Nintendo has made it clear that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will be a far less solitary experience. Loneliness isn’t the order of the day this time around, and given we spent much of Breath of the Wild assembling allies and saving Hyrule, I don’t think any of us really expected it to maintain its aura of distant melancholy. The trailer features dialogue in defiance of this isolation as Link fights alongside friends who were once confined to cutscenes. A new generation of champions have assembled, and Link no longer has the fate of an entire kingdom resting solely on his shoulders.
Tears forgoing this determined loneliness has me feeling rather empty though, since many of us spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours discovering this rendition of Hyrule knowing that we were on our own. Aside from conversing with a ghost dishing out tutorials, Link is more or less alone after leaving the Shrine of Resurrection. Zelda’s disembodied voice guides him to an ultimate goal, but otherwise the only driving force is a faint hope that something awaits in this battered world worth saving. Link’s silence speaks volume as we stumble upon ruins of destroyed villages and decaying flag poles once raised in aid of a battle lost centuries ago.
Your lonely status subsides as you visit disparate stables and the few remaining towns that try to eke out a living in a tattered world. Monsters await around each corner and a tangible sense of anxiety around the calamity remains, but the majority of people you meet appear happy, optimistic that, in spite of everything, they can keep going. Of course, we’ve come to associate this upbeat attitude with Nintendo games, although Breath of the Wild is always making a point about how the heroes have lost, and clawing anything back feels like a lost cause.
Link soldiers onward regardless, and piece by piece hope is restored and isolation transformed into community. Moments in-between are still beautifully solemn in ways that few games are able to match. We hear soft piano notes as we step over rolling hills, only to glimpse the barren horizon solidify the insurmountable tasks ahead, little points of interest on the periphery driving you forward even if the journey could all be for nothing. Travellers on the road and monsters camping around ancient shrines open up bouts of conversation to be treasured, largely because instances like this are so rare. Link is charismatic and upbeat anyway, almost rebelling against the internal strife many of us might be feeling as we play.
Tears of the Kingdom isn’t going to leave this mantra behind completely, but from everything we’ve seen it’s clear that communal growth in the aftermath of Calamity Ganon’s defeat and an open approach to experimentation is far more important than stewing in our own solitude. Not to mention the greater focus on present day storytelling instead of flashbacks, which by nature will require Link to be more in the moment and aware of his surroundings. You aren’t fighting to get back what was lost anymore, but protecting what you already have. We came to love these characters and places as they were introduced in Breath of the Wild, and now comes a chance to watch them grow into something even more precious.