Link's Awakening's Chamber Dungeon Is a Direct Result of Super Mario Maker

If you've played the new version of Link's Awakening that recently released on the Nintendo Switch, chances are good you've made it to the point where you can play with the game's new Chamber Dungeon area. Or if not, you've seen trailers and gameplay of the area, and perhaps thought, "Boy howdy, that kind of looks like a Zelda version of Super Mario Maker." If so, there's a good reason to think that as apparently... that's exactly what it is.

In a recent interview with Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma, the producer admitted that the entire Chamber Dungeon conceptually traces its roots back to a question about Super Mario Maker's potential application for Zelda from Nintendo icon Shigeru Miyamoto. IGNTKTTKK

"I talk to Mr. Miyamoto regularly about 'the next Zelda game,' and one time, he asked me if I could come up with a game that features Super Mario Maker-like gameplay, but for Zelda," Aonuma told IGN via email. "We talked about how a game like this for Zelda would have dungeons, but it's generally quite difficult to devise the logic needed to solve them."

The Chamber Dungeon isn't an exact replica of the Super Mario Maker formula, instead choosing to take distinct chunks of dungeons and line them up rather than allowing players the opportunity to mix and match all the bits and pieces. It dialed down the complexity significantly.

"So we gave some thought into a more approachable style of play where you have to think about how to arrange parts that already have a solution to create a single dungeon," Aonuma explained, "instead of allowing players to create complex arrangements like in Super Mario Maker 2, and that's how we created the Chamber Dungeons for this game."

What do you think about the Chamber Dungeon? Have you given it a go yet? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk all things gaming!

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening is currently available for Nintendo Switch. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the title right here. Here's a snippet of our official review, which gave the title a 5 out of 5:

"It's hard to find any sort of fault with The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening for Nintendo Switch. It is, after all, basically just… the original version of Link's Awakening with some minor changes. For those that might remember, this isn't the first time the game has had an overhaul, and while there's far more years between DX for Game Boy Color and the Switch version than the original and DX, the premise is largely the same: you can make it look better, sure, but there's no point in messing with greatness."