The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one of the most celebrated games of the last generation, an instant open-world classic that’s having a major influence on game design years later.
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It feels miraculous to play through, giving the player a level of freedom, and a lack of overbearing guidance, that is entirely rare in the genre, while telling a classic Zelda tale through flashbacks. The good news is that it’s getting a direct sequel in the form of Tears of the Kingdom, and we’ve got all the key details right here.
Tears of the Kindom trailers
Nintendo confirmed the title of Tears of the Kingdom in September 2022 with a trailer that you can see further down, as well as giving us a release date.
For a good few years, we didn’t know the name of the game, with it being referred to as simply as a sequel to Breath of the Wild, but thankfully those days are over.
Although these are hugely welcome details, we still think that we’ll likely get a closer look at gameplay from Tears of the Kingdom at some point in the next few months, as it’s still pretty mysterious.
Having given us nothing on it for two years, Nintendo showed the game off at E3 in 2021. The trailer is a great watch, too, with loads of small moments to digest and new gameplay mechanics glimpsed.
The only other look we’ve had at the game came when Nintendo showcased the trailer below during E3 back in 2019, stoking up massive levels of anticipation and excitement. The project hadn’t been rumoured a huge amount before the reveal, for once, with speculation rife but proof thin on the ground.
Tears of the Kingdom release date
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will release on 12 May 2023, as announced in a Nintendo Direct in September 2022.
The sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom!
The Legend of #Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom launches on #NintendoSwitch 5/12/23. #NintendoDirect pic.twitter.com/qkGnFYFXNs
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) September 13, 2022
This is a date that took a while to firm up, after Nintendo initially announced that it was aiming for 2022, a window that was updated to a vague Spring 2023 target later.
Tears of the Kingdom platforms
After a lot of speculation that the next Legend of Zelda game might be part of the launch of a Switch Pro with better graphical prowess, that looks like it’s not the case.
Tears of the Kingdom has been confirmed as a Switch exclusive, so you won’t be able to play it anywhere else, although you will obviously have your pick between a normal Switch, Switch OLED or Switch Lite.
Tears of the Kingdom story
This is where the various trailers we’ve seen are the most enticing – we were pretty satisfied at the end of the first Breath of the Wild, having uncovered exactly what happened all those years ago, and successfully defeated Calamity Ganon once more to free Hyrule from his reign of terror.
Now, though, we see that the tale continues, with the first teaser Zelda and Link seemingly delving into ruins below Hyrule Castle to find out more. It looks like the darkness that plagued the land hasn’t been banished fully, and there’s clearly something nasty going on down there.
The trailer seems to show some sort of power reviving the body of Ganon, and that power bears resemblance to the one featured in the Wii’s Twilight Princess. It’s all looking mighty spooky, and the tone of the trailer is impressively eery.
The second trailer expands on this by showing a lot of action in the skies above Hyrule, with Link sporting some sort of corrupted arm and some new abilities. It all suggests that we’re in for one of the darker Zelda tales so far, along the lines of a Majora’s Mask, rather than the cartoony fun of something like The Wind Waker. Sign us up, because we can’t wait.
Tears of the Kingdom gameplay
What those story hints mean for the Tears of the Kingdom’s actual style is hard to know, but since it’s a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild we can assume that it’ll once more be a fully open-world adventure game. That’s confirmed by the second trailer, which clearly shows Link exploring a vast world once more, this time with a lot of floating islands around it.
We expect to still be able to gather different abilities and weapons throughout our playthroughs, too, although we’re very much hoping that Nintendo might make the weapon durability system a little more forgiving this time around, or get rid of it entirely.
We can see various new powers in the trailer, too, not least the ability to rewind time on at least certain objects, and Link clearly has a few ways to get around in a much more vertical environment, so it could be that we have more freedom to travel in different ways.
Another prominent feature in the first trailer is the central presence of Zelda throughout, which has fuelled the idea that she might be a playable character in the next game, something that would be incredibly cool to see. That said, there’s not exactly a lot of evidence for it, although you could surmise she’ll definitely have more of a role to play than last time out.
Regardless, we’re hoping for more emergent gameplay and gentle player-led discovery, along with a range of tools that let you interact with the world in novel ways – more of the same, basically! If the setting can also feel fresh and new, we’re in for a total treat.