When it comes to collaborations in the gaming space, how some of them get pitched depends on the circumstances behind it, while also being about the groups collaborating on it. In the case of Hyrule Warriors Age of Imprisonment, Nintendo and Koei Tecmo were already working together on other titles, so you’d think that this title would’ve been “natural” after the release of Tears of the Kingdom. Except, in a chat with 4Gamer, producers Yosuke Hayashi and Ryota Matsushita revealed that this actually wasn’t the case, as they had to reach out to Nintendo to make it happen. Hayashi noted:
“We all eagerly awaited the release of Tears of the Kingdom – I personally played the weekend immediately following its release. I felt like the game was sending us a message of something like “Make a Warriors game set in the time of the Imprisoning War!” After the weekend I spoke to Matsushita saying, “Let’s make it!” and we drew up a plan.”
Then, Matsushita added:
In truth, I had also actually been putting a plan together before he spoke to me (laughs). I felt like the ‘seeds’ of a Warriors game were scattered all over the place.
In that same interview, Eiji Aonuma noted that Nintendo was game ahead of time to make things happen, but felt Koei Tecmo should reach out first:
On the Nintendo side, during Tears of the Kingdom’s development, Fujibayashi established in detail exactly what the Imprisoning War was. And after it was finished, he said to me, “Maybe we could ask Koei Tecmo this time too?”, but I responded with “No, let’s wait to hear from Koei Tecmo first” (laughs). It was almost immediately after that that they contacted us.
…go figure!
Read our Hyrule Warriors Age of Imprisonment review here!
Source: 4Gamer
