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Pre-Release The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Pre-Release Discussion Thread

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BY2K said:
Are we sure it's a an actual cave, tho? It could be just some shallow part of the cliff going inward. It's hard to say with the footage being black and white.
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It's possible, but it looks like it continues downward to the lower left. Looks like an Elden Ring cave lol
 
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Ok I think I understand the poetic choice of the title:

Breath of the Wild = "wind"
Tears of the Kingdom = "rain"

Wind, in a general sense, blows horizontally,
Rain, in a general sense, falls vertically.

What Nintendo's doing with the titles is to show the two contrasting philosophies of the games.
  • BotW is a game that's built horizontally. While there is some limited verticality, the main focus of the game is traversing the horizontal xy plane with core mechanics built around the idea.
  • TotK is a game that's built vertically. Everything from phasing, skydiving, sky islands, underground caverns etc are showing that the creators are trying to build the core mechanics along the vertical z axis.
Also, breath and tears both similar words connected to the face. And wild and kingdom are sort of "opposites" in a sense, although I'm not too sure why.
 
tarsus said:
Also, breath and tears both similar words connected to the face. And wild and kingdom are sort of "opposites" in a sense, although I'm not too sure why.
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Kingdom usually (though not always) denotes a settled people with a capital, as opposed to living in the wild. Regardless of settled vs nomadic, the existence of a king means there's centralized authority, which is pretty opposite of the wild.

I'm reminded how the Biblical book of Judges talks about how "Every man did that which was right in his own eyes" in the days before a king
 
tarsus said:
Ok I think I understand the poetic choice of the title:

Breath of the Wild = "wind"
Tears of the Kingdom = "rain"

Wind, in a general sense, blows horizontally,
Rain, in a general sense, falls vertically.

What Nintendo's doing with the titles is to show the two contrasting philosophies of the games.
  • BotW is a game that's built horizontally. While there is some limited verticality, the main focus of the game is traversing the horizontal xy plane with core mechanics built around the idea.
  • TotK is a game that's built vertically. Everything from phasing, skydiving, sky islands, underground caverns etc are showing that the creators are trying to build the core mechanics along the vertical z axis.
Also, breath and tears both similar words connected to the face. And wild and kingdom are sort of "opposites" in a sense, although I'm not too sure why.
Click to expand...
I got the impression that Breath, in BOTW, was referring to the idea that the Wild was alive. I agree with your TotK thinking though.
 
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tarsus said:
Ok I think I understand the poetic choice of the title:

Breath of the Wild = "wind"
Tears of the Kingdom = "rain"

Wind, in a general sense, blows horizontally,
Rain, in a general sense, falls vertically.

What Nintendo's doing with the titles is to show the two contrasting philosophies of the games.
  • BotW is a game that's built horizontally. While there is some limited verticality, the main focus of the game is traversing the horizontal xy plane with core mechanics built around the idea.
  • TotK is a game that's built vertically. Everything from phasing, skydiving, sky islands, underground caverns etc are showing that the creators are trying to build the core mechanics along the vertical z axis.
Also, breath and tears both similar words connected to the face. And wild and kingdom are sort of "opposites" in a sense, although I'm not too sure why.
Click to expand...
Interesting point. I hope this leads to underwater exploration.
 
Pennington said:
I don't know if anyone spotted this, but I can make out Naydra's tail and part of its body hiding behind an island, visible just before Link jumps off the edge.
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Nice catch! I didn't catch that, but a Youtuber did, I forget which Zeldatuber caught it though. I remember he said that he doesn't think it's Naydra, I disagree though, it looks like it's colors exactly match with Naydras' colors.
 
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Time to go into the rabbit hole. But I can't stop thinking about the double ouroborous of the logo + this feeling that there is more to that "ancien link" outfit he is wearing in some shots.

