Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has the Ascend ability because the devs love to cheat

Ascend, one of the new abilities found in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, was originally a debug option before being made into a feature.

You know what I miss being able to do in games? Cheat. I love a good cheat code, whether it's to make the game a bit funnier, or just to make things easier for myself. And it turns out that I'm not so different from the developers of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, who also love to cheat at video games. In an interview with Polygon, Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma and Tears of the Kingdom director Hidemaro Fujibayashi spoke about the latest release in the series, and shared that the Ascend ability was born from using a debug feature in the game.

When asked about their favourite of the new abilities, Aonuma said, "I guess for me, it’d have to be Ascend. I’m somebody who, you know, if I can find a way to cheat, I like to do that kind of gameplay." Following on from that, the pair were asked whether the point about cheating came up during development and how these new abilities are basically cheat codes, Fujibayashi confirmed that that was the case, and came from the convenience of being able to use the debug feature that allowed them to escape caves.

"The Ascend ability was actually the result of a debug feature that we have in the game," Fujibayashi shared. "When I was exploring the caves, I would get to the destination where I was trying to get to, and once I checked it out, I would just use the debug code to get to the top. And I thought, 'Well, maybe this is something that can be usable in the game…' And to be blunt and honest, cheating can be fun. So that’s why we decided to drop it in there." Developers! They're just like us!

Of course, it's a lot easier to cheat when you know when you're going, so maybe check out our Skyview Towers locations guide to help you get a lay of the land.