Part of what makes Tears of the Kingdom such an incredible and groundbreaking game is the way that it defies all genre labels. It’s open-world, but that’s more of a structure than a genre, and it doesn’t really tell you anything about what the game is. Tears of the Kingdom, Forza Horizon 5, and Cyberpunk 2077 are all open-world games, and they have almost nothing in common. It’s also an immersive sim, but that’s like describing a movie as film noir; ImSim speaks to Tears of the Kingdom’s design ethos, but it doesn’t define what type of game it is. TotK is part RPG, part survival/crafting, part action-adventure, and part sandbox game, but what interests me the most about it is the way it intersects disparate genres to create new ones. You could come up with any number of hybrid genres that TOTK represents, but the one that excites me the most is something I’m calling the survival platformer.
The three layers of TotK’s world, Sky, Surface, and Depths, represent three unique styles of gameplay that are all interesting in their own ways, but I find myself spending most of my time in the sky. Every tower I find is an excuse to explore the floating islands above Hyrule, and I love the challenge that each one presents. It’s not easy to get around one each section of land is separated by acres of open sky, where one wrong step will send you plummeting back down to terra firma, but it’s the most gratifying challenge I’ve encountered in the game, and something that's entirely unique to Tears of the Kingdom.
My first skyward adventure began above Hebra mountain, on the path to the Wind Temple. I stumbled upon it before visiting Rito Village and acquiring Tulin’s wind power, and I didn’t even realize I was missing an upgrade until I got to the temple and discovered I couldn’t activate any of the locks. I can only imagine how much easier the trek across the sky would have been with Tulin’s help, but I had the best time figuring out how to platform from one section to the next using the resources I had collected on the way up the mountain.
Early on, I built fires and burned pinecones to create an updraft that would give me the extra height I needed to cross big gaps with my glider. Once I ran out of wood, I had to get a lot more creative. There are countless ways to gain height in TotK, and the more time I spend in the sky the more I discover. Attaching an Octo Balloon to your shield will lift you straight up, but if you want some forward momentum you can attach a Bomb Flower or Time Bomb to your shield. If you jump on your shield to ride it, the bomb will explode and launch you forward without hurting you. Even a Zonai Wing on your shield will help you get a little extra height when you jump into a shield surf.
Those techniques are good if you need to cross a short gap, but anything longer and you’re going to have to build a machine to help get you there. I’ve come up with my most creative builds while standing on the edge of a narrow platform I’m trying not to fall off of. The fear of failure and the desire to survive and continue the ascent is a strong motivator, and it has helped me come up with some pretty ingenious little vehicles that have helped me reach platforms that seemed impossibly far away. I know how hot air balloons, rockets, and fans interact, and I know exactly how much height and distance I can get with all three. I’ve learned to love the sled, and often overlooked building part, because it's small enough to fit on a ledge while coming up with elaborate strategies to reach the next platform with my ever-decreasing supply of parts.
Of course, Link’s abilities are vital while platforming as well. Recall can help you get a little bit of extra height and distance at the beginning of your dismount, and it can save parts that are about to fall off the island. There’s nothing more devastating than watching one of your last two fans roll off a ledge into the abyss. A lot of times my flying machines won’t reach the target, so I aim to cruise right below them and use Ascend to leap up into the air and dive straight through them. These platforming challenges force you to use every tool you have, while also managing your survival function like health and temperature, which can drop significantly as you climb higher and higher.
The thing that cemented TotK as a Survival Platformer was a moment on the way to the Wind Temple, just after the Flux Construct mini-boss fight, when you’re offered a brief moment of respite. There’s a little covered room full of torches and a cooking pot where you can warm up, collect yourself, and cook some food for the journey ahead. There’s even a little pond full of fish up here - but don’t ask me how they got there. I’ve spent the night in little camps like this on long journeys into inhospitable biomes in countless survival/crafting games, but never while jumping from platform to platform on an archipelago of sky islands. Survival Platformers might not catch on after this, but it’s been the most rewarding aspect of Tears of the Kingdom for me so far.