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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (JP) is the 20th game in The Legend of Zelda series, released on the Nintendo Switch on May 12, 2023. It was announced in the September 2022 Nintendo Direct presentation. It is a direct sequel to the critically acclaimed 2017 game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and is likely to be commemorating the 35th anniversary of the Zelda series.

Gameplay[]

The game returns to the open-world gameplay and retaining much of the elements from Breath of the Wild. This time, players would be able to venture to the skies, along with new abilities. New abilities include the ability to fuse objects together, making new weapons and other tools.

Plot[]

Tears of the Kingdom retains aspects including the open world of Hyrule, which has been expanded to allow for more vertical exploration with the inclusion of The Great Sky and The Depths. The player controls Link as he searches for Princess Zelda and fights to prevent Ganondorf from destroying the world.

Trailer[]

Development[]

Eiji Aonuma, the director of the Zelda series, had been teasing the next console Zelda game since Breath of the Wild released in 2017. According to Aonuma, the game began as potential DLC for Breath of the Wild, but the team had too many ideas to crank it up into DLC and they eventually wanted to free themselves from the constraint of limiting the potential of new gameplay elements to what was possible in the engine of Breath of the Wild, hence the creation of a new game. [1]

Aonuma had also mentioned that the sequel would be taking inspiration from Red Dead: Redemption 2 as that game had raised the bar for what could be achieved with large-scale open worlds in video gaming. [2]

Since the game's announcement in E3 2019 and the release of a brief trailer, not a lot of information has been leaked other than Nintendo's confirmation during the announcement of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity on September 8th of 2020 that they were still in the middle of development on the next game for the mainstream Zelda series. There have been hints however that the game's would establish a more darker tone in its story. [3]

At E3 2021, it was revealed that the sequel would, in addition to the ground world, feature an area aboveground with floating islands.

As revealed in the video The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Mr. Aonuma Gameplay Demonstration, development on the game is finished, and is awaiting release.

Critical reception[]

According to the review aggregators Metacritic (96/100) and OpenCritic (96%), Tears of the Kingdom received "universal acclaim".[4][5]

Awards[]

Tears of the Kingdom won two awards: "Most Wanted Game" at the 2022 Golden Joystick Awards and "Most Anticipated Game" at the Game Awards 2022.

Trivia[]

References[]

  1. [1]Kotaku - Aonuma's reason for making a sequel
  2. [2]GameSpot - game's inspiration by Red Dead Redemption 2
  3. [3]Video Games Chronicle - likelihood of a dark story in the game
  4. https://www.metacritic.com/game/switch/the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom
  5. https://opencritic.com/game/14343/the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom
  6. Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Leaker Fired for Switch Reveal (GameRant) Date: April 14, 2023. Author: DOMINIK BOŠNJAK.

External links[]

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