This Friday, after years of feverish anticipation, Nintendo is finally set to release The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – the much-hyped sequel to its acclaimed 2017 epic, Breath of the Wild. Six years in the making, Tears of the Kingdom is set to be one of the biggest instalments in an already iconic, generationally beloved franchise, building on a predecessor that radically reshaped the conventions of the series and introduced scores of new fans to the fantasy world of Hyrule.
Befitting a tentpole release, Tears of the Kingdom has already been subject not only to swathes of online discussion, but also to two leaks: first of the game’s art book, a few months ago, and then of the full game itself, late last month. Still, anticipation for the release is at fever pitch, thanks to its predecessor’s reputation as both one of the best games in the Zelda franchise and one of the best video games of all time.
Ed King, a popular Zelda YouTuber who posts under the username Zeltik, says that Breath of the Wild sparked “a renaissance for Zelda, just because of how accessible that game is”. “A lot of people see Zelda, and especially the older games, as part of this complicated timeline,” he says. “Breath of the Wild definitely made it easier than any other game before to [understand]; you needed no prior information going in. And just because of how good that game was, it’s sold 30m copies, something silly like that – and so many new fans fell in love with Zelda because of it.”
The Legend of Zelda debuted in 1986 with a vibrant, then-groundbreaking action role-playing game for the Nintendo Entertainment System that was designed to feel like, developers said, a “miniature garden that [players] can put inside their drawer”. The game was an instant success, and led to countless sequels over the next three decades. Since its debut, the series has had an ardent core fanbase, drawn to its distinctive design hallmarks – in-game worlds defined by verdant landscapes and imaginatively designed creatures – and classic coming-of-age narratives. Still, the game’s popularity has come in peaks and troughs over the years, with interest reaching a nadir in 2011 with the release of the complex Wii game Skyward Sword. It saw a lukewarm reaction from fans, thanks to finicky gameplay and an ultra-linear story that belies the expansive feel of the other games.
“Skyward Sword was very formulaic and very linear,” says King. In response to that game’s reception, Nintendo retooled Zelda, designing Breath of the Wild as a game defined by its vast open world, in which players can do basically whatever they want without having to hew to the whims of the narrative at all. No two players have the same experience playing Breath of the Wild: some have cottoned on entirely to the game’s cooking mechanics, and have spent hours searching for the best ingredients with which to make, say, a restorative fish stew; others may have breezed past early challenges and gone straight into the game’s final boss battle, a showdown with long-running series antagonist Ganon in the villain-infested ruins of a gothic castle at the centre of the map.
At the time of its release, Breath of the Wild was seen as a landmark in game design, and its complex but deeply intuitive open world – which is distinctive not just for its beautiful and interesting geography, but because of its complicated, realistic physics – is still a high water-mark for open world role-playing games (RPGs). Writing for The Verge last year, tech writer Sam Byford said that the game “has loomed over the genre since it launched”, describing its approach as “revolutionary” and noting that the game’s open world “is the entire point of the game, providing both the motivation and the reward”.
I, like many others, had never really played a video game before I played Breath of the Wild; it was the first game I ever finished, and I found that the endlessly explorable open world was what made it so easy to pick up. For my first dozen hours or so playing, I barely completed any quests or advanced the story at all, instead choosing to wander around picking up items and seeing what I could do with them outside the confines of the game’s narrative. The fact that Breath of the Wild is so unbothered about asking its player to advance the story means that it has a far less steep learning curve than many other mainstream adventures, and can be as rewarding for beginners as for seasoned gamers; accordingly, its lifetime sales are nearly 10 times that of Skyward Sword.
Anticipation for Tears of the Kingdom – which uses the same design as Breath of the Wild and picks up where that game left off, while adding underground and sky zones – is, perhaps, the highest it’s ever been for a game in the Zelda series. Along with new fans has come a level of scrutiny on the historically secretive Nintendo, which has been keen to keep the secrets contained within Tears of the Kingdom under lock and key. Still, when so many people are working on a single title – from developers and designers to marketing staff – leaks are all but a given, which is what happened last month, when Tears of the Kingdom leaked in full via early retail copies. King describes the leak as “a shame”, given that “the fun is trying to piece together the little bits that [Nintendo has] given us and predict the story or discuss where you want the game to go… I know a lot of people that have gone completely dark on the internet – they’ve muted all the keywords to do with Zelda just to survive until the game comes out and remain unspoiled,” he says.
“Zelda is bigger than it’s ever been right now,” says King. “Especially with this game, there’s an huge amount of intrigue. There are so many mysteries and secrets in Breath of the Wild that we don’t know, but with Tears of the Kingdom we’re getting another look at them – the hype is even more real this time around.”
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available on Nintendo Switch from 12 May, £60
