Summary
This article contains spoilers forThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.A good summary ofThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s relationship to its franchise is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Being the latest entry in over 35 years ofThe Legend of Zeldagames,Tears of the Kingdombenefits from having a lot of prior material to cherry-pick concepts from. Not only is the game a direct sequel toBreath of the Wild, but it also features the return of even more classicZeldaenemies than its predecessor, including Gleeoks, Gibdos, and even Ganondorf himself. Many of the locations referencing pastZeldagames still remain, and the sky islands could even be taken as a full homage toSkyward Sword.
However, whereTears of the Kingdommost leans on itsZeldalegacy is in its structure and story. Besides maintainingBreath of the Wild’s non-linear elements as a call back to games like the NESLegend of ZeldaandA Link to the Past, there’s alsoTears’ use of classicZeldadungeon designalongside the Divine Beast format. Complete with Sage powers comparable to dungeon items, it’s clear thatTears of the Kingdomis still upholding franchise traditions. That said, it did far more than recall old trends with one story element, and it may remain its most intense instance for years to come.
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Time Travel Is A Regular Occurrence In Zelda Stories
Ever sinceThe Legend of Zelda’s mainline titles made the jump to 3D, time travel has been present more often than not. With the exceptions ofThe Wind WakerandTwilight Princess, the former sporting a time-locked Hyrule and the latter employing a dungeon set in the past,time traveling has featured repeatedly inZeldagames' stories.Ocarina of Timeonly involves a few years of time travel upon drawing or returning the Master Sword, andMajora’s Maskfamously takes place in a 3-day cycle. In hindsight, those were just the series getting warmed up.
Skyward Sworduses Timeshift Stones as the focus of the sandy Lanayru region, allowing Link to visit pockets of an unspecified technologically-advanced past. There is also a time portal used to travel back to around when Demise was first sealed. Zelda herself needs to wait out the difference between that age and the present, but she does so in stasis. It’s unclear how large these time gaps are, butSkyward Swordremains a prominent example of time travelinZelda. After that, it almost came as a shock that the only equivalent inBreath of the Wildwas Link flashing back to his life 100 years prior.
No Zelda Game Matches The Scope of Tears of the Kingdom’s Time Travel
Tears of the Kingdommore than makes up for this, however, by spanning the widest known amount of time in theZeldafranchise. WhenZelda travels back to the founding of Hyrule, she ends up 10,000 years or more in the past. It’s there that Ganondorf’s role as Hyrule’s ultimate evil and recurring Calamity is established, and Zelda’s long path back to the future with the Master Sword begins as she becomes an immortal, mindless dragon.
Even afterSkyward Swordexpanded the period of its story across hundreds if not thousands of years,Tears of the Kingdomstill blows it out of the water. ThatPrincess Zelda lives out its entire time period, even if she’s not aware or affected by it, is also a novel move for the series. While time travel has become a tradition inThe Legend of Zelda, it’s unlikely that future games will surpass the scale found inTears of the Kingdom’s age-spanning narrative.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomis available now on Nintendo Switch.
