Since the 1980s, the game Legend of Zelda has been making history and we are just a few days away from the next version. After 2017’s Breath of the Wild comes the sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, on May 12. The Nintendo Switch offering will take the concept of open world further than before, with sky islands and caves.
The gameplay will go deep into mythology, convincing players they are unearthing ancient secrets. The producer of the game, Eiji Aonuma, has shown four new abilities of storied adventurer Link — Recall, Fuse, Ascend, and Ultrahand.
The last one is of interest and it involves grabbing toys from the late 1960s. It has several criss-cross plastic tubes that connect a grabber on one end and handles on the other. The idea was simple — use the Ultra Hand to pick things up from far away and drop them elsewhere. The title is a fantasy adventure in which players need to invent their pathways.
The video game franchise began in 1986 with a pixelated map guarded by ghosts and goblins but now it’s an elaborate gameplays and storytelling that encourages exploration. The original Legend of Zelda was played by millions on the Nintendo Entertainment System or the company’s Famicom console. It was the brainchild of Shigeru Miyamoto, who, in a 1996 interview spoke about his idea of game design: “An eternal theme for me with game design has been to let the players create their own vision. I don’t want to just hand players ready-made experiences—here you go, play this stage we made, solve this puzzle; rather, I want a game that allows players to come up with their own solutions and playstyles and test them out there on the spot.”
In Tears of the Kingdom, players can expect a dynamic world, one in which a bolt of lightning can set off brush fires that roast the apples on a nearby tree.
For those eager to get their hands on the limited-edition console first, you can preorder directly from Nintendo.