of Princess Zelda herself.