Since The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild arrived alongside the Nintendo Switch, fans have been gagging for a sequel. We’ve had the DLC for Breath of the Wild, we’ve had spin-offs, remakes and remasters to play to time, but at long last, 2023 will see the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – and that’s ‘tears’ in the crying sense, not ripping things up sense.
It’s been a long six year wait, almost the full duration of a typical console generation, but then Nintendo has always taken its time with its premier game franchises. However, there has been plenty of Zelda in the meantime. For one thing there was the remake of Link’s Awakening, giving the Game Boy classic top-down 3D graphics and modernised gameplay, and there’s been the spin-off musou Hyrule Warriors games. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity told a prequel story to Breath of the Wild, in bombastic hack-and-slash fashion, that was rather well received.
While there was a disappointingly muted celebration of the franchise’s 35th anniversary in 2021, we did see the release of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD for Switch, a Nintendo Wii game that wasn’t especially well regarded, but which series producer Eiji Aonuma claimed laid the foundations for Breath of the Wild.
It does seem like there might be some common themes between Skyward Sword and Tears of the Kingdom, with both games taking the adventuring action up into the skies. Originally conceived as a DLC that would delve beneath Hyrule, Nintendo saw the opportunity to expand the concept to reach high into the sky as well.
While skydiving and gliding around on giant stone birds will naturally fit in with the new locales, there’s some funky new abilities that Link will have at his disposal, such as being able to transform into a droplet of water, using time reversal abilities , and more.
Really we’ve only had a few glimpses of what Tears of the Kingdom will offer, but we hope that, with such a long development time, Nintendo has another epic adventure for us to sink into. And, with six more years of Switch development under their belts, here’s hoping it performs a mite better on the plucky hybrid console as well!
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is set for release on 12th May 2023 exclusively for Nintendo Switch.
Want to catch up on our Most Wanted games list so far? We’ve got handy links for you to catch up right here:
- Our Most Wanted Games of 2023 – #50 to #46
- Our Most Wanted Games of 2023 – #45 to #41
- Our Most Wanted Games of 2023 – #40 to #36
- Our Most Wanted Games of 2023 – #35 to #31
- Our Most Wanted Games of 2023 – #30 to #26
- Our Most Wanted Games of 2023 – #25 to #21
- Our Most Wanted Games of 2023 – #20 to #16
- Our Most Wanted Games of 2023 – #15 to #11
- Our Most Wanted Games of 2023 – #10 to #6
- Our Most Wanted Games of 2023 – #5 Final Fantasy XVI
- Our Most Wanted Games of 2023 – #4 Dead Space Remake
