The artbook for The Legend of Ze🧔lda: Tears of the Kingdo𒁃m has leaked, and presumably with it large chunks of the story. I say ‘presumably’ because I haven’t read it, and I haven’t read it because I don’t care. I’m on the record as being part o🦄f the minority who gets Breath of the Wild but just doesn&r💯squo;t like it, although 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:I’✃m glad TOTK is following in it꧟s footsteps. This has highlighted one major difference between the pair - 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tears of the Kingdom can be spoiled.
It’s universally agreed, whether you love or loathe 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Breath of the Wild, that it has no sto♔ry. For many, that’s part of the charm. You can go anywhere, do anything. Of course, that’s not entirely true. You need to fight the four Divine Beasts, all of whom have minor substories leading up to them🐭, before facing off against Ganon. There’s also the overarching story of the world having been destroyed, sending Link into a long sleep that robs him of his memories. As Zelda games go though, ‘fight these four bosses in any order and then fight the big boss’ does not make for a gripping narrative.
Again, that’s part of the charm. It’s difficult to quantify, because at the time we didn’t know Breath of the Wild was so openౠ, but it seems like BOTW would be hard to spoil. With Tears of the Kingdom, there’s a real fear, only now setting in for some people, that this might not be true. The artbook - a rem🍸inder, that I have not seen so these are all guesses - may spoil the almost-but-not-quite confirmed fact that you play as Zelda. It may also confirm the much less agreed upon theory that you play as Ganon, and that the two Links we see in the trailer are not actually Link at all.
We know Tears of the Kingdom takes place between land and air, and we all assume that we’ll be playing as Zelda as well as Link. With the game taking place in the same region we’ve already explored, it feels as if the ‘land’ portions at least can’t have the openness of Breath of the Wild where you’re spurred on by a sense of discovery. There may need to be more drive, and more drive may mean a more linear story. In turn, this means there couဣld be spoilers afoot.
I’m not too concerned about these spoilers on a personal level. A consequence of my profession is that I deal with leaks for most things, so🌠 this isn’t my first rodeo. But also, I just don’t care that much about Tears of💖 the Kingdom. I’ll play it - participating in the biggest game of the year comes with the territory - but I don’t expect to love it the way I think other people do. On a critical level though, these spoilers do concern me.
Everyone I have spoken to about (or witnessed speaking about it on the internet) agrees that the book could have major spoilers. The same people would also say that a) it’s impossible to ‘spoil’ Breath of the Wild in any meaningful way, and b) Tears of the Kingdom will follow in its predecessor’s footsteps. It’s natural to expect that, especial🔴ly as sequels are rare in the Zelda series, but it seems difficult for both to be true.
The artbook spoilers concern me not because they reveal plot beats that are good or bad, but merely because they exist. In fact, not even that they exist, but because they might. Because they could. It’s the first time I’ve realised there’s a material difference between Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild beyond 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:playable Zelda or 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Banjo-Kazooie cars. This is a re🦩minder that it is fundamentally a different game, one that may be far more linear and story-d♑riven.
It’s not inherently a bad thing, both because games should mix up their approach and because we🥂 know Zelda can tell stories. But it feels like everyone has been gearing up for Breath of the Wild 2, and this is a reminder that it’s not going to be. Tears of the Kingdom will use the same Hyrule, same interpretation of each character, and will pick up where Breath of the Wild left off, but it also will be a fundamentally d🎉ifferent game. We all knew it. We just didn’t realise it.