I wanted Link to be gender neutral. I wanted the player to think ‘Maybe Link is a boy or a girl.’ If you saw Link as a guy, he’d have more of a feminine touch. Or vice versa, if you related to Link as a girl, it was with more of a masculine aspect. I really wanted the [design] to encompass more of a gender neutral figure. So I’ve always thought that for either female or male players, I wanted them to be able to relate to Link… As far as gender goes, Link [in Breath of the Wild] is definitely a male, but I wanted to create a character where anybody would be able to relate to the character.

Zelda Producer Eiji Aonuma, as quoted in Gizmodo’s ‘A Link Between Genders: Trans Joy and the Legend of Zelda‘

Writing yesterday’s post about Tears of the Kingdom set me off on the hunt for articles about the game. In-between reviews and strategy guides, the Gizmodo article on Link’s status as an “egg-cracker” was the clear standout.

The note about the tactical ambiguity of Link’s design is particularly intriguing. In attempting to build a character that appeals across the gender divide, Nintendo have created opportunities to explore life outside of that binary. In the middle of overlapping conversations about gestural marketing, genuine participation and personal exploration, this strikes me as being relatively quiet path, and one perfectly aligned with the game’s focus on discovery.