The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is arriving this year – and will no doubt be one of the biggest releases on the Nintendo Switch.
By the time Tears of the Kingdom launches, the game would have been in development for around five years. In fact, development kicked off shortly after The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was released.
As expected, Breath of the Wild director Hidemaro Fujibayashi, and producer Eiji Aonuma, are returning for Tears of the Kingdom, which can give us some clues as to what to expect gameplay wise.
So, how much will change from BOTW? Will Tears of the Kingdom be a more linear experience or open world like its predecessor?
We already know that it is very unlikely the game will have a multiplayer component but there will be a few gameplay changes that could create a very different experience.
Here’s everything you need to know based on the information we know so far.
Is Zelda Tears of the Kingdom going to be open world?
Based on the trailer footage, what we have come to expect from our previous experience of Zelda games, we are fairly certain The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will be open world.
The biggest difference is that rather than being set on the Hyrule landscape, Link will be able to explore the skies above.
This in theory will actually create a more open and less constrained experience than in BOTW. For example, early trailer footage showed Link gliding through the skies above Hyrule.
The trailer also shows footage of Link climbing large branches and soaring on a bird-shaped platform. This gives us an idea of just how big the open world will be, along with a hint of the verticality we can expect. Size wise, we are hoping to see something in the range of Breath of the Wild’s 23.5 square miles, which – if this materializes – will be a significant open world to explore.
According to Nintendo: “In addition to the vast lands of Hyrule, the latest entry in the storied Legend of Zelda series will take you up into the skies and an expanded world that goes beyond that!”
To get an idea of just how open world the new Zelda game will be, we can speculate at some of the rumours that appeared two years ago on the respected Nintendo Life website.
In a 2020 article, they cited a sub-reddit, which claims that the first part of the game will be linear, before opening out.
There are also rumours dungeons will make a return, which has since verified in the game trailers.
So, all in all, we can expect a stunning, open-world experience that features similar but tweaked mechanics from the previous game.
