Nintendo Confirms ‘Tears of the Kingdom’ Takes Place Shortly After ‘Breath of the Wild’

This once, Nintendo ‘leaked’ its own developer interview for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, publishing it before than intended. The article, which will be available at this URL later today, was quickly taken down – but not before many fans took notice and grabbed snapshots of the whole thing.

Starting off the interview, producer Eiji Aonuma confirmed that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom begins shortly after the events seen in Breath of the Wild. He said the development team wondered how it’d be possible for players to continue exploring the version of Hyrule they had crafted after the ending.

While the setting is the same as the previous installment, the developers at Nintendo EPD (aided by Monolith Soft) focused on expanding the gameplay of Tears of the Kingdom. Technical Director Takuhiro Dohta explained:

In contrast, we made some fairly big changes to the gameplay. In The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, if players wanted to travel from the sky to the ground, they had to select it from the map, but in this game, you can dive from the sky directly to the ground without any interruption.

On top of that, players can also ride on flying vehicles and so on, offering even more freedom within the same setting as the previous game. If a location were completely unfamiliar to you, you’d probably be hesitant to dive down from the sky, but because it’s a world that you’ve already explored in the previous game, these transportation methods make sense.
Being able to dive from the sky to the surface and into a pond seamlessly in this title sure does feel exhilarating. It truly feels like an open-air game this time around.

The diving feature was strongly supported by Game Director Hidemaro Fujibayashi, who wanted something of the sort ever since The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Fujibayashi-san said this doesn’t just provide an exhilarating sense of freedom but also allows players to gather intelligence about what’s on the ground from above.

The storyline has been crafted to appeal to both newcomers and Breath of the Wild players. For example, those who didn’t play Breath of the Wild will be able to catch up easily in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, thanks to the new Character Profile feature.

Tears of the Kingdom is set to launch for Nintendo Switch on May 12th, though the game leaked a while ago and is already playable via emulators on PC. Catch up on everything we know with the roundup article, and stay tuned to read our review of the game.