To build hypothesis on hypothesis. What if rewinding those chunks of ground in present time is doing the opposite in the past. Somehow Link will be able to go into the past with that old sky kingdom fully explorable (wearing the ancient outfit). And in a similar manner that rising the islands back in the sky, we are also the one making them fall in the first place in the past. And as we do that we are actually building the Hyrule from the past. That would fit that loop implied by the logo.

Side node: If the disappearance of the Deku tree in the present is caused by a part of the lost wood being rewinded, then I hope we get to see the Deku sprout.
 
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I do not have time to read through the entire thread. Has anyone mentioned yet that the Sheikah symbol is literally an eye with a tear dripping out of it?
 
Scrawnton said:
I do not have time to read through the entire thread. Has anyone mentioned yet that the Sheikah symbol is literally an eye with a tear dripping out of it?
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Yes, and it matches the way runes are distilled in BotW, by a teardrop.
 
Serif said:
Yes, and it matches the way runes are distilled in BotW, by a teardrop.
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Has it been theorized that maybe this game is actually a distant prequel to BotW when the Sheikah was more advanced?

I tend not to deep dive too much into Zelda theories because a) they set up disappointment and b) its usually much simpler than anyone tries to rationalize haha.
 
tarsus said:
Ok I think I understand the poetic choice of the title:

Breath of the Wild = "wind"
Tears of the Kingdom = "rain"

Wind, in a general sense, blows horizontally,
Rain, in a general sense, falls vertically.

What Nintendo's doing with the titles is to show the two contrasting philosophies of the games.
  • BotW is a game that's built horizontally. While there is some limited verticality, the main focus of the game is traversing the horizontal xy plane with core mechanics built around the idea.
  • TotK is a game that's built vertically. Everything from phasing, skydiving, sky islands, underground caverns etc are showing that the creators are trying to build the core mechanics along the vertical z axis.
Also, breath and tears both similar words connected to the face. And wild and kingdom are sort of "opposites" in a sense, although I'm not too sure why.
Click to expand...
Wow. That's interesting.
 
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There’s a glaring problem with the theory of pushing chunks of land from Hyrule, up into the clouds to build or add to the sky kingdom. The sky kingdom has golden trees, and golden grass, but there are no golden trees nor patches of golden grass in Hyrule, so unless they change colour when they get to the sky kingdom, the theory doesn’t add up.
 
Well, the theory stated that those chunks are reverting to their old state because of the rewind. Most likely they had those trees and grass when they fell but, because of differences in sun exposure, altitude and temperatures, they couldn't survive long.
Those islands are much much higher than mountains, you can't reasonably expect the same climate.
 
Scrawnton said:
Has it been theorized that maybe this game is actually a distant prequel to BotW when the Sheikah was more advanced?
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I think for sure the ancient civilization (Zonai?) are related to the Shiekah with the eye symbolism. But they are rather distinct, with more Mesoamerican/Greco-Roman/Shinto imagery instead of Jomon period Japanese, and use of green spirits instead of the blue Shiekah energy. BotW established the ancient Shiekah as advanced, the ancient short swords and weapons and all the shrines with the mummified monks use blue tech energy. But this civilization seems to predate them, since they fought an incarnation of Ganondorf instead of Calamity Ganon. Maybe they're ancient ancient Shiekah. Or it'd be cool to have an ancient civilization that was the ancestor to the Shikah, Hylians, and Gerudo. Just spitballing.

Awesomegames23 said:
There’s a glaring problem with the theory of pushing chunks of land from Hyrule, up into the clouds to build or add to the sky kingdom. The sky kingdom has golden trees, and golden grass, but there are no golden trees nor patches of golden grass in Hyrule, so unless they change colour when they get to the sky kingdom, the theory doesn’t add up.
Click to expand...
I think it's possible (a) the pieces of the sky kingdom fall to Hyrule during some event in the game, and weren't already there (we know for sure there is a chunk of island in Hyrule Field in the 2021 teaser, that wasn't there before) (b) the ability that reverses time also changes the flow of time around a fragment of Hyrule, reverting it to its ancient state (c) these fragments of Hyrule are underground. It may be the case that all three are true.
 
