Zelda fans, hold on to your butts. After something of a news drought, the Zelda floodgates are open, as Nintendo presents a ten-minute gameplay stream of Tears of the Kingdom. Fans join Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma for the Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom stream, offering our first glimpse of gameplay outside of teasers.
First announced in 2019 and originally just as “the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild,” fans have been patiently waiting for more details on Tears of the Kingdom for years. Now as we finally approach the release date, it seems Nintendo is happy to start peeling back the layers of secrecy, and perhaps with this gameplay demonstration, we will finally see what separates this sequel from its predecessor.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom release date is on May 12, 2023, so we’re only a few short weeks away from the latest Zelda game finally being available to play. If it’s anywhere near as good as Breath of the Wild, we’re in store for a masterpiece. You can also check out our Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom review to get the full deep dive.
Zelda Tears of the Kingdom stream roundup
Nintendo pulled back the curtain on Tears of the Kingdom, giving you ten minutes of footage to dissect until the full release in May. The gameplay demonstration features a look at vehicles, world exploration, and abilities.
We got a look at a new variant of enemies, the Constructs. They drop items which confirm their relation to the Zonai.
Eiji revealed Link’s new talents, too – including Fuse, Rewind, and Ascend, among others. With these, we can fuse two items together to create bigger and better weapons and rewind a falling item’s movement to reach islands in the sky. Ascend lets Link, er, ascend through structures using a sort of swimming motion, meaning we can get up to the higher places without climbing in the rain.
Not only that but new combat mechanics are appearing – smoke can now be used to confuse an enemy and strafe away from it.
The abilities aren’t just for combat, though; Link now has Ultrahand, an ability that allows him to stick items together and craft something else. For instance, Link used three logs and a fan-like object to create a working raft. This isn’t something we expected to see, but it’s very exciting! Those newfangled machines from previous trailers like the car and floating platforms were also created with the Ultrahand, so we need to get creative.
Another of Link’s new abilities – though it isn’t a named one – is that he can dive quickly while gliding in the air, so we can traverse Hyrule’s levels that bit quicker.
During the stream, we also noticed a new slew of natural items like trees and mushrooms and spied a sneaky dragon floating in the sky high above us. Stables are back, along with horseriding, and some NPCs tending to them.
Where can I watch the Zelda Tears of the Kingdom stream?
The Zelda Tears of the Kingdom stream debuted at 15:00 GMT/16:00 CEST/07:00 PT, and is now available on the Nintendo YouTube channel.
That’s all for now, folks, but check back tomorrow for all the latest news on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Make sure you remember to pre-order the game so that you can explore the game for yourself on day one:
For even more great Zelda content, be sure to check out our guides to Zelda wallpapers and Breath of the Wild wallpaper next.