Category: Breath of the Wild

As we encroach on Tears of the Kingdom’s first anniversary, there is no better time to celebrate its monumental wins than now. After winning IGN’s Game of the Year, Best Action/Adventure Game at The Game Awards and D.I.C.E., Link and Zelda should be flying higher than the Great Sky Island. Tears also received BAFTA nominations and Game Informer recognition as a top game of the year. This isn’t even an exhaustive list, but it’s time to add another medal to…

Lookout Landing has one of the more charming tracks in Tears of the Kingdom with its staccato piano chords and trilling whistles. Its whimsy combined with a somewhat militaristic quality has so much potential for creatively constructed covers, especially as the last few Zelda titles experimented with using more types of instruments. Nick Zhang is a talented woodwind musician who created a delightfully faithful cover of the music heard at Lookout Landing. It sounds so on-point and natural it could…

Barring several exceptions, I am a completionist. Collect-athons have been my jam since my first experience with Spyro the Dragon’s gems, eggs, and orbs. This desire translated into my Zelda experience, spending countless hours tracking down Heart Pieces, masks, and yes, even Korok Seeds and Minish Cap’s figurines. I regret the latter the most, even more than Korok Seeds. In Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, the Zelda series introduced its first strictly-defined completion percentage feature, visible…

Because we are coming up on almost a year since Tears of the Kingdom‘s release (can you believe it?), I’ve been pondering how well this direct sequel to Breath of the Wild continued the original story and enriched that version of Hyrule. I, for one, loved the continuity elements between the two games and enjoyed seeing how familiar settings were changed over a few years (how NPCs had grown up, etc). Tears of the Kingdom is a rarity in the…

The Zelda series is full of vibrant starting areas that make you feel right at home. From the lush Kokiri Forest in Ocarina of Time to the majestic islands of Skyloft in Skyward Sword, there are plenty of places I would pack my bags for and visit in a heartbeat. There are, however, a few in-game starter locales that don’t quite make my bucket list. Hyrule in A Link Between Worlds/A Link to the Past, for instance, doesn’t quite hit…

Tracking the release of Zelda titles is an exercise that can help explore and analyze development trends in the series. Looking at the data, the time gaps between 3D console Zelda games has been growing over the past fifteen to twenty years. The growing time gap between 3D Zelda games is first noticeable in the five year gap between Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. Up to that point, the longest gap between 3D Zelda titles in North America was roughly…

With Mario, Donkey Kong, and now Animal Crossing receiving official LEGO sets, many Zelda fans (myself included) are likely wondering the same thing: where are the Zelda LEGO sets? With how popular LEGO builds are and how well Tears of the Kingdom has been received since its release last year, creating Zelda-themed LEGOs seems like a no-brainer! While there hasn’t been an official announcement that any such set is in development, there have been rumors circulating around a potential Deku Tree…

Throughout video game history, turn-based combat has held a special place in the medium for generations. Franchises like Final Fantasy and Pokémon arguably carry the torch of turn-based RPGs, but games like Sea of Stars and Persona show that the gameplay style isn’t done developing and evolving. Of course, we can’t ignore the award-winning elephant in the room: 2024’s Game Awards Game of the Year Baldur’s Gate 3, which some feel was the only thing standing between Tears of the Kingdom…

Love them or hate them, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom did a lot to shake up (or outright change, depending on your opinion) the Zelda formula. Linear progression was replaced with open-air exploration. Sprawling dungeons were (to an extent) replaced with Shrines and overworld puzzles. All-powerful weapons were replaced with ones that degrade and break. Dungeon items you acquire over the course of the game became a handy set of abilities you get at the adventure’s…

With March just around the corner, we will not only be celebrating the seven-year anniversary of the Nintendo Switch, but of Breath of the Wild as well. The Zelda title that introduced us to the world of the Calamity, the game helped redefine and even restructure how we see future titles in the franchise. Its eventual follow-up six years later, Tears of the Kingdom, helped improve upon the foundation that Breath of the Wild built. For those unaware, one of…