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The shot of link riding the rewinding fallen debris was my favorite part of the teaser. I was under the impression that sky and overworld would be separated by loading screen but that doesn’t look to be the case. I think the Zelda team is really taking the concept of a multi-layered open world to the extreme. I think that this game is going to give you the tools, and encourage you, to travel between the different layers. We already know from the patents that one way this is done is through the phase ability. One example explicitly given is link traveling underground, underneath a building that can’t be entered from the outside, and phasing up to get inside. I also a think a large part of this game is going to be changing layers depending on what you do in other layers. So like, causing a structure to rise into the overworld from underground, or sending down a sky island into the ocean. Change stuff in one layer so then you go to the layer that got changed but then you change stuff in another layer so you to that layer…..
 
You know what would be cool?
If the theory that the sky island are what past hyrule looked like is true and they're reverting back is true maybe in the mid game the entire map of hyrule get's reverted back to the past state and you have to explore the hyrule of the past with different races and a different world.
That could be amazing.
 
Rubbersoul said:
The shot of link riding the rewinding fallen debris was my favorite part of the teaser. I was under the impression that sky and overworld would be separated by loading screen but that doesn’t look to be the case. I think the Zelda team is really taking the concept of a multi-layered open world to the extreme. I think that this game is going to give you the tools, and encourage you, to travel between the different layers. We already know from the patents that one way this is done is through the phase ability. One example explicitly given is link traveling underground, underneath a building that can’t be entered from the outside, and phasing up to get inside. I also a think a large part of this game is going to be changing layers depending on what you do in other layers. So like, causing a structure to rise into the overworld from underground, or sending down a sky island into the ocean. Change stuff in one layer so then you go to the layer that got changed but then you change stuff in another layer so you to that layer…..
Click to expand...


That was my take after the first trailer. I was like, how the heck will they incorporate ground and sky without loading. It would be too taxing, talk less of the Nintendo Switch. But it seems like these guys are crazy enough to do it. I'm impressed
 
kimbo99 said:
That was my take after the first trailer. I was like, how the heck will they incorporate ground and sky without loading. It would be too taxing, talk less of the Nintendo Switch.
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The original game achieves a lot of minimal loading on its Wii U based engine with clever level of detail swapping and billboarding. Exploits like the magnesis flying machine have already taken up players super high into the sky and they can paraglide down with little to no loading.

Switch has 3x the RAM and this game is built for it. I don't think it's an issue of hardware limitation, theyve done a kind of seamless loading as far back as Wind Waker by using the sea, I trust them to handle it fine here. This is like Wind Waker and Skyward Sword on steroids.
 
I've seen things you Hylians wouldn't believe... Loftwings on fire off the shoulder of Din... I watched light arrows glitter in the dark near the Hyrule Castle Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears of the kingdom... Time to die

gdorf3.gif
 
ReyVGM said:
Did you not see the latest trailer all the way through?
Click to expand...

Of course. There’s just not enough to go on though with what little we saw of him riding that thing. But unless he can zip around on it like the Green Goblin, I don’t see it being the main thing. Plus, even if you could freely fly around on it, it makes climbing and whatnot completely moot. And I get the sense that this would be an early game feature otherwise I don’t think they would be showing it.

So I still, as of this moment, standby there being a Loftwing or something similar in the late-game/post-game to make traveling around the sky islands fun and more intuitive.
 
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I'm guessing the skywing works like the King of Red Lions where it only works in the upper sky region i.e. the new "great sea" and follows large wind currents, and there's a tool that helps you navigate the wind direction. The new paraglider already has streamers that better indicate where the wind is blowing, for example. This would prevent cheesing climbable surfaces near Hyrule, as it would become inert with no wind drafts to carry it.

