About the Final Pre-Launch Trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - And a month before release, I feel... no hype whatsoever.

Not only did Nintendo publish “the final pre-launch trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, coming May 12th, only on Nintendo Switch.”, but they went and said it's the final trailer, and they said ahead of time that today would be that trailer's publish date. They certainly suddenly decided they want every announcement of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to have its own announcement.

As I tell you what I thought of the trailer, keep in mind that I'm on record as recently as that 13-minute gameplay-focused Eiji Aonuma video from a few weeks ago that I'm not buying the game. My reactions are gonna be quite... muted.

The whole first quarter of the trailer is pretty much just Link falling from the sky, or Link running through grass or a generic village. So that's all throwaway. But then the trailer gets into some scary parts with a classic Ganondorf motif you'd hear in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, featuring chaos and darkness. That includes Link falling even more, as well as some kind of war between people and monsters, and a very sparkly Hyrule Castle. Then someone is talking to Zelda describing how Link and the Master Sword is Hyrule's “last line of defence”, which doesn't seem any different than Link's status The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Zelda also got a haircut for some reason (though we could've observed this back in the Nintendo Direct February 2023), and appears to be lost (but also knows why she is wherever she is), while Ganondorf doesn't just have hints of his theme playing, but he's outright in the trailer and yells for some reason like he's taking the biggest dump in the toilet of his long life. Link also isn't alone, allying with notable characters like Sidon from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, just like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

I was very “meh, wotever.” about the trailer, but this part of it did make me smile.
Link built his mecha with the Ultrahand ability. How did the Bokoblins build theirs?

Of course, the trailer doesn't represent what playing the game will actually be like. Most of the time, you won't be in cool, scripted sequences where you're advancing the story or even have a game designer carefully path your experience. No, you'll be wandering aimlessly around large environments that may or may not have any interesting features, trying to make your own fun with the game's physics engine and new tools.

Wouldn't it be nice if the game wasn't an open world adventure? Then what's shown in the trailer might actually be more valid for the experience they are actually selling.


There is substantial detail that Ludwig could have gone into if he was more interested in sleuthing for morsels of information. Your problem is that he isn't interested in it, and he wishes the game was like how it's portrayed here. But if you think you know some details that he doesn't and you'd like to share them, the comments section is open for your participation.


For all Ludwig knows, the contents of the trailer were already revealed with the leaked art book. That's why leaks are bad.