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Like many gamers, I’m going to be dipping into The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom this weekend. Normally I put that sort of personal information further down the KF, but in this case I’m mentioning it because it’s also part of one my favorite stories this week. Nintendo lifted the curtain on the game’s development in its Ask the Developer interview series — which featured stories from series producer Eiji Aonuma; Satoshi Terada, director of the game at partner studio Grezzo; and Tomomi Sano, director on Nintendo’s side of development.
Sano has several years of experience in the industry and multiple titles under her belt. As other’s have pointed out, Sano is the first woman to direct a mainline Zelda title, and from the look of the game, she knocked it out of the park. I was already excited to play Zelda’s new standalone adventure (no offense, Link), but seeing Sano — and Terada and Aonuma — speak about how Echoes developed over time from a make-your-own dungeon title to a mischief-making sim all about finding creative solutions to your problems really pushed my dial up to 11. It’ll definitely be my game of choice this weekend.
The rest of the week has been a bit of a rush. First we had the State of Play, which revealed the beautiful new game in the Ghost of series, Ghost of Yotei. That wasn’t the only thing it revealed, of course, but it was the one that stuck in my mind the most. We also got to see the Horizon Zero Dawn remaster — which didn’t look like too chunky of an upgrade, but who am I to judge? The PS5 Pro Limited Edition sold out almost instantly, so y’all lucky suckers need something to play on it.
The other big thing this week was Ubisoft’s meltdown. The company delayed the next Assassin’s Creed game to next February — which is already starting to look a bit crowded with Civilization VII, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Monster Hunter Wilds, Avowed, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii and now AC: Shadows jockeying for prominence. It also admitted that Star Wars Outlaws underperformed to the point where it’s having to revise its financial estimates. It’s been a bit …