Tears of the Kingdom’s Ascend Ability Was Originally a Developer Cheat Code

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s Ascend ability, which lets players move through cave roofs straight to the surface, was originally a cheat code used by developers for a quick escape.

Speaking to Polygon, long-time Nintendo developers Eiji Aonuma and Hidemaro Fujibayashi said they found exiting Tears of the Kingdom’s long and winding caves so tedious that they would essentially hit a special escape button that was available to them in a debug version of the game.

“The Ascend ability was actually the result of a debug feature that we have in the game,” Fujibayashi said.