Zelda games have a tradition of zagging when you expect a zig: many follow-up games are vastly different even in concept than games directly before. Nintendo/Screenshot by CNET Familiar, but different The views are amazing, but the map and territory have shifted. OK, there are towers that catapult you into the sky this time, so you can scan new areas.
The interface is familiar, the navigation is the same.
Still, the level of surprise this time around isn't always as great as it was with Breath of the Wild. You can still find horses and ride them and bring them to stables, or also outfit the horses with carts you build. But expect some parallel collectible challenges here: Korok seeds and shrines. Tears of the Kingdom feels like a game about mastering the possibilities, collapsing distances. Now that I'm more comfortable, the world seems a bit smaller. I felt myself accumulating experience and knowledge as I went. The opening location I wandered in for hours felt big enough to be a full game on its own. The first hours, spent in a ghostly, empty world amid old Construct robots, reminded me of the silent magic moments of games like Myst or Jonathan Blow's The Witness. Tears of the Kingdom is almost too infused with new things to feel as epically sparse as Breath of the Wild did, but that quiet freedom remains. I love getting lost and just being in new spaces, a feeling that Breath of the Wild pioneered with its ambient soundtracks and silent splendor. I tried to explain to my 14-year-old son, who's already beaten Elden Ring several times, that Zelda games are quiet, contemplative. Labo did it with cardboard in the real world, but Tears of the Kingdom does it with pixels. There's also something of Nintendo Labo in all of this: how I ingeniously make new things to try out. It's a sandbox that still has story structure.Īll that crafting freedom reminds me of the way my kids already tinker in Minecraft, Roblox and elsewhere. What I like is that even these open creative pathways are optional. I'm sure I missed out on a ton already, and piles of raw materials are sprinkled everywhere. I'd have preferred more analog object manipulation, but pop-up control reminders are always available.
But I'd still say it's got a learning curve, and this game definitely leans on most of the Switch controls. Forget that: I got used to crafting and manipulating objects in 3D. Initially, I thought the controls in Tears of the Kingdom felt weird during my first hour of play a few weeks ago.
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