Fast Links
We’re officially two days away from the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. In the lead-up to the long-awaited release, the game’s developers have been answering questions about the game in a Q&A session for Nintendo. The latest part of the Q&A – part 3 out of a planned 5 – has the developers confirming key information on how Tears of the Kingdom will be upgraded from Breath of the Wild, including the re-addition of huge, varying dungeons for players to explore.
‘Tears of the Kingdom’ Developers Confirm Game Will Re-Introduce Dungeons
After Nintendo released Breath of the Wild in 2017, one of the chief complaints among veteran Zelda players was that the game lacked any real dungeons. Where older games like Wind Waker, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess all had prominent dungeons for Link to explore, Breath of the Wild really only gave players the four Divine Beasts, which despite their beautiful design, offer only slight variances on the same general theme. Fans that missed the more traditional Zelda dungeons have been campaigning for their return ever since Tears of the Kingdom was first announced and in a Q&A hosted by Nintendo, the game’s developers shared some good news on this front.
While discussing the game’s dungeons, developers Hidemaro Fujibayashi, Takuhiro Dohta, and Satoru Takizawa shared the following information:
We’ve only discussed the skies, but this title has its dungeons too, right?
Fujibayashi: Yes, we haven’t talked about the dungeons yet. They’ve changed from the previous game. For example, there is a dungeon that connects directly from Hyrule’s surface. If you dive from the sky straight into the dungeon, you’ll trigger an event. We think this will be a new experience that wasn’t possible in the previous game.
Dohta: We’ve made dungeons unique to their respective environments, so we think you’ll be able to enjoy the wide variety of regional characteristics.
Takizawa: Making a “wide variety” was pretty challenging. The four Divine Beasts were the dungeons in the last game, and they shared similar designs. This time, the dungeons are huge and each carry their own regional look and feel, just like traditional The Legend of Zelda games. We think they will provide a satisfying challenge for players. They were certainly a challenge to develop! (Laughs)
Nintendo Q&A Confirms Several New Exploration Features
In the same Q&A session, the Tears of the Kingdom developers also revealed that the new dungeons won’t be the only new exploration feature introduced in the game. In addition, they’ve also added cliffside caves for Link to explore. Where in Breath of the Wild, Hyrule’s cliffs were almost all climbable but bare, the addition of caves will hopefully add a new depth to the same Hyrule that Breath of the Wild players has spent six years adventuring in.
Takizawa: The entrances to cliffside caves might be a good example.
Dohta: In the previous title, the cliffs could only be climbed up, and the cliffsides were bare.
Takizawa: I think that players who find a cliffside cave in this game might start wondering, “Is there one in the cliffs over there too?” When a place – even one that’s already familiar – is augmented with something of worth, you begin to see the world in a different light. Even as the game’s developers, we started seeing the landscape in a different way while working on the game. I believe the way players explore Hyrule will change too.
Along with adding caves and dungeons on the ground level, the developers have also talked about how Tears of the Kingdom’s new ability to allow players to explore the skies above Hyrule opens up new avenues for dungeoneering. Fujibayashi, in particular, discussed how they were able to add “gameplay that utilizes height” to the new game.
“We developed a three-dimensional world under the premise that you’ll be able to travel from the surface to the skies seamlessly,” he said. “Link also has a new action called “dive” and a new outfit for the skies.”
When discussing all of the new features added to the game, the developers also discussed why they had to be excluded from Breath of the Wild. Fujibayashi and Dohta admitted that they weren’t able to add certain features to the 2017 games due to the technological limits of the time, stating that Breath of the Wild “was originally developed for Wii U, so there were restrictions in development. There were a lot of ideas we wanted to implement during its development, but we made clear decisions on what we wouldn’t do in that game.”
“For The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, we began by compiling and implementing ideas we couldn’t include in the previous title.” Dohta added. “We wouldn’t have been able to do so had we made a completely new world, so developing in the same setting as the previous game was significant in this sense as well.”
Part 3 of the Tears of the Kingdom Q&A can be found here, with parts 4 and 5 scheduled to come in the next few days. The entire Q&A is definitely worth a read if you’re looking forward to Tears of the Kingdom like we are. Is there a particular new feature you’re most excited about? Be sure to let us know in the comments, and stay tuned for more pre-release content!