The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom launches May 2023

[Shawn Knight]

What just happened? Nintendo's long-awaited sequel to Breath of the Wild finally has a firm launch date. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will arrive on the Switch on May 12, 2023. Nintendo announced the launch date and revealed the game's title as part of a teaser video that premiered during today's Nintendo Direct presentation.

Zelda is arguably Nintendo's richest original IP. The first game in the series was created by Japanese designers Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka, and launched in Japan on February 21, 1986 as The Hyrule Fantasy: Legend of Zelda before finding its way to North America more than a year later as The Legend of Zelda.

Miyamoto's inspiration came from time spent as a child exploring fields, caves and wooded areas in Kyoto. The game was also unique in that it was among the first to feature non-linear gameplay, allowing the player to freely explore the world and tackle dungeons in (mostly) any order.

Fun fact - The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. were developed concurrently by the same team, and great care was taken to keep the two projects separate.

Nearly 20 mainline Zelda games have been published to date including fan favorites like A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. The last entry in the main series was Breath of the Wild, a Switch launch title that dropped alongside the console on March 3, 2017.

The title has proven wildly successful with sales of over 27 million units as of June 30, 2022. That is good enough for fourth place all time behind Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with sales of 28.82 million, 39.38 million and 46.82 million, respectively.

We got our first look at Nintendo's vision for the sequel during E3 2019 and saw the first gameplay footage last year. Nintendo originally planned to continue the story sooner but was forced to delay the sequel back in March to give the team more time to finish development.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/95960-legend-zelda-tears-kingdom-launches-may-12-2023.html

 

[Slappy McPhee]

Let me guess....more durability garbage, annoying farming, open world generic gameplay, and recipes right? I have NEVER been disappointed with ANY entry in the LoZ franchise until BotW. I get that things need to evolve, but especially the whack a$$ weapon situation has made my copy of the game sit on a shelf collecting a thick layer of dust.

 

[dhiaa]

Let me guess....more durability garbage, annoying farming, open world generic gameplay, and recipes right? I have NEVER been disappointed with ANY entry in the LoZ franchise until BotW. I get that things need to evolve, but especially the whack a$$ weapon situation has made my copy of the game sit on a shelf collecting a thick layer of dust.

Weapon durability actually makes stealth a viable method of gameplay. And you can always choose to avoid bad fights or even loot camps without fighting the enemies.

Also BotW is as far as you can get from "generic open world" where you have your screen filled with icons and constant handholding.

Most of the criticisms surrounding this game are probably stemming from people being conditioned to think the issues plaguing the open world genre for years are acceptable.

 

[Revolution 11]

Weapon durability actually makes stealth a viable method of gameplay. And you can always choose to avoid bad fights or even loot camps without fighting the enemies.

Also BotW is as far as you can get from "generic open world" where you have your screen filled with icons and constant handholding.

Most of the criticisms surrounding this game are probably stemming from people being conditioned to think the issues plaguing the open world genre for years are acceptable.

I don't think BotW is that bad but my question is this: Can we have a Zelda game that has a linear order of objectives set in an open world that only has a small useful set of well-designed (permanent durability) weapons and tools with no mandatory motion controls or goofy input schemes?

Nintendo, just make a bigger, prettier, better version of the Zelda games you used to make before Skyward Sword.

 

[kira setsu]

Weapon durability actually makes stealth a viable method of gameplay. And you can always choose to avoid bad fights or even loot camps without fighting the enemies.

Also BotW is as far as you can get from "generic open world" where you have your screen filled with icons and constant handholding.

Most of the criticisms surrounding this game are probably stemming from people being conditioned to think the issues plaguing the open world genre for years are acceptable.

botw is the definition of a basic open world game, it only sits on its lofty pedestal because its on a nintendo system. it kicked off the trend of big, bland and empty open world games, if a studio threw out a new IP built like botw that didnt have link it would crash and burn, look around, many have and they crashed and burned. whats so great about wandering around in that game? not much, its because its link, and nintendo exclusive.

I'd rather have 10 ac odysseys or valhallas or horizons, that let me explore a hand built gorgeous world with stories people and things to do than wander around and flip rocks for koroks or break another weapon on a monster thats come back for the 12th time.