Review | The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom totally upends everything we know about the series
- A Nintendo Switch exclusive, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom introduces a fun new major feature – crafting – which encourages players’ creativity
- The game doesn’t wait for us to solve a problem or best an enemy. It simply gives us a world, and then tells us to go forth and play
It starts with an archaeological mission. Princess Zelda, all braided golden hair and enchanting oval eyes, is a leader and a scholar. She’s directing Link, the voiceless video game hero who has come to her rescue many a time since the mid-1980s, to follow her lead and walk in the shadow of her torch as she guides them down into the caverns beneath a medieval castle.
These tunnels, Zelda tells us, have long been forbidden, forever off limits even to royalty such as her.
“I can’t tell you how excited I am,” Zelda exclaims, before pulling out a smartphone-like device to snap photos of ancient hieroglyphics believed to depict the founding of the kingdom of Hyrule.
But these catacombs are home to more than Zelda lore. This patient, cinematic beginning is building a mystery, giving us glimpses of Link’s magical Master Sword but never letting us attack with it.
We hear of an advanced and ancient sky civilisation, a great war and a demon king, and we know, partly because a new Zelda game arrives every few years and partly because of the ominous, stark soundtrack – a chilling sound that seems fashioned out of whooshing weapons – that history is about to repeat itself.
And yet The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the most anticipated game of the year, is not a game of familiarity.
The follow-up to the landmark 2017 Nintendo Switch launch title Breath of the Wild, which has globally sold nearly 30 million copies, Tears of the Kingdom takes what for many will be the recognisable setting of that title and completely upends it.
It isn’t asking players to complete or solve tasks; the game encourages creativity. Crafting, for instance, is a fun and major feature here. Link simply points and selects two objects, and they’re instantly stitched together.
This turns the entire game world into something that feels malleable. What in most games is a chore here is simply an act of visual invention.
Link can do quite a bit in Tears of the Kingdom, such as briefly rewinding time on certain objects or rising through ceilings.
Weapons, as in Breath of the Wild, degrade quickly, but Link can now use an ability called “fuse” to stick other objects onto them, increasing their strength or turning them into something else entirely. Attach a fan to a log and, voila, an emergency speedboat.
Back when Breath of the Wild was released, I logged more than 70 hours with the title, at times blowing off social engagements to try and discover its secrets. Tears of the Kingdom, once again overseen by long-time Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma, however, seems even more robust, more lived-in.
There’s just enough story to provide Link and the player with a constant sense of forward momentum, and each new detail is a nudge to a new direction and a new quest. Often while playing, I would wonder if Tears of the Kingdom was smarter than me, but that’s only when one of my solutions didn’t work.
Ultimately, the game is never trying to confound or slow players, and that can make it appear unconventional. Instead of throwing down a challenge, this is a game in constant dialogue with the player.
Tears of the Kingdom, a Nintendo Switch exclusive, doesn’t wait for us to solve a problem or best an enemy. It simply gives us a world, and then tells us to go forth and play.
