The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom may have the highest expectations put on any Nintendo game in years. Not only is it the latest release in the storied Zelda franchise, but it’s also a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild, regarded by many to be one of the best games of all time. Recent trailers have revealed an emphasis on building amazing machines with a new suite of tools, a seeming nod to the network of Zelda fans who have pulled off amazing feats in Breath of the Wild. And while Nintendo is still maintaining the mystery around much of the game, our extensive hands-on with the new tools showed an incredible amount of creative problem-solving and thrilling traversal in this ambitious sequel.
My hands-on demonstration was composed of two parts. First, I began with a short segment on the ground, with the simple objective of getting past some enemies and into a tower. This was mostly just for the sake of testing the waters with the array of new tools before preparing to dive into the deep end. While the most obvious path was to go up a ramp structure through a handful of enemies, there were much easier ways. And while there were fairly strict limitations on where I could go throughout the demo session, there were almost no restrictions on what I could do within the spaces provided.
My first approach was the straightforward one: Stride into the enemy base with my sword and challenge the enemies to combat. This was destined to fail and I knew it, not least because I’m severely out of practice in Breath of the Wild’s combat, but I thought it was worthwhile to try regardless. I was handling myself fine against a Bokoblin, but his nearby Moblin friend took notice of the scuffle and came to help, and I was caught off-guard. That was the end of that life.