It’s finally here: the first and final Played Preview of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom! It’s just 16 days from the publication of this preview article until Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom appears. So just two weeks and a few days until fans step back into Link’s shoes and save Hyrule from the forces of evil. In fact, while release is so close, it’s only now that we’ve had the chance to try the new Zelda for ourselves. That’s unusual for a game of this caliber. In general, Nintendo has kept a low profile when it comes to information about the new Zelda. No dedicated Nintendo Direct was aired, detailing key aspects of the game.
Even in the trailers, until the last few weeks, they were very reserved and only focused on teasers. And that’s with a direct sequel appearing on the same console six years after Breath of the Wild – pandemic delays or not. So the question arises: why? When publishers are stingy with information about big games, there is usually something wrong. Let’s get this far out of the way: we don’t think there’s anything to worry about with Tears of the Kingdom.
Nintendo’s secrecy has another, far more mundane reason. At the hands-on event, we learned that the developers are keen to ensure that fans get as many surprises as possible when playing at release. This is underscored by the very complicated and detailed embargo that applies to our game impressions. Therefore, we will either not be able to go into some things that we have experienced and seen, or only roughly described. Now let’s go!
Great fun again
We were allowed to beat monsters with the controller and with Link for over an hour, build vehicles, solve puzzles, explore both the sky and the ground and test the material synthesis. In doing so, we had more hearts, stamina, and a larger battery charge at our disposal than is usual at this point in the game.
Other than that, it was the normal, full-fledged early-game adventure. Now, of course, a good hour is just a blink of an eye in terms of the scope of the open-world adventure. And yet there was enough time to further fuel our anticipation for Tears of the Kingdom.
In many places in the game you can help yourself with self-built vehicles and airplanes. There are only a few limits.
Source: Nintendo
While our trip to Hyrule felt familiar, it also held a lot of freshness. Be it the slow motion with the bow in flight, the attack patterns of weapons or the menu navigation – veterans of the predecessor will find their way around in many places immediately. So we instinctively took on the first Bokblins, like we’re used to from Breath of the Wild. However, only with moderate success, because our equipment was clearly too weak for the opponents.
Luckily, that’s where synthesis comes in, where we just upgrade weapons, shields, and arrows directly. The horns dropped by the defeated Bokblins are particularly helpful here, as they offer a juicy increase in attack power and durability when fusion with weapons. Speaking of which, while playing we found that synthesis-enhanced weapons were breaking less often than we were used to seeing in Breath of the Wild’s weapon wear at the time.
