[I won’t spoil any story details or game mechanics here which aren’t apparent from the trailers.]
This is a new format for the newsletter, but I thought it would be fun once in a while to talk about big game releases or interesting things I’ve been playing. I don’t often get to candidly share my thoughts on games… every game that releases is momentous and I generally like to focus on promoting things I think are cool. But, it’s also fun to talk candidly, and I can get a lot more nuanced here than on Twitter. (lol).
So anyway Tears of the Kingdom is a bizarre thing.
Firstly I’m struck by the technical achievement of it all. It boggles my mind that the game works so smoothly. Every individual part of its system is something that has been done somewhere before - building physics machines, rewinding simulations, crafting weapons… but I’ve never seen all of those things done all at once and in such a sprawling, open-world game where everything can interact. For example, it’s crazy that every single physics object can be rewound individually - but even cazier that they continue to interact with correct physics while they’re rewinding and create new interactions. Gluing wheels and planks together, playing it all forward and backward, while having your player character climbing all over it at any angle, and it all works seamlessly and feels the way you expect it… I don’t think I can put into words how impressive it is. It terrifies me to think that they might not even have done anything that “smart,” per se, and instead just had to work crazy hard and methodically test SO MUCH to get it this stable.
The flip side is just how finnicky and janky the game is, overall - I can’t avoid mentioning this. It’s not a flaw, but an inevitable outcome of a game that works the way Tears of the Kingdom does. The player is given so much freedom and so much fine-tune control to do so many things at so many times that you can’t help but spend a lot of time experimenting and building ideas that don’t end up working. Nothing is as simple as bombing a cracked wall or hitting a switch… solving even the most basic puzzle takes some amount of thinking and labor to put together a solution. I adore that they took the game in this direction and trusted players with something so overwrought, but it’s undoubtedly a weird choice that will be a turn-off for many that enjoy what Zelda usually offers.
But, ultimately, I think a lot of what works in this game is only possible because it’s Zelda. If I imagine someone making a game like this from scratch in a new IP, I think players would have way less patience for it and would bounce off the steep learning curve and strange open-ended structure. But here, the familiar world of Zelda is a perfect canvas that this strange and beautiful thing is built on top of. I think that’s part of what gives you a hidden joy to fly over (and skip) a vast stretch of the world with your hand-crafted airplane, or to catapult a Korok across a canyon… these places and people are familiar, and that makes it extra fun to hold so many crowbars that can pry it open and pull it apart.
(I’d be really curious how this game feels to someone who’s never played a Zelda game before.)
It takes huge confidence and boldness to make something like this with an established and beloved world. I respect and admire every decision they made here. And I’m excited to keep playing it!!!!
(This is part of my “Game Musings” newsletter where I write thoughts about game design and development. If you just want news and updates on my projects, you can edit your subscription here.)