We almost had a The Legend of Zelda video game where players could create their own dungeons. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, which launches later this week, lets players obtain “echoes” of items and enemies, which they can explore, fight, and solve puzzles with. A new Ask the Developer interview from Nintendo revealed that this gameplay idea came from the original concept for Echoes of Wisdom: an “edit dungeon” concept where “players could create their own The Legend of Zelda gameplay,” according to Grezzo game director Satoshi Terada.
Ultimately, the team went in a different direction after recognizing the potential of the echoes mechanic created for the “edit dungeon” concept. While I’m still quite excited to play Echoes of Wisdom, part of me is disappointed that we aren’t getting a The Legend of Zelda dungeon maker game. It’s OK that Echoes of Wisdom went in a different direction, but this is an idea Nintendo should certainly return to in the future.
It’s not uncommon for game developers to experiment with different gameplay concepts or ideas early on in development to find what works. Terada explained that in one of these early concepts, “Link could copy and paste various objects, such as doors and candlesticks, to create original dungeons.” Later in the Ask the Developer interview, Nintendo director Tomomi Sano said that this “concept involved copying various things during your adventure out on the game field, then bringing them back to create a dungeon in a dedicated place.”
While something like Super Mario Maker 2 is a level creator first and foremost, it seems like this “edit dungeon” concept for Echoes of Wisdom was mixing dungeon creation with the exploration expected from a 2D Zelda game. When The Legend of Zelda series Producer Eiji Aonuma finally went hands-on with Grezzo’s work, he liked the dungeon-creation idea but was more intrigued by being able to “place items that can be copied and pasted in the game field, and create gameplay where they can be used to fight enemies.”
In a typical Nintendo style, Aonuma extrapolated what he considered the best parts of a game concept after a year of development to create something different that feels wholly unique. That commitment to original game design and not always going for the obvious is part of what makes Nintendo great. Sadly, it can also result in disappointment when we learn what was left on the cutting room floor.
Right now, the closest thing we’ve gotten to it officially are the Chamber Dungeons in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening’s remake, but that’s limited in a lot of ways. On the indie front, there are games like Super Dungeon Maker or Quest Master, but those lack the level of polish a first- or second-party Nintendo game would likely have. Just look at Super Mario Maker 2 to understand how great a Zelda dungeon-maker game could be.
Super Mario Maker 2 is one of my favorite games on Nintendo Switch because of how intuitive creating levels, sharing them, and playing those made by others are. I often bounce off the level-creation systems in games like LittleBigPlanet, Dreams, and Meet Your Maker, but there’s something inherently intuitive and approachable to Super Mario Maker 2’s level creator that keeps me coming back. I’d love for a Zelda Maker game to have that same sense of approachability as I place together rooms or entire dungeons for other players to navigate. If it were like Mario maker and let players switch between the visual styles of 2D Zelda games from different eras, that would be a cherry on top.
The idea of a The Legend of Zelda dungeon-maker game has so much untapped potential, and I see a lot of demand for it based on the reaction to this reveal in the Nintendo interview. I’m glad Nintendo and Grezzo could create a new type of Zelda game with Echoes of Wisdom, but I also hope they revisit that “edit dungeon” concept one day as I think they left behind another equally fantastic idea.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom launches for Nintendo Switch on September 26.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.