The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, all the news from Nintendo Direct
The Legend of Zelda
Let's start our The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom special from the very few certainties we have. The subtitle has finally been released and, barring unlikely delays, the game will arrive on Nintendo Switch on May 12, 2023. In exactly eight months. In the last year many games have been postponed, especially high budget ones, and The Legend of Zelda is perhaps the symbolic series of the extensions, a bit like Zeno Cosini with his latest cigarettes; at the same time, we write it from memory but with a certain certainty, no episode of the main saga, once the official date has been communicated so precisely, has ever been moved.The certainties basically end here. This is the fourth trailer of the game that we are shown: the first two were full-bodied, the most recent instead looked more like teasers to appease the audience waiting for the release. The best indications on the potential mechanics of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom we have received more from the patents - we talked about it in this preview - than from the videos shown by Nintendo. The situation is substantially the opposite when compared with that of the predecessor.
Breath of the Wild had its world premiere in 2014, showing its intentions, and already a draft of its fundamental concepts. At the end of the same year, he proved he was true to it with primitive gameplay footage. Eight months after its release, therefore at a time distance comparable to the current one, it revealed its potential to everyone at E3 2016, revealing its freedom and its extraordinary interaction. Less than two months after publication, one of the most beautiful trailers ever made, by Nintendo and not, was shown to raise expectations in every possible way.
As we get closer to the release, a full-bodied trailer will surely arrive for Tears of the Kingdom too; however, it is funny to think how much Nintendo has moved differently from Breath of the Wild, perhaps due to the success of the latter. It almost seems that, if they could, they would have avoided showing us anything; with this game, they tend to hide rather than reveal. We basically have only two certainties: "vertical" exploration will be at the center of the experience - we'll talk about it shortly - and Link will have the power, in some way, to bring back some objects in time.
Let's go with order and recap everything we know about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Vertical exploration
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Link's flying vehicle? After the first trailer, dating back to 2019, we only knew that there would be flying islands in the game; perhaps only in the vicinity of Hyrule Castle. After the second, it was clear that they were not mere sparse islets, but a kind of parallel world in the sky. On that occasion we were shown the first ways to "climb" this vertical territory, with Link's ability to cross the walls from bottom to top (anticipated by a drop ... by a "tear"?). In the third, the "second Link" (but perhaps it is the same) with long hair, was always - as in the previous one - on the flying islands. And now comes the fourth cutscene, with the "old Link", the one with the tied hair, shown for the first time in the floating lands. In short, there is more confusion than ever in narrative terms: they clearly wanted to confuse our ideas.The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: towards infinity and beyond. verticality of experience, both in exploration and in action. In addition to the mechanics already anticipated, such as the "fall" in the style of Skyward Sword, and the "rise" of the third trailer, in the most recent video we also see a structure to fly. In an old preview we assumed there would be some magical animal (a dragon, a winged horse?), So as to combine ground running and area phase. Instead, it seems - admitted and not granted that it is the only tool available - that Link's flying craft is a kind of technologically advanced aircraft. The movie ends the moment he kneels on the vehicle, so we don't know anything about it.
Setting
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: the logo of the game The title Tears of the Kindgom, which is supposed to mean "The Tears of the Kingdom", we have no idea what exactly it alludes to. Breath of the Wild also represented a strange choice, because it referred more to the atmosphere of the game, to its vocation, than to a central object of the adventure, as was the practice in the past. Here, at present, we don't really know how to give you any sensible coordinates to interpret the title. The game's logo is a kind of ouroboros, a ouroboros reminiscent of the style of the Zonai - the ancient tribe whose monuments adorned the jungle of Breath of the Wild. In the past we had already assumed that this civilization could have a more central role in this sequel, and this video, with the announcement of the logo, would seem to confirm this. At the beginning of the video there are engravings depicting a strange subject, which would seem a sorcerer or a ruler, certainly not too similar to Ganon (dorf), absent from the trailer. This same figure, shortly thereafter, appears surrounded by seven engravings that may resemble tears. Which indicate the number of dungeons to face? Again, the sword in the logo of the series, why is it half "technological"?The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: the first official artwork of the game Also on the door crossed by Link is the same symbol, a circle, although the snake heads seem to collide rather than unite in an endless circle. To talk about more practical and content-relevant things, while Link goes up to the sky with a rock, sent back in time, we see threatening clouds full of lightning: given the anticipated verticality of the game it was normal to expect news on the clouds, and this video gives us a taste. By the way, if it is really possible to bring back in time any object in the game world, or in any case not only elements pre-established by the developers, it would be such a complex and articulated mechanic that alone, we imagine, would justify the expansion of development times. The implications are literally unimaginable: let's just hope we don't have too high expectations. Given the mystery surrounding this game and given the six years of development (!) Using the old engine (!!), it wouldn't necessarily be our fault.
Well, we've come to the end of our special, probably having the most confused ideas of before on this Tears of the Kindgom, of which at least we know the name. It will arrive on May 12, 2023 and, before that date, they will surely provide us with more news. At the moment, Nintendo is demanding a kind of leap of faith from us, aware of the power wielded by Breath of the Wild.
We now know the name of the sequel to Breath of the Wild, namely The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. And we also know the release date, which according to the previous ones will not be postponed: May 12, 2023. For everything else, the game remains a complete unknown. There are only two certainties: the title will have a strong vertical exploration / action component, and Link will be able to bring certain objects back in time. It is not clear how many protagonists there will be, if the tied-haired hero is the same with the loose hair. It is also not clear how important the "horizontal" exploration of the flying islands will be, whose nature has only been partially revealed to us, and whether or not the infamous underworld exists. There should be an aerial vehicle to explore the skies, the one shown just before the end of the trailer. Nintendo is basically asking us to trust them, showing us as little as possible: with Breath of the Wild, they probably earned the right.