It just makes sense to have as an early game tool to identify the Nazca Lines landmarks on the surface, and if they give you a tool later on that lets you change the wind, it can basically become an endgame hovercraft.
 
Rareware said:
Of course. There’s just not enough to go on though with what little we saw of him riding that thing. But unless he can zip around on it like the Green Goblin, I don’t see it being the main thing. Plus, even if you could freely fly around on it, it makes climbing and whatnot completely moot. And I get the sense that this would be an early game feature otherwise I don’t think they would be showing it.

So I still, as of this moment, standby there being a Skywing or something similar in the late-game/post-game to make traveling around the sky islands fun and more intuitive.
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So the game literally shows you an on-call hoverboard, but nah, there HAS to be something else that allows you to fly around.
 
ReyVGM said:
So the game literally shows you an on-call hoverboard, but nah, there HAS to be something else that allows you to freely fly around.
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Is that what it was? An on-call hoverboard? From the 3-5 seconds of footage I saw, I didn’t see Link calling anything or him freely flying around wherever he wants either. You must have seen the extended Aunoma Cut.
 
People in this thread saying "Breath of the Wild has the worst soundtrack" are giving me some serious "rap / jazz isn't music" vibes
 
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I liked the parts where they showed gameplay footage, gave us the name, and announced the release date. Those parts were cool.
 
Don’t forget Aonuma said this. They’re barely showing anything. Underground and underwater will likely be in imo. And maybe space

The adventure in this sequel will take place not just on the ground as in the previous game, but also in the skies above. However, the expanded world goes beyond that
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Not enough discussion acknowledging that it is in fact Kass, beloved bird bard, that names the game. Aonuma and Fujibayashi are beholden to his lyricism.


DRha5ioWkAAbDam.jpg
 
RE: loading times. I brought this up earlier as well (and I refuse to let go of this hope, since it's my dearest wish right now, haha) and I think I'm in the boat of expecting it to be seamless.

A lot of saving on performance can be done if you're really clever and generous with LOD and occlusion culling, so I don't see it as an impossibility.

What I do think, is that there will be 3 parts of the world, the overworld/ground world, a sort of "middle" that is the huge sky islands that still are at an altitude where you can see the overworld from them, then also the part of the sky world that's really high up, and obscured by clouds. And I think those clouds will sort of mask the more extreme parts of the loading shenanigans. We saw this in the first shot, where there was nothing but the clouds, but then the overworld sort of slowly emerged from beneath Link.

Also, BotW was Nintendo's first real attempt at creating an enormous open world. I think they now have the necessary experience to pull this off.
 
I’ll be honest it never once crossed my mind that this experience going from the sky to the surface would be anything but seamless. I feel pretty confident that they wouldn’t bother unless they could nail that.

They’ll use clouds, clever positioning of islands, and all sorts of tricks to make sure it happens.
 
The glider we saw, I don't think it's something you call. I think the reason it's so large is so it's easier to see and land on while skydiving. I feel like it's probably on a set path. But it may not be specifically for transportation either. You might need to use it for a puzzle or something, kinda like a korok challenge. Like shooting targets while you're on it. Or maybe you have to activate it from an island, then land on it before it gets to a certain point.
 
This is disappointing to me. I’m gonna jump back into a game and the world is basically the same. It won’t feel new enough for me. The sky islands and underground are obviously great, but knowing Hyrule is basically the same as BotW is disappointing. I was hoping for some big changes to the world if you were going to reuse it.

It doesn’t need to be 100% new, but everything Zeltik has seen is near 1:1 isn’t going to make me have that same wonderment I had with BotW.

 
TheCongressman said:
The glider we saw, I don't think it's something you call. I think the reason it's so large is so it's easier to see and land on while skydiving. I feel like it's probably on a set path. But it may not be specifically for transportation either. You might need to use it for a puzzle or something, kinda like a korok challenge. Like shooting targets while you're on it. Or maybe you have to activate it from an island, then land on it before it gets to a certain point.
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Ehh that would be one hell of a well timed landing for a moving target.

