The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomis as complete as a game can get.
Nintendo’s open-world masterpiece launched with three gigantic maps stacked on top of each other, and integrated them flawlessly while setting players loose with a ridiculous array of skills seemingly designed to break that perfect world open. It was so full of things to do that I still felt like I was just scratching the surface, even as I scratched a much-deeper-than-surface-level wound into Ganondorf.
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Somehow, I didn’t hit a notable buguntil 85 hours in, and didn’t hit another one in the 15 hours I spent with the game after that. It’s a remarkable achievement no matter how you look at it, even ifBaldur’s Gate 3andStarfieldmean that players have moved on to other big games for the moment. I’m one of those players, so I was slightly disappointed to read that Nintendo has no intentions of returning to the world of Tears of the Kingdom for DLC.
“I feel like I’ve done everything I can to create games in that world,” TOTK’s producer Eiji Aonumasaidin an interview withFamitsu. “The reason we chose [to make] a sequel to the previous game in the first place is because we thought there would be value in experiencing a new kind of way to play in that Hyrule.”
This means Nintendo is handling Tears of the Kingdom significantly differently thanBreath of the Wildsix years ago. That game got two DLC expansions, The Master Trials and The Champions' Ballad.
It isn’t a bummer because Tears of the Kingdom needed more content — it was bursting with cool stuff to do and see. But it is a bummer because, whether I had realized it or not, I had been counting on an expansion to give me an excuse to return to the game.
I’m deluged with lengthy RPGs right now. Ireviewed Sea of Stars, I’m firmly in the second act of Baldur’s Gate 3, I started Starfield last week, and I’m planning to dump dozens of hours intoCyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC as soon as I can. And that’s before October hits like a tidal wave, drowning players in new Spider-Mans and Marios and Sonics and Assassin’s Creeds and Alan Wakes. It’s the time of year when anything that isn’t essential gets put away so that we can focus on all the newest, shiniest releases. I probably won’t have time to go back to Tears or the Kingdom until next year and, by that time, I’ll have a few dozen more games I need to focus on.
As my colleague Jade Kingwrote, it’s good that Nintendo is moving on and exploring new ideas for the series. No DLC now means an we’ll get to play an all new Zelda game that much sooner. But I love spending time with Link and I’ll be bummed if this is the end of my time in this layer cake version of Hyrule. There are still so many wells I haven’t seen the bottom of, so many Shrines I haven’t completed, and so many pants I haven’t upgraded.
NEXT:It’s Time For A Hardcore Zelda Fan To Admit Tears Of The Kingdom Wasn’t For Me
