The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s colossal adventure makes the impossible feel possible

Today, I built a laser-shooting robot. While my robot fought off a swarm of monsters, I did a little rice farming, then shot myself thousands of miles in the air to survey the ground below. When I came back to earth, I visited the nearest hot springs and went for a ride on a roller coaster. Once I was done relaxing, I glued a sword to my sword, stuck a flame emitter on my shield, and went to join my robot in battle. And I did it all in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Somehow, Tears of the Kingdom manages to be a million things at once. It’s an incredibly satisfying follow-up to the 2017 Nintendo Switch launch game Breath of the Wild. It’s a complex engineering simulator, a sprawling open-world adventure, and a relaxing farming and cooking title. There are even moments when it feels like a horror game: At one point, I wandered into a cave where a swarm of hands tried to pull me into the ground below, and the new Blood Moon cutscene freaks me out every time I see it.

Plenty of games are filled with things to do, but the magic of Tears of the Kingdom is that it didn’t just present me with a list of objectives. Once I completed its opening segment, the entire world opened up, giving me the opportunity to mold the game into whatever I wanted it to be. You can treat it like a traditional Zelda game and tackle its main story dungeons one after the next, focus on exploration and resource gathering, or do what I did and let yourself get distracted at every turn.

Even after seventy-plus hours of playtime in Tears of the Kingdom, I feel like I’m constantly making new discoveries. Breath of the Wild’s vast, fully traversable open world was revolutionary, but the sequel takes that freedom to astounding new heights. Within the first few hours, Link unlocks a set of abilities that completely change the scope of the game. While these abilities might seem simple at first, they’re powerful tools that can be used in both practical and imaginative ways.

The clearest example of this is Ultrahand, an ability that summons a giant hand capable of lifting objects large and small, among other powers. It’s a ton of fun to levitate Koroks, but Ultrahand’s true function is to serve as a building tool. It can be used to piece together objects and create just about anything you can imagine. I started out with simple projects, like building bridges, but before long, I found myself creating tanks, Segways, hot-air balloons, and other wacky contraptions.

While Ultrahand lets you build vehicles and structures, Fuse opens up equipment customization, allowing you to attach just about anything to your weapons and shields. Tears of the Kingdom kept the frequently-criticized weapon degradation mechanic from Breath of the Wild, but since the game encourages experimenting with different weapons, it never felt like a big deal when a weapon broke. Some of my favorite creations include a shield with an attached spring and a sword connected to a still-moving Bokoblin arm.

The Recall and Ascend abilities are a little less outlandish, but they’re still incredibly versatile tools. Recall lets you reverse time for a single object, causing it to move in the opposite direction. The Ascend ability basically makes Link intangible, but only when he’s traveling upwards. He can essentially swim through ceilings, allowing him to quickly climb mountains or make his way to the top of a building.

Every ability is immensely powerful on its own, but combining different skills unlocks their true potential. When I needed a little more height for gliding, I’d use Ultrahand to lift an object, use Recall after it hit the ground, and then use the Ascend ability to teleport through the object before I jumped. If I needed a safe way to cross a dangerous area, I could grab a platform with Ultrahand, move it towards my destination, bring it back, then use Recall before I hopped on and took a ride.

What takes these mechanics to the next level is  the unbelievable amount of care that went into the game’s design. Tears of the Kingdom is a truly astonishing sandbox, one that could stand on its own without all the trappings of a Zelda game. Every item has applied physics, from apples to hot air balloons, and while its laws of physics aren’t always realistic, they’re consistent enough that I could predict how objects would move. I wouldn’t describe myself as mechanically inclined, but I was still able to build vehicles and other devices that did exactly what I wanted them to do.

Building is one of Tears of the Kingdom’s biggest distractions, but it’s also easy to spend hours on exploration. The world is unfathomably large, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to see it all. While the main map is already massive, Tears of the Kingdom actually has three distinct worlds to explore. High above Hyrule are the Sky Islands, floating land masses filled with ancient technology. Below the surface are the Depths, a pitch-black underground labyrinth.

Having so much ground to cover could be overwhelming, but Tears of the Kingdom makes its endless world feel manageable. The transitions between different parts of the map were seamless, even when I plunged down from a Sky Island or climbed deep beneath the ground. Like in Breath of the Wild, I was able to glide through the air, climb virtually every surface, and jump on a wild horse when I wanted to pick up my speed. I could also fast travel to any shrine I’d visited, even when I was in the middle of a boss fight or plummeting towards certain death. If I ran out of arrows or healing items during a tough fight, I could teleport away, stock up, and pick up where I left off.

