The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was announced way back in 2019, and since then we've been left to wonder just how it could justify itself as a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild. The original is one of the best games of all time, redefining a legendary series in the context of modern open worlds without losing the spirit of Nintendo's original adventures. Could Tears of the Kingdom live up to the legacy of a game that the industry is still trying to catch up with? Such lofty goals are probably impossible to reach, but today's Tears of the Kingdom gameplay reveal of the Fuse and Ultrahand abilities finally has me convinced that this sequel to Breath of the Wild is justified.
Previous glimpses of Tears of the Kingdom have made clear that its version of Hyrule is largely built on the bones of the world we explored in Breath of the Wild, with some changes and a host of new areas in the sky (and potentially underground). At some level, that made TotK feel like it was going to be more of an expansion pack for BotK, and that idea was particularly hard to swallow with the new game's $70 price tag. But the brilliance of open-world Zelda isn't just in the map itself, but in how you interact with it, and the new abilities we've just seen are more exciting than anything I could've imagined.
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