Takashi Tezuka, the Man Behind Mario and Zelda, Is Leaving Nintendo After 42 Years
Nintendo is losing one of its most important creative figures. Takashi Tezuka steps down as executive officer on June 26, 2026, after 42 years at the company. He reaches Nintendo's standard retirement age of 65 — this isn't a scandal or a sudden exit, just the end of one of gaming's longest careers.
The résumé
Tezuka joined Nintendo in 1984, starting on the original Punch-Out arcade game. He went on to direct or produce more than 150 titles, including The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario World, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past — working alongside Shigeru Miyamoto on nearly all of them. His most recent credit was as producer on Super Mario Bros. Wonder, per Video Games Chronicle. He is also the creator of Yoshi, which alone cements his place in the franchise's history.
Outside Nintendo, Tezuka has far less public name recognition than Miyamoto — but inside the company, his fingerprints are on the structural DNA of both Mario and Zelda.
The bigger picture
Tezuka's departure is the latest in a string of exits from Nintendo's founding generation. Hideki Konno, the veteran behind Mario Kart, and Kensuke Tanabe, long associated with the Metroid Prime series, have both left in recent years. The old guard is thinning, notes Shacknews.
What remains of that original cohort: Eiji Aonuma still leads the Zelda series at 63, composer Koji Kondo continues at 64, and Yoshio Sakamoto — director of Super Metroid — remains active at 65. Shigeru Miyamoto, now 73, stays on as executive advisor with no stated retirement plans, focused on mentoring the next generation of developers.
What comes next
Nintendo has not named a successor for Tezuka's executive officer role. The younger generation — the developers behind Splatoon, Astral Chain, and the recent Zelda entries — has been taking on more responsibility, but no single figure has been publicly positioned to inherit the creative authority Tezuka held.
For players, the franchises themselves aren't going anywhere. But the people who built their original rules, one by one, are.
