I don't know about all of you, but I was so happy for a release date and title in yesterday's Nintendo Direct. I was shocked when I saw it was May, as I was really hoping (and believing) it would be a March release. However I know I have more than enough to play until May. That's like eight splatfests!

What do you all make of this title? Tears of the Kingdom... Does it relate to the same tears as collected in Twilight Princess? Will we see a cameo by Tears For Fears?

For all the talk about the sky islands and the Skyward Sword-esque connection, after yesterday's trailer I'm more intrigued than ever regarding the ground-level of the game. It seems to be interlinked with the sky in ways I only dreamed of in Skyward Sword, and while it's supposed to be 'the same' Hyrule, with craters and devastation, it clearly won't be exactly the same but with longer grass.

I'm going to be highly interested in seeing how things have fared since this all went down. Is Tarrey Town still there!? What if it is now floating above the sky, thus becoming the new Skyloft? lol

Could this whole ouroboros symbolism be leading to the notion that this game is more or less the 'creation' of a new land like Skyward Sword's thus truly starting the next Zelda timeline. No more games in the tri-timeline, but instead, rebirth for the franchise!?

I'm so damn curious about all this. I took the day off for Splatoon 3's release date and I may be tempted to do so for The Legend of Zelda: TotK's. I'll have to look at my vacation availability.

I am so excited about this game. More so than ever. It has been a long wait. Longer than I think even Nintendo intended. It really seems like it'll be gearing up to blow us away though.

Oh, and my last point... that box art!!! UGH! Amazing. Beautiful. Here's a smaller version of the overall image it's based on. Click on it to go to Nintendo's full-size version. Just stunning.

Definitely happy to finally have a title and release date (even if it comes with another small delay). The title is interesting, but it's hard to take anything definitive from it. There are 7 symbols around the Fennec Fox/Rabbit creature glyph that some are speculating could represent the titular Tears, but that's only about as sound a theory as people had prior to Breath of the Wild about the white flowers that were being shown in the trailers would actually be called Breath of the Wild. It fits at a surface level, but there's nothing actually supporting it yet.

I don't expect the Tears of the Kingdom to relate to the Tears of Light from TP or the Sacred Tears from SS except that they probably will be an item or items that we need to collect throughout the game. But what of their purpose? The Tears of Light restored the Light Spirits and drove out the twilight. The Sacred Tears called to the golden goddesses and signified that Link had passed their test and was deserving of a sacred treasure so he could continue his journey.

Therefore the Tears of the Kingdom should either call out to or restore the kingdom in some way if the past tears are anything to go on. But would that mean bringing the floating islands down or allowing Link to travel up? Depends on what these floating islands are. Some look like pieces of the land that have been lifted up (which will hopefully give us access to new underground areas), but some look like they've been in the sky for a while. Of course this doesn't have to be Skyloft. There have been lots of sky islands in the series from the Wind Tribe's Cloudtops to the Oocca's City in the Sky to Vaati's Palace of Winds... So they could be anything, related to a past lore point or totally new.

Definitely agree with you on Tarrey Town, but also things like Link's house (is it canonical that he bought it? - I guess it could get destroyed during the land movement, rendering that point moot), what was wrong with Vah Ruta, the DLC locations...

I'm all for Nintendo trying to simplify the timeline, but since I disagree with the notion of a tri-timeline to begin with (not to mention the idea of Skyward Sword being the start of the timeline - there's too many contradictions and plot/lore complications), I hope this isn't a circular game. I mean, if you can travel back in time to the days of SS, that's not a big deal, but if TotK leads into the events of SS without time travel or goddess magic, I'm going to be upset by that choice.

It looks phenomenal. We're finally at the point where other developers are starting to put out their own BotW-likes, and it's reassuring that Nintendo is still way ahead of the curve. Flying a thousand feet into the air by riding on a time-reversed boulder to get to a secret sky island, all in a totally dynamic and emergent way... once again, we're looking at a game from the future. Let this be the Spelunky 2 to BotW's Spelunky.

DrFinkelstein said:

I don't know about all of you, but I was so happy for a release date and title in yesterday's Nintendo Direct.

Same. Even though they didn't show a whole lot, this game feels so much more tangible now. With a nebulous release timeframe that kept moving to the right, there was always a feel of "Is this ever going to come out?!" - similar to Prime 4 though obviously not to the same degree. Now I don't have to really worry about when the next time Nintendo shows this game is going to be; with only eight months until release, it's going to be sooner not later.

