I want Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom DLC more than Koltin wants bubbul gems, a gross amount. With over 120 hours soaring over and under Hyrule in Nintendo’s latest adventure, it feels like Tears of the Kingdom still has more to offer fans. Plus, a substantial set of Breath of the Wild DLC exists, adding a heap of fan-requested features that make replays a little bit easier. But Eiji Aonuma has made comments that hint otherwise.
Before we leap out of a tower and glide into the rest of this guide, be sure to check out our healthy stock of amazing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom content. Read our thorough guides covering the Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom master sword, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom armor, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom geoglyphs, and don’t miss those funny little fellas with our Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom koroks guide.
Ok, readers, let’s gallop on the back of Epona into our Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom DLC guide.
Does Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom DLC exist?
Currently, Nintendo is yet to announce plans to release Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom DLC. In a recent interview with Famitsu, Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma spoke on the potential for DLC, and gave an answer that is sure to break the hearts of many fans. When asked about the potential for additional content, Aonuma commented (translated from Japanese to English through Google Translate):
“There are no plans to release additional content this time, but that’s because I feel like we’ve done everything we can to create fun in that world. In the first place, the reason I decided to make this a sequel to the previous work was because I thought there was value in experiencing a new game in that Hyrule place. If that’s the case, if a new reason arises, we might return to the same world again. Whether it’s a sequel or a new work, I think it’s going to be a completely new game, so I hope you’re looking forward to it.”
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom DLC release date speculation
There are no current public plans to release Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom DLC, and as such, there’s no release date for Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom DLC. Considering Eiji Aonuma’s recent comments, we now feel Nintendo is not likely to reveal Tears of the Kingdom DLC, or a Tears of the Kingdom DLC release date in the future. Ah well, just another six or seven years until the next game, we guess?
What’s included in the Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom DLC?
With no currently public Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom DLC plans, there’s no information on what content Nintendo is set to include in any speculative downloadable content.
What might Nintendo include in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom DLC?
Looking at Nintendo’s history, the Zelda developer includes many highly-requested features and helpful improvements in the Breath of the Wild DLC. Features like the Korok mask make searching for Koroks easier, the travel medallion allows you to set your own fast travel points, and the ancient horse bridle even allows you to warp your horse to your location anywhere on the map.
Nintendo includes many of the improvements in Tears of the Kingdom as part of the base game, so any new additions are set to be improvements specifically tailored to the new title. There are no public plans, but we’re speculating on improvements we would like to see and ones we think we might see in our list below.
A blacksmith
Weapon degradation is much less of a hindrance in Tears of the Kingdom, but it’s still a setback losing your favorite weapon. We’d love to see the ability to visit a blacksmith and use materials to create weapons you have already used. The chance to favorite our precious cobble crusher and use materials to make a new one is a very exciting prospect and might take some of the tedium out of constantly losing weapons and hunting for replacements.
Loftwings
Alright, this is a slightly lofty goal (sorry). In Breath of the Wild, when you scan the Twilight Princess Wolf Link amiibo, an AI Wolf Link appears to help you on your adventure. The canine companion attacks enemies and walks with you, and you can even increase its hearts within Twilight Princess HD by completing tasks.
Now, Tears of the Kingdom amiibo functionality is slightly different, and the Wolf Link function is missing. However, Skyward Sword HD on Switch has a tie-in amiibo featuring Zelda and the humongous bird known as a Loftwing. With the sky islands now floating around Hyrule, we’d love the ability to summon one of the mighty birds and travel among the clouds with the gorgeous avian animals.
New Zonai devices
Alright, this is a bit greedy. There’s already a stupendous amount of variation and creativity afforded by the selection of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Zonai devices. We can’t even imagine what else Nintendo might dream up, but that’s never stopped the developer from surprising us before.
Maybe new Zonai devices might include a ship’s hull, as an easier way to travel the waves. Perhaps a vacuum that sucks up and collects the multiple enemy parts scattered across the world (our poor A button needs a break)? We’d even happily take something as simple as a switch, allowing us to activate different Zonai devices separately instead of powering everything at once.
The Breath of the Wild runes
This feels tough to achieve, we know. The world of Tears of the Kingdom is not designed around the runes of Breath of the Wild. Nintendo created platforms, enemies, and every island to make use of ascend, ultrahand, fuse, and the many Zonai devices scattered around the land. So, wouldn’t it be really fun to just break the game?
It seems very un-Nintendo, but the ability to revisit this new land with our old tools feels almost like a mod come to life. We already have so much freedom with the Zonai devices, and nobody seems to be truly breaking Tears of the Kingdom yet, so we believe Nintendo has the development chops to make it happen. We just want bombs back, honestly.
Master mode
This last one feels absolutely certain. Breath of the Wild’s DLC allows you to start all over again but with increased difficulty in master mode. Enemies begin one level higher (brown bokoblins start as blue, silver become gold, etc), and all enemies regain health if left too long without receiving damage. This drastically changes the pace and challenge of the game, making it a truly brutal prospect to actually get to Ganon and finally vanquish evil.
We’d love to see those early constructs punched up in power, and the prospect of an ever more powerful flux construct is genuinely terrifying. Much like Breath of the Wild, we’d also like to see enemy placement changed, with new enemies plotted in previously safe areas, and perhaps even floating platforms with enemies waiting to interrupt your flights through the Hyrule skies.
Horde mode
Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom both have an incredible combat system, but the latter evolves on the formula, as the fuse ability adds an unfathomable level of depth. While BotW’s DLC has the Trial of the Sword, a series of rooms that strip Link of weapons, and demand you beat every enemy, we’d like to see a challenge for TotK that lets us keep those weapons.
Nintendo places enemies pretty sparsely around the Hyrule map except for one area, the Lynel colosseums. If you go down into the depths today, you just might stumble across an arena that locks you inside, and then systematically unleashes an ever-increasingly powerful onslaught of those towering Lynels to tear you apart. More, more of this please, with different enemies like Twilight Princess HD’s Cave of Shadows mode.
A new dungeon and ability
A seemingly obvious pick. We’d love to see Nintendo add another dungeon to Tears of the Kingdom, especially one in a different type of environment. Perhaps one buried underneath the water, or a dungeon hidden within the snowy caverns beneath the Hebra mountains.
This is also a great chance to include a final new ability for Link or perhaps some new sort of weapons. So many previous items are yet to make an appearance in Tears of the Kingdom, and we’d give our right arm (oooh sorry, Link) to get our trusty grappling hook back and zip between some of the closer sky islands and platforms. But whatever we get, we know Nintendo is going to blow us away.
A new town or area
Ok, now we’re really getting into wishful thinking. The first trailer for Tears of the Kingdom gives the impression that this new adventure is almost entirely about the sky. The end result isn’t quite true, as while the journey amongst the clouds is a focus, the sky is perhaps less populated than we thought it would be.
Much like building Tarrey Town in Breath of the Wild, we’d love to help start a settlement in the sky, and while we’re at it why not just call it Skyloft? We have more than enough Zonai devices to start ferrying townsfolks up into the air, and some of those floating islands are definitely big enough to start a town. We’d maybe put up a few guardrails though.
Alright, readers, that’s all we have on Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom DLC for today, and we’re set to update this guide (very happily) whenever Nintendo unveils official news. For now, be sure to check out our other amazing Zelda content with guides on Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom bubbul gems and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom gleeoks.