This review contains spoilers
There's a pattern that runs through the Zelda series, from its first pair of games to its most recent, of entries that break technological, mechanical, or narrative ground, and are followed by utterly singular sequels. Majora's Mask is one of those games — a strange, impeccably-constructed fever dream made possible by the (in many ways literal and tangible) foundation laid by its predecessor. Add to that club Zelda II, Link's Awakening, Phantom Hourglass, and A Link Between Worlds: all strange, special, and deeply creative games that use their predecessors as a jumping off point for more experimental narrative and design.
And now, Tears of the Kingdom joins that long-running pattern: a sequel experimenting with a core design concept (here, physics) with the tableau of Breath of the Wild as a sturdy base. As a creativity engine, TotK is virtually unmatched; it captures the thing that always drew me to Subnautica, in managing to marry the sense of creative freedom and potential with an actual game with objectives and goals and characters and a detailed world, rather than just a virtual pit to mine for ephemera and resources. Its additions of the Sky Islands and (more importantly) the Depths to Breath of the Wild's expansive map riffs on a recurrent concept in the series — that of a Dark World, a strange mirror of the game's understood, expected environment. As an inversion of the overworld, pitch-black until thoroughly explored, the Depths are both alien and strangely, unsettlingly familiar. It's there, and in the game's more freeform, creative sense of what a dungeon might be, that TotK finds the most magic.
Still, even in the almost 200 hours I've sunk into Tears of the Kingdom over the past two months, I never quite felt like it reached the heights of some of those other sequels. Put simply, there are constraints to its weirdness, to the risks it's able and willing to take with its story, its world design, and its mechanics, that in some ways are native to its genre, and in others may just be a hazard of its stature. Breath of the Wild turned Zelda from gaming's most prominent niche franchise into a cultural object on the level of Mario, Pokemon, Fortnite, and Call of Duty — a series someone who otherwise knows nothing about games might still casually recognize. I've overheard conversations about this game in cafés, chatted about it with people at conferences or in classes. That wouldn't have happened in a pre-Switch world. There will never be another Majora's Mask — a game that fully invests in the series' potential for the weird, the horrific, the haunting — simply because it would be too alienating for the series' now-massive audience.
And as an alternative, Tears of the Kingdom is the best we could possibly get. A game that finds so many sources of wonder and joy in the simplest of puzzles and riddles, in allowing its players to build things that make a world that once seemed vast effortlessly small. I think it's a fantastic game, beyond what anyone could have reasonably expected. In an era where mainstream narrative storytelling feels more and more sanded down, focus-grouped and MCU-ified, Tears of the Kingdom still manages to be utterly singular, and — like those other sequels — it will remain so for as long as games are being played.
And now, Tears of the Kingdom joins that long-running pattern: a sequel experimenting with a core design concept (here, physics) with the tableau of Breath of the Wild as a sturdy base. As a creativity engine, TotK is virtually unmatched; it captures the thing that always drew me to Subnautica, in managing to marry the sense of creative freedom and potential with an actual game with objectives and goals and characters and a detailed world, rather than just a virtual pit to mine for ephemera and resources. Its additions of the Sky Islands and (more importantly) the Depths to Breath of the Wild's expansive map riffs on a recurrent concept in the series — that of a Dark World, a strange mirror of the game's understood, expected environment. As an inversion of the overworld, pitch-black until thoroughly explored, the Depths are both alien and strangely, unsettlingly familiar. It's there, and in the game's more freeform, creative sense of what a dungeon might be, that TotK finds the most magic.
Still, even in the almost 200 hours I've sunk into Tears of the Kingdom over the past two months, I never quite felt like it reached the heights of some of those other sequels. Put simply, there are constraints to its weirdness, to the risks it's able and willing to take with its story, its world design, and its mechanics, that in some ways are native to its genre, and in others may just be a hazard of its stature. Breath of the Wild turned Zelda from gaming's most prominent niche franchise into a cultural object on the level of Mario, Pokemon, Fortnite, and Call of Duty — a series someone who otherwise knows nothing about games might still casually recognize. I've overheard conversations about this game in cafés, chatted about it with people at conferences or in classes. That wouldn't have happened in a pre-Switch world. There will never be another Majora's Mask — a game that fully invests in the series' potential for the weird, the horrific, the haunting — simply because it would be too alienating for the series' now-massive audience.
And as an alternative, Tears of the Kingdom is the best we could possibly get. A game that finds so many sources of wonder and joy in the simplest of puzzles and riddles, in allowing its players to build things that make a world that once seemed vast effortlessly small. I think it's a fantastic game, beyond what anyone could have reasonably expected. In an era where mainstream narrative storytelling feels more and more sanded down, focus-grouped and MCU-ified, Tears of the Kingdom still manages to be utterly singular, and — like those other sequels — it will remain so for as long as games are being played.