Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto has slowly withdrawn from active game development as the years go by, but The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom may mark a major step in that journey as the first Zelda game without his name in the credits.
As picked up by Go Nintendo, Miyamoto isn’t mentioned anywhere in the credits of Echoes of Wisdom, marking a first across 19 mainline Zelda games from 1986 to last year’s Tears of the Kingdom.
Miyamoto has been involved with the Zelda franchise since its inception, but the 71-year-old has slowly stepped away from development over the years to work on some of Nintendo’s non-game-related projects. As far back as 2011, Miyamoto said he liked to remove himself from development a little so the studio’s younger developers would step up their involvement.
Earlier this year, Miyamoto said that he still has no plans to retire, but has been making succession plans for his role within Nintendo “in case something does happen.” His current title at Nintendo is Representative Director and Fellow, and he still often acts as a spokesperson for the company and its upcoming projects.
Regardless of his actual level of involvement in the game, Miyamoto’s absence from the Echoes of Wisdom credits is curious as the person who created the Legend of Zelda series, its setting, and many of its mainstay characters. Also conspicuously absent from the credits is Takashi Tezuka, another Nintendo mainstay who has been credited on all Zelda titles aside from Zelda 2 and Tears of the Kingdom.
