Daily Debate: Is Nintendo Depending on Content Creators to Advertise Tears of the Kingdom?
Posted on January 16 2023 by Leslie Jacobson
As I write this, we are less than 4 months away from the release of Tears of the Kingdom. Yet, Nintendo has been strangely silent as far as what this game is going to be. There has been a total of six minutes of footage released, and very little of that footage has told us almost anything in terms of story or gameplay.
What is featured in the trailers does seem odd in that they have focused mainly on visuals with no voice acting or voice overs explaining anything. The visuals are also ambiguous visuals at that. The first trailer mainly focused on Link, Zelda (with short hair!) and a desiccated corpse with more than a passing resemblance to Ganondorf. Many of the images in the first trailer flash by quickly. Indeed, it is because of the efforts of content creators on YouTube who have helped to break down the images frame-by-frame that fans really got to see what was going on in the first trailer. They have continued to break down each trailer and scan for symbols, references, and any other theories they can string together. It’s almost like The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, but with Zelda lore.
It’s believable that all of what we’ve been given does tell a lot more than what it initially lets on. For example, take the title image for Breath of the Wild. When it came out, I wondered about the rusted Master Sword and beautiful flower featured in the logo. As I learned the story of Breath of the Wild, I realized how much meaning there was packed into that Malice-corrupted sword and the Silent Princess. It told so much about the themes of the story and yet it was a strikingly simple image. It’s possible we have been given way more information than what we think.
So-what if Nintendo is depending on content creators to pick apart these esoteric trailers and create hype for the game? As fans debate and discuss Tears of the Kingdom, more online presence is created, and therefore, more awareness of the release of the game.
What do you think? Is Nintendo depending on content creators to create hype for Tears of the Kingdom? Does that explain the lack of trailers and gameplay information? Tell us what you think in the comments!
Leslie is a mom, a cosplayer, an educator, and a fervent fan of The Legend of Zelda series. She lives in an area of the United States that reminds her of the Akkala region in the fall and Hebra the other 11 months of the year. She owns The Legend of Zelda t-shirts older than most of her students.
