The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is just over two weeks away, but we still don’t know what’s replacing the Divine Beast dungeons from Breath of the Wild.
IGN’s final preview of Tears of the Kingdom has just been released, a point in the marketing cycle that, for most games, means we have a strong understanding of the main gameplay loops of a game. Though we did get to see and try lots and lots of really cool stuff, Nintendo is playing its cards very close to its chest when it comes to dungeons.
Breath of the Wild featured the Divine Beasts, which acted as dungeons where players would solve puzzles, defeat monsters, and eventually take on a big slimy boss that, once destroyed, would mark a major chunk of the game ticked off.
While the 2017 game is largely considered a masterpiece and one of the best video games of all time, one hang-up that players did have with it is its lack of traditional Zelda dungeons.
A mainstay in the franchise from the very beginning, these large, puzzle-filled areas usually presented the most interesting gameplay experiences of the game and were usually themed around a certain element or weapon. The Divine Beasts in Breath of the Wild were criticised by some for being a little bit samey.
Though we got a half-second glimpse at what could be a dungeon in the third trailer for Tears of the Kingdom, and also saw some footage of traditional looking bosses, we still don’t have a concrete idea of whether classic dungeons will feature or not. Not even in our hands-on preview, which largely featured open-air exploration on both the ground and the sky islands. So while we can take stabs at structures in the distance that could be dungeons, their existence at all is still a major mystery.
Nintendo has slowly but surely released more and more information on Tears of the Kingdom in the last few months though. We know that Ganondorf is returning, of course, and is played by Matthew Mercer. It looks to include Breath of the Wild’s biggest side quest too, though it takes place years after the original.
Tears of the Kingdom also includes an already legendary NPC being dubbed Bucket Head, a reference to a classic Nintendo toy, and an enemy from Ocarina of Time. All this contributes to the largest file size of any first party Nintendo Switch game and a more expensive $70 price tag, but Nintendo promises it to be worth it.
In our final preview, IGN said: “With every puzzle and conflict having such a ridiculous array of solutions, the results will likely be endlessly astonishing and entertaining, especially if you look at what hardcore Breath of the Wild players have already been doing for years in a game where it often feels like you weren’t supposed to do those things. Nintendo has taken that ideology and legalized it in Tears of the Kingdom and that’s immensely exciting, even if it means there will be lots of hilarious fumbling and falling along the way. “
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Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
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