The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Developer	Nintendo EPD Monolith Soft (additional work)
Publisher	Nintendo
System	Nintendo Switch
Release Date	May 12, 2023
Genre	Adventure
Rating	ESRB: E10+

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an adventure game that was released for the Nintendo Switch in 2023. The twentieth game of the Zelda series, it acts as a direct sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and expands upon the world and gameplay from the first game.

Story

A mysterious substance known as gloom has spread throughout Hyrule. Zelda brings Link to investigate the origin of the gloom, which lies somewhere beneath Hyrule Castle. In the underground chambers, they discover an imprisoned figure who promptly awakens from his sleep. The mummified figure destroys the Master Sword and infects Link's arm before raising Hyrule Castle into the sky, causing an event known as the Upheaval. Zelda starts to fall, and Link attempts to catch her, but both of them end up disappearing. Link wakes up on an island in the sky, where his arm has been replaced by someone else's. Link receives guidance from a spirit who helps him to purify himself and begin his search for Zelda. The spirit is ultimately revealed to be that of Hyrule's founder, King Rauru. After returning to the surface, Link investigated mysterious phenomena that have unfolded in the aftermath of the Upheaval while also seeking clues as to Zelda's whereabouts. Along the way, he ends up awakening a new group of sages.

Gameplay

This game retains many elements from Breath of the Wild, but it expands on them with new areas and some gameplay changes. The Sheikah Slate Rune abilities have been replaced by abilities related to Link's arm. Ultrahand allows Link to move certain objects around through the air and fuse them together, which can be done to create vehicles or other structures. The Fuse function allows Link to fuse certain objects in the environment with his current weapon or shield, including fusing other weapons/shields to each other. It can also be used when Link's bow is out to fuse one of Link's materials to an arrow. These can cause the arrow to take on different properties and effects, and this feature replaces the elemental arrows from other games, as some materials can mimic the effects of Fire Arrows or Bomb Arrows. Another ability is Ascend, which allows Link to rise up through certain ceilings above him. This can be used to exit caves quickly, reach hidden areas, or in some cases to instantly reach the top of a mountain. There is also Recall, which can cause certain objects to retrace its path. This can send some projectiles back towards the enemies that launched them, and it could also be used to ride objects that had fallen from the sky back up into the sky. The final ability is Autobuild, which saves items made with the Ultrahand ability so that they can be reconstructed instantly, although Zonaite will be used up for any materials Link is lacking. The Autobuild feature saves some of the most recent things that have been constructed by Link, and a few can be assigned as favorites so that they will not be forgotten. Link can also find schema stones, which are blueprints that are saved permanently in Autobuild.

The vehicle construction is a unique part of the gameplay in Tears of the Kingdom. With Ultrahand and Autobuild, Link can construct vehicles and other types of constructs that can be used with Zonai devices. Zonai devices can be found throughout the game, including through device dispensers which resemble coin-operated candy machines, wherein Link can leave behind Zonai Charges to get random Zonai devices from the machine. When a vehicle is active, it will consume battery life. Link can use Zonai Charges to add to a vehicle's charge while it is operating, and crystal charges can be turned in to certain Zonai to gain more Energy Cells which permanently extend Link's usable battery life.

Tears of the Kingdom manages to expand on the open world concept of the previous game by adding both the sky and underground to explore. The sky contains a number of sky islands which contain shrines and other additional challenges, including some areas that must be traversed as part of the main story. This game has a variation on the Sheikah Towers known as the Skyview Towers. Activating these towers will not only map out the surrounding area, but it will shoot Link to the sky in the process, from whence it is possible to try reaching nearby sky islands. The underground, known as the Depths, is its own environment full of challenges. The area is initially dark, with several means of providing light down there such as Brightbloom Seeds. There are a number of Lightroots found in the Depths, which will illuminate the surrounding area and also provide map information similar to one of the towers. The Depths contain unique enemies, such as the Frox, and it is also known to be filled with gloom. Gloom will not only drain Link's energy, but it will also lock off the hearts it drains. While a heart is locked, Link cannot recover that health. Locked hearts will be unlocked automatically (but gradually) by spending time under a Lightroot or above ground, or the hearts can also be unlocked by consuming certain recipes.

