If you’re new to the Legend of Zelda franchise, it is known to tell a completely rebooted story every entry, with a new Link, Zelda, Hyrule, and so forth; so you can imagine how odd it is that Breath of the Wild would get a direct sequel with Tears of the Kingdom.
Talking to Nintendo, the developers of Tears of the Kingdom confirmed that it was always the intention to make a sequel. When asked why they didn’t just reinvent Hyrule for Tears of the Kingdom, producer Eiji Aonuma explained:
“Although the previous title, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, has its own conclusion, we started to come up with new ideas that we wanted to bring to life in this already realized version of Hyrule, so our direction in making a sequel did not change.”
Game director Hidemaro Fujibayashi added, “Just like somewhere you know inside and out, we understand where everything is in Hyrule from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and because of that, we believed it was possible to create new gameplay. For this reason, in the initial proposal, we clearly stated “the setting will not change” as an important concept.”
As we’ve seen from the previews, they have added a whole new crafting mechanic to the game, opening up Hyrule in a new way, like crafting weapons and vehicles and reversing time.
We also have the new concept of Sky Islands and a seamless transition from the sky to the land. We know the Switch can’t handle today’s AAA titles, but it’s kind of crazy how it can take the new Zelda game with all its options.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will release on the Nintendo Switch this week on May 12.
