Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Would Have Sat on a Powder Keg With One Cut Feature

Arriving in what may be the Nintendo Switch’s final year, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom managed to feel like one more mainline title while looking like a spin-off. Rendered in the same chibi art style as the Link’s Awakening remake, Echoes of Wisdom has already sold over 2.58 million copies in its launch week alone, owing largely to the many novel things it does to the traditional Legend of Zelda format. The game implements open-ended mechanics and world design that would feel right at home in Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, and that’s just the start.

Not only does Echoes of Wisdom match the ambition and ingenuity of a major Legend of Zelda title, it also goes where even they have yet to tread. For the first time since the infamous CD-i Zelda titles, Princess Zelda is the sole protagonist, while the usual hero, Link, is indisposed. This has been a fan request since before Breath of the Wild was released near the Switch’s launch, so it was vital for Nintendo to do her justice. With the free-form Echo system encouraging the Triforce of Wisdom bearer to use her virtue, it did a great job, but Echoes of Wisdom nearly got sidetracked by another series first.

Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Is Zelda’s Journey But Still Link’s Story

Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom may feature the titular princess as its playable protagonist, but her journey still largely revolves around Link’s story.

Echoes of Wisdom Couldn’t Make One Big Change From The Norm

Ever since the original Famicom Legend of Zelda title in 1986, no dialogue boxes have been attributed to Link. In the interest of allowing players to fully immerse themselves as the savior of Hyrule, it became a tradition for Link to be a silent blank slate that players could fully project themselves onto. Link could still communicate with other characters through gestures and voice grunts, and adaptations like the old Legend of Zelda cartoon or the various manga iterations saw Link talking, but game players never heard any more than the implication of speech.

At Some Point, Echoes of Wisdom Let Link Speak

Now that Princess Zelda is in the driving seat, this tradition has passed on to her, but it turns out that it was nearly a full role reversal early in Echoes of Wisdom‘s development. In a recent interview with Famitsu, Director Satoshi Terada and Producer Eiji Aonuma revealed that there were early considerations for giving Link a voice, and even lines written for Link to say. This unheard dialogue may go down as some of the wildest cut content in The Legend of Zelda’s history, and rolling it back was ultimately for Echoes of Wisdom‘s benefit.

Echoes of Wisdom Keeping Link Quiet Is A Good Thing

If imagining Link speaking in a Zelda game feels hard, one can rest assured that the developers felt the same while looking at him do it. Aonuma and Terada both noted that Link’s speaking was off-putting no matter what he said, and Aonuma emphasized that Link’s silence was a consistent part of Zelda’s history. Echoes of Wisdom instead justified Link’s muteness by wrapping it up in the non-traditional story elements of its Still World, and it dodged a bullet in the process. If The Legend of Zelda’s developers thought Link speaking was weird, fan reception would have been even worse — and at the worst time, to boot.

A Talkative Link Would Have Undercut Zelda’s Novel Heroine Status

Princess Zelda becoming the star of a Nintendo-developed Legend of Zelda game was supposed to be Echoes of Wisdom’s main hook, and it would have stumbled at the finish line if Link’s voice became a talking point. Even while setting out to break Legend of Zelda traditions like BotW and TotK did, Echoes of Wisdom needed to ensure that players didn’t get distracted by new happenings completely unrelated to its main objective. Echoes of Wisdom succeeded in giving Princess Zelda the game she deserved, even if it meant confining Link to the background in the process.