Many features return from Tears of the Kingdom, including the shrines found throughout the land and Koroks who provide seeds when helped. There are now Koroks who require Link's help being reunited with their friends, which will often require the use of a vehicle and will result in receiving two Korok seeds instead of one. Shrines function much the same as in the first game, with Link receiving a Light of Blessing upon completing each shrine and being able to turn them in at Goddess Statues to upgrade his heart meter or stamina wheel. One other new function is that of the sages: as sages are recruited in the game, their avatars will accompany Link and help him in battle. Link can also use a special ability for each of the sages, similar to the Champion abilities from the first game. The sages can be toggled off on the menu screen. Each of them can receive an upgrade to their fighting power by collecting four Sage's Wills and turning them in at Goddess Statues, similar to the Lights of Blessing. This game also retains amiibo functionality from the first game, as scanning Zelda-related amiibo will grant the player drops of materials and treasure.

Continuity

This game acts as a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild. It is not specified how much time has passed since the first game, but it appears to be at least 4 or 5 years, owing to the appearance of Mattison, a child who was born between the two games. Tulin and Riju have also visibly aged since the first game. As it is a sequel to the first game, it takes place in the same undetermined timeline as Breath of the Wild, which is made particularly confusing by some of the storyline elements of Tears of the Kingdom.

• The game's flashbacks are set during the time when Hyrule was founded. This game establishes the first king of Hyrule as King Rauru. It is not clear if or how he is connected to Rauru from Ocarina of Time.
• Ganondorf is shown to have risen and become the Demon King during Rauru's reign, which resulted in him being imprisoned for the entirety of Hyrule's history until the time of Tears of the Kingdom. This has been one of the main points of confusion, as this would have occurred prior to Ocarina of Time, which was previously believed to be Ganondorf's first historical appearance. It is also unclear if/how multiple incarnations of Ganondorf could exist at the same time. Tears does imply that Calamity Ganon from Breath of the Wild appeared as a manifestation of the imprisoned Ganondorf's hatred, it is unclear if this explanation could extend to other appearances of Ganondorf/Ganon throughout Hyrule's history. This has prompted fan theories about Tears of the Kingdom being set in a separate timeline/continuity from most other Zelda games, or that the Hyrule kingdom Rauru founded wasn't the original iteration of Hyrule as a kingdom, which would leave room for Ganondorf/Ganon's appearances to take place before the backstory of this game.
• The game's backstory also shows that Rito existed during the time that Rauru founded Hyrule. This adds to the confusion caused by their appearance in Breath of the Wild, as they had been otherwise been absent from Hyrule in other games, and The Wind Waker initially implied that the Rito specifically evolved from Zoras in the Great Sea.
• This game contains some callbacks to other Zelda games, but these act mostly as parallels than actual continuity references. The backstory of the game is referred to as the Imprisoning War, which was the same name given to the backstory of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, which also acted as an origin story for Ganondorf. However, both versions of the Imprisoning War are different events. Additionally, the game's sky islands act as an homage to sky civilizations seen in past games such as Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess, but in Tears of the Kingdom, it is established that these sky islands were raised by the Zonai solely for the purpose of helping Link with his adventure.
• This game's story is based around forming a new group of sages and references a group of sages that were around during Rauru's time. The game does not make reference to any other iterations of sages throughout history. While a stone slate about Ruto in Breath of the Wild mentioned her becoming a sage, a new stone slate replacing it in Tears of the Kingdom no longer makes any reference to sagehood and seems to be describing a different conflict from that of Ocarina of Time.
• As the Demon King, Ganondorf's appearance bears a strong appearance to Demise. This appears to be a reference to Ganondorf being a reincarnation of Demise's hatred, as established in Skyward Sword.
• The armor sets from Breath of the Wild that reference games from throughout the series reappear, with similar descriptions.

Legacy

Like the first game, it was critically beloved and quickly became one of the best-selling games for the Nintendo Switch and the Zelda series in general.