I think it's basically an alternative glider. Will still gradually lose height while Link is on it, so skylands you can't reach on the glider won't be any easier. Only maneuverable when crouching in the middle (guess but he does land and then crouch in the middle).
Mainly for using items/weapons while airborne without plummeting at the same time.
Similar to how a horse doesn't get you anywhere different, but let's you sprint and fight at the same time.
 
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I'm thinking that there won't be loading zones because of the recent trailer. It first shows Link skydiving off of an island into wide open sky, which wouldn't make sense if you couldn't travel to the surface from there. It then shows Link riding a rock up into the sky, and many islands are clearly visible from the surface.

It's still really strange that you can't see any of the sky islands from the surface in trailer 2. It wouldn't make sense for the sky islands to be an unlockable thing that you get partway through the game (unless the first part of the game is relatively linear and constricted). Either the footage of trailer 2 was taken from a really early development build that didn't show the sky islands, or something else is going on.
 
Dark Cloud said:
This is disappointing to me. I’m gonna jump back into a game and the world is basically the same. It won’t feel new enough for me. The sky islands and underground are obviously great, but knowing Hyrule is basically the same as BotW is disappointing. I was hoping for some big changes to the world if you were going to reuse it.

It doesn’t need to be 100% new, but everything Zeltik has seen is near 1:1 isn’t going to make me have that same wonderment I had with BotW.

Click to expand...


After the largest development period with the biggest Zelda team ever, I just have to hope that they are really holding back a lot from us and that there is vastly more then meets the eye with this game. Everything has felt off about it since it was announced many years ago. I still think they are holding back significant elements to this game and not just story spoilers.
 
Kevin said:
After the largest development period with the biggest Zelda team ever, I just have to hope that they are really holding back a lot from us and that there is vastly more then meets the eye with this game. Everything has felt off about it since it was announced many years ago. I still think they are holding back significant elements to this game and not just story spoilers.
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Yes, we don't see all those floating islands in the first and second trailer, they are obviously hidding stuff, this remindsme the infamous "there are no towns" before the launch of BoTW.
 
SMALLVILLE BOY said:
Yes, we don't see all those floating islands in the first and second trailer, they are obviously hidding stuff, this remindsme the infamous "there are no towns" before the launch of BoTW.
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I'm convinced there is something going on with the longer haired Link. We have never seen their face in the trailers yet right?
 
Am loving that discourse is finally picking up here <3.

LukasManak22 said:
Seeing all 3 right after each another brings so much hype. I like how all of them are mysterious lol

Click to expand...


Seeing them in sequence makes them look quite deliberate. Each of them has their own focus, plus similar pacing and length. The first is Underground, the second is Skyrule, and the third is Lore. I expect the main trailer to finally show how these connect, and very likely added landmass as well.

Kevin said:
So my opinion is that we figured out the main core concept of Tears of the Kingdom. To recap:

As you progress through the game, you will need to rebuild the Sky Island. You will have the ability to raise chunks of Hyrule back into the sky. By doing so reverses time on said chunks which would explain why they look different once they are actually in the sky. The more chunks you raise, the more they will eventually start to connect together. In some of the shots, you see roads and pathways on the island chunks that do not connect to anything but upon rebuilding the entire sky kingdom, these will all form one large sky kingdom. Could be Skyloft, could be the original Zonai kingdom. Maybe the two are actually one of the same. As you send chunks back into the sky, there will be craters on the surface world that likely can be explored revealing secrets and underground stuff to explore.