I can't wait for it. Besides Pikmin 4 it is definitely my most-anticipated game right now. I will hopefully find time to replay BotW next year before this releases.

Interestingly I am not a fan of the box art, lol. It doesn't seem high enough quality to me. You look at the BotW art and it is epic, emotional, and full of terrific contrast. This art of TotK feels like fan art to me by comparison. Nice fan art, maybe, but not official. It feels unfinished, as though the artist still has to do their final pass and tweak things. And that's not from the looser, rougher painting style, that's just that some parts need more work. Will be interesting to see if that final pass does happen prior to next May. I wouldn't be surprised if we get a higher-contrast version in the end, with more detail work put in to really finish off the piece. But guess we'll see!

At any rate, I will buy this Day 1 without even thinking about it. Also going to try to avoid everything about the game until playing, because why would I spoil any of it for myself? I'll only get to play it for the first time once!

It's funny how I wanted an elaborate/story-driven trailer because we've been so long without a proper title/release date/details. But now that I know the title and date, I too want to stay in the dark. It'll be tempting whenever that inevitable pre-release trailer hits.

I'm still unsure if I'll take the Friday off for it or not. Maybe I'll just finish my work really early; put in extra hours during the week to compensate...

Gameplay showcase tomorrow morning!

...I won't be watching it!

...In fact, I might not even click on this thread again for another three months!

See you guys in July!

Can't wait to play this in like 5 years when It comes to me through someone elses effot because frankly I haven't taken part in as much hype as the rest of y'alls to care enough!

*stands up, takes profound bow, exits like lifes' a soap opera*

I'm going to say this, I'm not excited about having the same map again (though I imagine it's going to be changed a LOT and the stuff on it will definitely be different) but everything they showed off in the gameplay thing looked AWESOME. It's like they saw how much people tried to break Breath of the Wild with wild ideas and combinations and stuff and just ran with that.

@Zero
Pretty much same thoughts. Map reuse is the only bummer, although I'm sure that there will be some surprises on that front. Otherwise, this is EXACTLY what a BotW sequel needed to be: more of the same, but with more enemy, encounter, and dungeon variety and an expanded vocabulary for the chemistry system. Nintendo's spin on the crafting system looks as revolutionary as their spin on the open-world genre. I freaking hate crafting in other games, but it actually seems fun and intuitive here.

I wonder what they could do for Skill Trees!

@Shadowlink
Man, I love Cary Grant. I haven't seen any of that stuff in so long, though...

@Zero
@Anand

I've peeked at a few vague posts and headlines like these (something about a meat arrow?), and now I'm officially in that good old ZELDA HYPE mode I've experienced so many times in life! Up until yesterday I was equanimous, perfectly content with enjoying the current moment... now I can't wait!

Emergence, anand!

@Secret_Tunnel
Dude, I specifically tried to avoid using the E-word!

But, yes, Emergence. Which reminds me, I should really try Teardown.

@Anand

Or was it Zelda's title that reminded you?

Teardown seems fun, but requires a beefy PC. This is the kind of game I want to see on PS5!

I've been kind of down on this one lately due to the dumb map reusing, but that Fuse ability is a game-changer! Looks to have tons of potential for fun, so I'm excited again.

My prediction is that this game will be the next Mario Galaxy 2. People will have concerns about its reused engine and last-gen graphics, but its wacky gameplay, refined down to perfected mechanics from its predecessor's focus on presentation, will cause game critics' hearts to grow three sizes and call it one of the greatest games ever made.

My thoughts on this game can be summed up as "This looks fun as a general video game, but not quite what I want out of a Zelda title." For better or worse, they seem to be leaning heavily into the streamer crowd with this one.

I don't particularly care about the world reuse thing. It's been six years since I played the first game so I barely remember it anyway.

Haven't watched the latest Aonuma direct and am planning to avoid looking at any info for the game until launch, for that fresh Zelda experience. Someone did let slip to me that there's some weird new stuff going on. Something about mushrooms? Maybe that was a misdirect, though.

And my media blackout includes this thread, which I have not read. Now's your chance to air your grievances with me, I won't see them until I'm 30 hours into the game and flabbergasted to learn that this Zelda game's Alternate World Gimmick is actually the Mushroom Kingdom.

No media blackout for me. Still need to preorder the damn thing. Already got the Friday and Monday off that weekend to play it.