Size doesn’t matter if there’s nothing to see or do, but I’m happy to report that Tears of the Kingdom is worth exploring. Breath of the Wild’s map could occasionally feel barren or desolate, but the Hyrule in Tears of the Kingdom is on the upswing and absolutely bursting with life. Link is still the Hero of Hyrule, but there’s so much happening in the world that doesn’t involve him at all. Candidates are campaigning for the upcoming mayoral election. Researchers are launching expeditions to explore the depths and ruins. It’s not all pretty—the Gorons are basically struggling with a meat-fueled version of the opioid crisis—but it is always interesting, and I had a ton of fun talking to travelers and taking on side quests while I explored.

Link’s abilities and the open world might be the stars of this show, but Tears of the Kingdom is also an exceptional Zelda game. While Breath of the Wild abandoned traditional dungeons, Tears of the Kingdom has four elemental temples that give you plenty of puzzles to solve. Some dungeons, like the Lightning Temple, even have sections that wouldn’t be out of place in an old-school Zelda game.

Each dungeon partnered me with a companion who had their own special abilities. During the Wind Temple quest, I was joined by Tulin, a Rito who could summon powerful gusts of wind. The Lightning Temple paired me with Riju, a Gerudo warrior who could call down lightning strikes. After completing a dungeon, I was joined by a phantom version of that temple’s companion, adding their abilities to my already impressive arsenal.

Tears of the Kingdom could be pretty challenging, even when companions were fighting by my side, but it was rarely frustrating. I was able to increase my Heart Containers pretty quickly, and thanks to cooking, I always had a smorgasbord of healing items at my disposal. When I died, it was usually because I was experimenting or trying to do something ridiculous. Deaths just reloaded my most recent auto-save, so a “Game Over” never felt particularly punishing.

Even when I struggled, I felt encouraged by the huge range of tools I had at my disposal. Whether I was stumped by a shrine puzzle or trying to survive a hard fight, Tears of the Kingdom gave me the flexibility to solve these problems in my own way. If I came up with a solution for a puzzle, it almost always worked, even when it was completely ridiculous. When I ran into enemies I couldn’t handle, I built contraptions to do my fighting for me. My silly experiments didn’t always pay off, but if I couldn’t find a way to get past a challenge, I just teleported to a different part of the map to focus on something else.

Tears of the Kingdom has let me use my imagination in new and exciting ways, but one thing I can’t picture is finishing the game. Maybe I’ll fight through distractions and wrap up the story eventually, but my desire to keep playing won’t end when the credits roll. It’s a game of infinite possibilities, and even when I put it down, I can’t stop thinking about all the things I want to try. There are so many things I want to build, so many experiments to conduct, and so many places to explore. Every time I get an objective or pick up a quest, something new manages to grab my attention, and at this point, the ending feels pretty far off.

But ultimately, none of that matters, because Tears of the Kingdom isn’t about a specific goal or destination. The word “masterpiece” gets thrown around a lot in the gaming world, but this title is a masterpiece in the truest sense of the word—an exquisitely crafted experience that does so much it sometimes feels impossible. Whether you speed your way through its dungeons, spend hours exploring its underground caves, or try to figure out how to build a functional mech, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom can be whatever you want it to be. You have the power to make it into something amazing.

SCORE: 5 STARS OUT OF 5

PLAY IF YOU LIKE:

• The great outdoors. While you’ll occasionally step inside buildings and other structures, nearly all of Tears of the Kingdom takes place outside. Instead of touching actual grass, you can run across its open fields, admire the view from cliffs and mountaintops, and start a campfire when it gets chilly outside. This game may be running on the outdated Nintendo Switch hardware, but there’s stunning scenery everywhere you look, and since it has a full day and night cycle, you can watch the environment change throughout the day.

• Puzzles. Not only does Tears of the Kingdom have puzzle-filled dungeons, but it has more than 150 shrine puzzles. Nearly every puzzle has multiple solutions, which makes them incredibly satisfying to solve. If you can think of a way to tackle a puzzle, that idea probably works, and while some solutions might be more elegant than others, it feels great to come up with a solution that’s uniquely your own.

• Immersion. It’s easy to get lost in Tears of the Kingdom, even when you’re staring at the tiny screen of an undocked Switch. The visuals are breathtaking, but what really makes it captivating is the incredible level of detail throughout the game. Trees and blades of grass move along with the wind. The sound of your footsteps changes based on the type of terrain you’re walking on. There are no invisible barriers or forced roadblocks to deal with. Whether you’re in the sky, underground, or on the surface, the world truly feels alive.

• Doing the dumbest things you can possibly do. Tears of the Kingdom is a lovingly crafted fantasy world, and it also lets you build giant cannons and shoot Koroks into the sky, or, you know, craft a giant dong. That’s video games, baby.

💬 Will you be exploring Hyrule and building contraptions in Tears of the Kingdom, or will you be taking a Zelda hiatus? Share your thoughts in the comments!