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The story
A thread has appeared on 5ch’s Hardware & Industry (Geha) board about Eiji Aonuma, director of the Legend of Zelda series, reportedly saying that the loading screens in the new game were “deliberately kept.” Since Nintendo already achieved seamless transitions into dungeons in Tears of the Kingdom, attention has focused on why loading screens would be deliberately inserted this time around. The thread saw a clash between posters defending it as an intentional choice for pacing and presentation, and others suspicious it’s just an excuse for hardware limitations, with the back-and-forth never quite converging.
What people said
They just deliberately kept it in (lol)
Absolutely not — that would ruin the original game's atmosphere.
Oh, finally figured that out, huh?
It gets rid of those weird mystery corridors.
Zero loading makes it feel kind of shallow, you know 🥺
Better to spend a bit of time actually traveling 😎
What atmosphere are you getting from a plain black screen?
Nintendo: "We're deliberately keeping load times."
That's the real "difference" right there.
He never actually said that (´・ω・`)
Uh, yes he did.
Pretty sure he did say it though?
Sorry to break it to you, but he did say it (lol)
I remember Star Fox Adventures having some weird connecting paths like that too.
Was there really? There was one between the cave and the plains in the earlier area, but that was probably just for presentation.
And what's the point of a black loading screen, then?
The N64 definitely had a fair amount of loading. It's just that PlayStation's loads were so much longer back then that nobody cared about that level of loading.
Of course it didn't. That's the whole reason they stuck with outdated cartridges.
It did. Even opening and closing the menu was painfully sluggish (which is why the boot-swapping in the Water Temple got so much criticism).
Or are you just pretending someone did so you have something to criticize?
Where did anyone say "amazing"? The point is that a comment defending the deliberate loading screens wasn't even necessary.
Go look on X (Twitter). Plenty of people saying it there.
That works for Resident Evil because it's horror, though.
Are you the famous Mohri Meijin who reviewed Gran Turismo? (a retro gaming personality known for over-the-top, sometimes absurd praise)
So why didn't they, then?
Oh… okay, sure…
They already proved it's possible — Tears of the Kingdom has seamless transitions all the way into the main dungeons.
Background and Points of Debate
Whether or not a console has loading times has, in recent years, become a straightforward yardstick for measuring hardware performance, and since the PS5 generation, “loadless” gameplay enabled by high-speed SSDs has become a selling point. Aonuma’s remark, in that context, comes across as a deliberately contrarian choice, and the thread split over whether this was simply a technical limitation dressed up as a creative decision, or a genuinely intentional artistic choice. One point that’s easy to miss is that using loading screens as a deliberate stylistic device isn’t unique to this case — other companies’ games have done the same (such as the door-opening animations in Resident Evil) — so it isn’t necessarily just an excuse for lacking technical power. On the other hand, details of the original interview this remark is sourced from, the specific title of the new game, and actual measured loading times are all things the thread itself doesn’t clarify, leaving it up to readers to judge how much of this to take at face value.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary from the 5ch (Hardware & Industry (Geha)) thread “Zelda’s Aonuma: “We Deliberately Kept the Loading Screens”.”
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