The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom gives Link a whole new set of abilities, and they completely change how players interact with Hyrule compared to Breath of the Wild. One of those abilities is Ascend, which allows Link to travel upwards through ceilings and structures, instead of having to climb to the top. Its use is required in many of the game’s puzzles, but it can also be exploited as a handy time-saver, as well. In a new interview with Polygon, director Hidemaro Fujibayashi revealed that the ability actually started out as a sort of cheat code for the developers.
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“…the Ascend ability was actually the result of a debug feature that we have in the game,” Fujibayashi told Polygon. “When I was exploring the caves, I would get to thedestination where I was trying to get to, and once I checked it out, Iwould just use the debug code to get to the top. And I thought, Well, maybe this is something that can be usable in the game.”
Series producer Eiji Aonuma was quick to chime in that “these cheat code-style abilities, it did create some issues for us.” The team had to make sure that the ability worked properly and if players used it, they would end up on the other side of the structure, rather than stuck thanks to a bug or some other type of issue. While it might have started as a cheat code, it still led to a lot of extra work for the developer and took quite a bit of time to perfect!
While Tears of the Kingdom was a massive undertaking for Nintendo, the results have been quite positive. Reviews for the game have been outstanding, and social media has been inundated with players showcasing the many unique ways they’ve been able to use Link’s abilities. That will likely inspire a lot more players to check out the game, which is already selling quite well around the world.
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