Nintendo’s quality control engineers took extreme care when using automated tools in the caves, islands, and environments of Tears of the Kingdom. Takuma Oiso explains how they did it.
When creating a game as titanic as Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, it is logical that the developers of Nintendo had to resort to automated tools. However, Nintendo is “reluctant” to use generative AI to create games.
They acknowledge their use, but always under exhaustive quality control. The dungeons and caves of the Switch exclusive were created with this kind of tools, as acknowledged by engineer Takuma Oiso.
However, at the Japan Computer Entertainment Development Conference (via Automaton), Oiso revealed new details about the creation process, showing that AI must be “controlled” to ensure a quality product.
Since Link can use ”Ascend” to enter any upper structure (not forgetting the sky and underground of Hyrule), The Japanese company was forced to automate certain aspects related to the art of the game.
But never “blindly.” Quality control engineers like Takuma ensured that every generative AI creation had the essence of games of yesteryear.
In the case of caves or dungeons, Nintendo acknowledges the use of AI for the ”outline” at the design level on the world, but The content was made by hand.
The fear of losing value
When creating the hundreds of caves in Hyrule, a small department at Nintendo was tasked with generating models using automated tools, but only for the purely decorative aspects (following a procedural structure).
Instead, the layout of the rooms, the placement of enemies, resources and items were made ”by hand”.
The reason? At Nintendo they especially value craftsmanship, and They fear that the use of automated tools will take away “essence” to the final product.
”If we did it blindly, the game could end up losing something valuable.”, says Takuma Oiso at the aforementioned conference.
The development team did the same to recreate every island in the sky of HyruleIn this way, they were able to shorten development time, while ensuring the best artistic quality.
It is not the first time that Nintendo shows its respect for traditional development.Shuntaro Furukawa, president of the company, has repeatedly said that Nintendo does not want to depend on AI for the future of its developments.
