Nintendo designer responsible for Tingle has announced his retirement

Nintendo veteran Takaya Imamura has today announced his retirement after working at Nintendo for 32 years. 

The announcement which was made via Imamura’s Facebook page includes a photo of him standing outside the empty (due to the COVID-19 pandemic) Nintendo offices with the caption: “This is my last day going to work. I took a selfie with the empty office. I guess I won’t be coming in here anymore. As you’d expect, I’ll miss it.” (translated from Japanese into English by Kotaku)

Takaya Imamura is known for working on many different Nintendo titles over the years including being credited as main art director and character designer on Star Fox and the F-Zero series. He is most widely known though for creating Captain Falcon, Fox McCloud (who according to Imamura himself, was based on Shigeru Miyamoto), and the iconic Legend of Zelda characters Tingle and the moon (yes, THAT moon) in Majora’s Mask. 

Fans of Imamura’s work were quick to leave messages of support and to thank him for his hard work at Nintendo in the post’s comments, to which he replied to many thanking them for their continued support.

This announcement comes shortly after Nintendo’s proposed acquisition of Next Level Games, who are responsible for developing Luigi’s Mansion 3, and Universal Studios Japan’s decision to delay the opening of Super Nintendo World again due to a state of emergency being declared in various Japanese prefectures last week.

If you’re still looking for an excuse to get Nintendo’s latest console, why not take a look at our best Nintendo Switch games list.