One of those abilities, Ascend, lets Link swim upward through rock, concrete, soil, and other solid geometry before popping up through the ground. To you and me, though, they’re basically cheat codes - ones that Nintendo hands you 10 minutes into the game. These sky dwellers utilize technology that Link, Zelda, and most Hyruleans might consider magic. In true Breath of the Wild fashion, you learn the fundamentals of Link’s new abilities in a contained environment: in this case, a sky archipelago populated by the remaining robot helpers of an ancient civilization known as the Zonai. Join us on our journey through The Legend of Zelda series, from the original 1986 game to the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and beyond. In 2023, Polygon is embarking on a Zeldathon. Link awakens, once again, in little more than his underwear.

Large pieces of debris rain down across the landscape while chunks of Hyrule rise into the sky. One accident leads to another, and suddenly, they’ve freed the paralyzed body of the demon king Ganondorf from his tomb, igniting another apocalypse. Link and Princess Zelda, having dispatched Calamity Ganon from Hyrule Castle, are investigating the source of an ethereal red substance (later dubbed “gloom”) that’s been seeping up from below said structure. If we interacted with Breath of the Wild on a micro level (scaling cliff sides, setting fire to the brush outside an enemy camp, collecting arrows that were embedded in our shield, to name a few examples), Tears of the Kingdom goes even deeper after nearly 70 hours, I feel as if I can control its very molecules.Īs one of the few direct sequels in the Zelda series, Tears of the Kingdom opens not long after the end of Breath of the Wild. Director Hidemaro Fujibayashi, producer Eiji Aonuma, and their team have crafted a layered world in which self-driven experimentation is paramount in traversal, combat, and discovery.

With The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo has receded even further into the background. It was also, it turns out, just an overture. īreath of the Wild was a design watershed, an engineering marvel, and an encouraging sign that Nintendo was beginning to loosen its grip.

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