When my launch-day Nintendo Switch arrived in March 2017, I was on maternity leave with my then three-month-old baby – which meant that, for the first time in my adult life, I was able to enjoy a new video games console without worrying about what I was going to write about it. And with it arrived The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which casually redrew the blueprint of open-world games, replacing repetitive missions and box-ticking busywork with a genuine sense of wonder and discovery. I played almost nothing but Breath of the Wild for an entire year – and yet, ever since Nintendo announced the sequel in 2019, I’ve been feeling oddly flat about it. We’ve known so little about it, beyond teaser-trailer glimpses. Is it going to be more of the same?
Admittedly, more of the same wouldn’t be so bad: we’re talking about one of the best games ever made here. But then Zelda series producer, Eiji Aonuma, played 10 minutes’ worth of Tears of the Kingdom in a video presentation yesterday – and now I’m sold. It is more of the same, in that it looks identical to Breath of the Wild’s toned-down watercolour style, features the same stirring orchestral exploration-music, and it’s set in the same kingdom of Hyrule. But this time around, Nintendo’s designers want us to get creative with it.
