The first Nintendo Direct of the year is airing tonight, and I’m excited to see what Nintendo has up its sleeve for 2023. But, there's one game I think we’re all wanting to know more about.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is set to be released in just a few months, on May 12, 2023. It’s pretty much guaranteed that it will have some presence in tonight's Nintendo Direct presentation. Considering that Tears of the Kingdom is rumoured to be the last major release for the almost six-year-old Nintendo Switch console, we're hoping to see a deep-dive into the title, to see how it plans to differentiate itself from the incredible The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
The first trailer for Tears of the Kingdom was released during Nintendo’s E3 2019 presentation; since then we’ve had two more trailers. We’ve seen a grand total of four minutes and 42 seconds of the game in the four years since the game’s reveal. So I have very little to go on, but I’m going to go ahead and go over some things I want to see from Link’s newest adventure.
What we want to see from Tears of the Kingdom
Keep the freedom
What makes Breath of the Wild so incredible is just how freeing it is. Lesser open-world games will take you through these heavily linear tutorial sections, and then populate the map with 1000 markers in the fear that a player will miss any of the game's content, making the feeling of discovery non-existent.
Meanwhile, after the first 30 or so minutes spent in Breath of the Wild, you can do whatever you want. If you want to go scrap with the final boss with a twig and a pan lid, while in your underwear, go ahead. Sure, there are quests, but you’re never given a waypoint outside of the markers you set on your own. I can’t imagine they’ll suddenly deviate and make a highly-cinematic experience that holds your hand the entire game, but that sense of wonder and discovery needs to be kept for the upcoming sequel. Especially since it looks like we’ll be returning to the Hyrule featured in Breath of the Wild.
Darker tone
One thing the trailers for Tears of the Kingdom have in common is that they’re all decidedly darker in tone than Breath of the Wild. The first trailer saw Link and Zelda exploring an underground cave and discovering the dishevelled corpse of what looks like Ganon.
Could Tears of the Kingdom be to Breath of the Wild what Majora’s Mask was to Ocarina of Time? For those unfamiliar, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask reused assets from Ocarina of Time. But instead of a grand adventure to save the princess like in its predecessor, Majora’s Mask instead scaled everything back to tell a far darker story about an incoming apocalypse. Majora is fondly remembered as one of the most unique and beloved Zelda games ever. Perhaps we could see a similar move made for Tears of the Kingdom.
Bring back dungeons
The biggest criticism towards Breath of the Wild was definitely the lack of traditional Zelda dungeons seen in every game since A Link to the Past. Instead, the Divine Beasts were the games equivalent to dungeons. On the other hand, classic The Legend of Zelda dungeons revolved around finding a specific key item which was required to solve the puzzles within them. So, being able to dole out these items while maintaining the non-linear nature of the game could be a challenge.
If you’ll allow me to put on my tinfoil hat for a moment, I believe dungeons probably will make a return due to a hint in the latest trailer. Early on in the trailer, there is artwork depicting events like Moblin armies attacking Hyrule.
However, there's one shot showing a figure next to a fallen Zelda. Around this figure are seven symbols resembling Japanese magatama beads. Past Zelda games have featured groups of seven you have to rescue from dungeons in order to enter the final area, such as the Seven Sages in Ocarina of Time and Paintings in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.
Obviously, this is pure speculation, but I think it points to dungeons making their long-awaited return in Tears of the Kingdom.
The Price
Breath of the Wild launched at £59.99 / $59.99 / AU$89.95, which is already higher than most Switch games. However, it looks like Tears of the Kingdom could be even more expensive. Nintendo Life spotted that the US Nintendo Store page listed the title at $69.99 earlier today, putting it in line with pricing seen on PS5 and Xbox Series X games.
On one hand, current-generation pricing for a game released on last-generation hardware does seem a bit much. However, on the other hand, I would be far more willing to spend 70 quid on the sequel to one of the best games of all time. Especially compared to the mediocre-looking titles the likes of Ubisoft are charging the same price for, like Skull and Bones.
Anything, really
Most of all, I just want to see some gameplay from the new title. We’ve had trailers that show off flashes of gameplay, but a full mechanical breakdown would not go amiss.
It’s very possible that we won’t actually hear much about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom tonight. There’s an equally strong chance we get another short trailer with the announcement of another Nintendo Direct dedicated to the title in the near future, Nintendo has done this before with games like Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Let's hope not!
