The man who was at Shigeru Miyamoto’s side when creating Super Mario Bros. and director of The Legend of Zelda is set to retire from Nintendo after more than 40 years at the company. It was revealed in today’s financial reports that he will finish up on June 26th, 2026.

Tezuka has been right there from the start and directed games including The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros. 3, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Super Mario World. His name is attributed to so many games that my fingers hurt from scrolling.

If his name doesn’t appear again, his current last credit is on Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup at Bellabel Park.

A lot of the older guard at Nintendo are hitting retirement age, including Yoshio Sakamoto (66), Koji Kondo (64) and Eiji Aonuma (63). This follows news that Hideki Konno and Kensuke Tanabe have also both retired this year.

All the best Tezuka-san.