The legendary Zelda producer, Eiji Aonuma, has had quite the year — when you consider the launch of Tears of the Kingdom and all — but 2023 just keeps getting bigger for the head of the series, as he has now been named a ‘Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters’ by the French Minister of Culture.
According to French website Le Figaro, no date has been set for the presentation just yet, but soon enough, Aonuma will be joining his Nintendo teammate Shigeru Miyamoto as a recipient of the title. Does this mean that the guys behind Zelda are technically real-life knights? Yes, it does. Does that mean that they can carry swords? Uhhh, no.
This is, of course, a fantastic achievement and a well-deserved one at that. Eiji Aonuma worked as a director on the likes of Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, and has served as the series producer for over 10 years now. When you consider the popularity of Zelda, especially at the moment, that’s quite the CV.
And so, we’d like to wish Mr Aonuma a huge congratulations! Having a couple of knights at the top of Nintendo, now that’s a pretty cool claim…