The Tears of the Kingdom is exactly that. Each island chunk is a tear that has fallen from the great kingdom that once was. Also represents tears in a kingdom as it was ripped apart. Your job is to restore the original kingdom. This will play a major role in defeating the evil and what not. Don't know how the entire story will work out but I feel confident that the core gameplay loop is restoring a long lost sky kingdom likely tied to the Zonai race that was done dirty by Ganondorf. As you send each chunk back in time which propells the pieces back into the sky, the former kingdom slowly becomes restored. It's been clear since the first trailer that time mechanics play a huge role and that island pieces can be raises as you saw Hyrule castle lift from the ground leaving behind a crater. Now we have enough evidence and information to piece together the restoration of the sky island and original Zonai race that inhabited said land.
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That's quality speculation. Starting out underground (Trailer 1), raising your first piece of Hyrule - reverting it to a previous state, doing some puzzling/boss fighting in the sky (Trailer 2) and getting your first power (Delay footage). After that you're able to dive down to Hyrule and start messing it up (Trailer 3) - essentially building your own sequel. That sounds ace.

I hope there's still plenty of non-linearity though!

Marce-chan said:
That box art is beautiful. I think this time they won't change it like with BotW lol(BotW original boxart revealed at E3 2016 was very uninspired).
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Honestly, I hope it to change. It's very strange to me that the box art doesn't reference Link's new Greek-inspired look - I expected that to be his new key look. I greatly prefer it over a rehashed Champion's Tunic.

DecoReturns said:
Or a trailer of Link talking with a good voice actor. That’ll keep them in the news for a bit lol
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Even better: scrap all voice acting. As soon as a cutscene starts in BotW I cringe a little, no matter the language. It breaks the connection between my imagination and the game.

tarsus said:
Ok I think I understand the poetic choice of the title:

Breath of the Wild = "wind"
Tears of the Kingdom = "rain"

Wind, in a general sense, blows horizontally,
Rain, in a general sense, falls vertically.

What Nintendo's doing with the titles is to show the two contrasting philosophies of the games.
  • BotW is a game that's built horizontally. While there is some limited verticality, the main focus of the game is traversing the horizontal xy plane with core mechanics built around the idea.
  • TotK is a game that's built vertically. Everything from phasing, skydiving, sky islands, underground caverns etc are showing that the creators are trying to build the core mechanics along the vertical z axis.
Also, breath and tears both similar words connected to the face. And wild and kingdom are sort of "opposites" in a sense, although I'm not too sure why.
Click to expand...

You know, both titles weirded me out initially but this is golden. It makes so much sense! It also connects the player to the game: starts out close by (Breath/Tears) and connects it to the game world (Wild/Kingdom).

Irene said:
What I do think, is that there will be 3 parts of the world, the overworld/ground world, a sort of "middle" that is the huge sky islands that still are at an altitude where you can see the overworld from them, then also the part of the sky world that's really high up, and obscured by clouds. And I think those clouds will sort of mask the more extreme parts of the loading shenanigans. We saw this in the first shot, where there was nothing but the clouds, but then the overworld sort of slowly emerged from beneath Link.
Click to expand...

There was definitely a loading mask going on in Trailer 3 when Link dove down. It wasn't super obvious fortunately, but interesting to see from a technical perspective. Going to the Underground should be less of a problem because they're able to unload much of the Overworld when going through small passages (loading corridor). From that perspective, one could speculate that the Underground has the potential to be more elaborate from a technical perspective.
 
Dark Cloud said:
This is disappointing to me. I’m gonna jump back into a game and the world is basically the same. It won’t feel new enough for me. The sky islands and underground are obviously great, but knowing Hyrule is basically the same as BotW is disappointing. I was hoping for some big changes to the world if you were going to reuse it.

It doesn’t need to be 100% new, but everything Zeltik has seen is near 1:1 isn’t going to make me have that same wonderment I had with BotW.

Click to expand...

That being said, we still don’t have a lot of evidence to go on. When you start playing, there might be subtle and less subtle changes all over the place. Maybe there was a huge dungeon inside Saturo mountain all along, for example.
 
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