Daily Debate: Was the Tears of the Kingdom Teaser Unimpressive?
Posted on September 18 2022 by Alexis S. Anderson
Hello from your resident Breath of the Wild skeptic. While we can’t call it Breath of the Wild 2 anymore, Tears of the Kingdom continues to be a seeming clone of its predecessor with a few new gimmicks touted as groundbreaking.
That’s harsh, I’ll admit. I think the new mechanics will be great additions to the gameplay, but we have been given so little to chew on in terms of story. My biggest gripe with Breath of the Wild was its lack of a compelling story and dearth of character development that wasn’t cobbled together from flashbacks.
So, until I get a better idea of the narrative circumstances of the game, I am not excited. This teaser trailer may as well not have been released at all– it added nothing for me. Frankly, I would have been much happier had only the name and release date flashed at the end of the Direct. Instead scattered clips of gameplay giving us a look at some new mechanics with absolutely no context were trotted out to us, the news-starved masses, as if it was a banquet when really it was crumbs.
All that said, I will buy and gleefully play this game. In no world is Breath of the Wild a bad game and I doubt this title will be either, but I have high standards for the franchise which Tears of the Kingdom’s older sibling did not meet. I am at least able to hold out hope that a strong story underlies the new gimmicks, since almost none of the narrative details have been revealed (and I don’t need to know the full story, where’s the fun in that? But, some sense of the premise and goal of Link’s journey would be nice).
As far as I’m concerned, only the initial announcement trailer has meant much of anything to me. So I still feel like I haven’t heard anything since 2019, except that we can explore the sky which puts a bad taste in my mouth thinking of how relatively dissatisfying that was in Skyward Sword. It would be one thing if this game didn’t look exactly like Breath of the Wild, then I would be getting exciting new visuals with every teaser but I’ve spent the last 5 years looking at this terrain and version of Link.
I’m waiting to hear Zelda’s voice give me some story tidbits in a trailer to obsess over. Given the likely customizability of Link’s look, runes not typically acquired through progress but built into the Sheikah Slate, and the expansiveness of the land, it’s hard to speculate about any story elements based on what little we’ve been given.
Granted, the mural that opened the trailer may have story value, and I look forward to continuing to read people’s interpretations of it. But I’ve been burned before, because the similar tapestry from Breath of the Wild (above) depicted the conflict from 100 years prior, not the game’s upcoming story. So I have a hard time accepting that this piece of art is from the future looking back on Tears of the Kingdom’s events and Nintendo does nothing to indicate as much. The fact that the Zelda-looking character has long hair in it leads me to believe it does not refer to the Tears of the Kingdom conflict. Nonetheless, my fellow story fiends, stay the course and we may yet be rewarded! For now, I remain skeptical.
Did this teaser trailer impress you, or did you feel it was a lousy attempt to appease hungry fans? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Alexis S. Anderson is a Senior Editor at Zelda Dungeon who joined the writing team in November, 2014. She has a JD from the UCLA School of Law and is pursuing a career in Entertainment and Intellectual Property Law. She grew up in the New Jersey suburbs with her parents, twin brother, and family shih-tzu.
