After nearly six years of waiting, Nintendo’s latest installment in the Legend of Zelda series will finally be released. Fans all over the world have been waiting for this day since they first found out about it in 2019 at E3, a gaming expo that had since died out due to the pandemic. Creating a sequel to a successful game is often difficult because the second must be able to go above and beyond the first to be just as successful. Due to the various trailers over the past few years and the gameplay demonstration held about a month ago, Tears of the Kingdom has the potential to achieve and surpass the success of the first. But what exactly made Breath of the Wild so successful and how does that impact the success of its sequel?

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was released on March 3, 2017, and was popular for a variety of reasons. It was a great change of pace from every game in the series that preceded it. This was due to the fact that BotW was open-world and less restrictive on the path you can take instead of being linear and straightforward as the series had been before. BotW also introduced the new challenge of item durability and enhanced the challenge of limited stamina. It included a brand-new cooking mechanic and hundreds of little puzzles to solve. The game opened up to so many different kinds of people.

But many people thought that the game had plenty of flaws. While the open-world was stunning, the scale and time spent in each location traveling around looking for something easily became a grueling and boring task. The durability system mentioned before can be infuriating at times when some of the best weapons seemingly breaking after only a few uses. Enemies are unfairly difficult and repetitive, especially early in the game, and the enemies scaling makes you feel as though you aren’t progressing combatively . The typical long form dungeons were replaced with significantly shorter but more numerous shrines which made each structure fill insignificant. The focus on combat both as a challenge and as the main means of progression can cause a disconnect between the player and the world around them.

Besides just these balance flaws many had a conceptual issue with the game. The Legend of Zelda series has been a pioneer of engaging locations throughout video game history. Since the release of the franchise’s third game in 1991 we have been given the opportunity to explore numerous different dimensions, underground, underwater, and the sky. Breath of the Wild however constrained us to just walking the land of Hyrule, never able to explore anything beyond. With this, many thought the games exploration was negatively impacted and the loose grip of the story on game failed to give the game much depth. 

The few trailers we have been given have managed to relieve some of the worries that Tears of the Kingdom will merely be a rehash of its predecessor. The trailers have shown Link traversing a new aerial world of sky islands, sporting new abilities, and using them to fight new, seemingly constructed, enemies. New tools and weapons have been shown, hopefully indicating that more work has gone into the durability feature that plagued Breath of the Wild. What appears to be a rudimentary crafting system has been showcased, which will hopefully make the world feel more cohesive and the vehicles that can be made will aid in reducing the cumbersome travel of the original.

Although this review has been quite critical of the original it is important to reinforce that it is in no way a bad game. As the cultural force of Nintendo only continues to grow and for the $70 of Tears of Kingdom one can only hope the game will be worth the wait and the money. Luckily, many of the pre-release reviews of the game have given it truly amazing reviews, making it one of the highest rated games in history. Regardless of these criticism we can’t wait for the release of Tears of the Kingdom and look forward to many more hours of enjoyable play.