Tears of the Kingdom Producer Aonuma Says There Will Be No DLC

Producer Eiji Aonuma and Director Hidemaro Fujibayashi sat down with Japanese magazine Famitsu to discuss the development and future of the The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel. Aonuma says there will be no DLC for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. According to his other comments, it appears the development team may be considering taking the series in a new direction and setting as well. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

When discussing the intricacies of how The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom came to be, two core concepts continued to be stressed during the interview: simplicity and versatility. The development team used these ideas as a base for expanding the fun to be had in the game’s world. The element of fun was prioritized and developed first before even beginning to design the world. It was thanks to this, according to Aonuma and Fujibayashi, that the underground map was actually completed in a surprisingly short amount of time.

With the amount of content already in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Fujibayashi mentioned that the team doesn’t know what the next game in The Legend of Zelda series will look like, but it is being thought about at this point in time.

Fujibayashi told Famitsu, “I am thinking about what the next fun experience will be. What form that will take, I can only say that at this point we don’t know.”

Aonuma also detailed how the game was designed to be played over a long period of time from the initial planning stages. Items to collect, new gameplay elements, and places to explore were multiplied over the course of the development process to create play that lasts. Aonuma considered this a positive aspect to the game and told Famitsu he believed the depth allows the game to be passed on to more people over time.

In order to increase the fun to be had in the game even further, Aonuma and Fujibayashi stated that they specifically wanted to hide the existence of the underground in all pre-release promotions for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. So, Fujibayashi asked for the underground map to not be revealed in any pre-release trailers.

Fujibayashi told Famitsu, “I thought that knowing an underground world existed in the game was part of the discovery and exploration aspect of The Legend of Zelda… I thought it would be more fun if people didn’t expect it.”

It was at the end of the interview that Aonuma dropped the news that no additional DLC is planned for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Aonuma told Famitsu, “At this time, we do not plan on releasing any additional content, because we feel that we have exhausted the possibilities of creating fun in that world.”

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available worldwide exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.