Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: GOTY 2023?

Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom Preview

Up until this point, I haven’t really been paying much attention to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom. I am in the camp that Breath of The Wild is one of the best games of all time and I am in the minority of those that enjoyed the weapon durability. After seeing the latest Nintendo Direct that highlighted a bunch of the major new features, there is no doubt in my mind that Tears of The Kingdom will be Game of The Year 2023. Here’s how Nintendo is taking one of the best games of all time and making it better.

First, you have the major new features that have been added:

Fuze

The fuze ability allows you to combine any two items that you can pick up and create something new. The most impressive example from the Direct was fusing together some monster eyeballs and an arrow to create a tracking arrow that chased down a bird flying in the sky.

Ultrahand

Nintendo made a pretty impressive mechanic with fuze and they found another use for it. Ultrahand is basically the Fuze mechanic but for environmental items that you can’t carry. This allows you to craft anything in the world from boats to bridges to ramps and even airships.

Recall

Rewinding time is nothing new in video games but when you add it to the already amazing physics engine used in Breath of The Wild, the result should be some amazing emergent gameplay moments you won’t forget.

Ascend

The ascend ability allows Link to go through ceilings to top of building or caves. This new mechanic allows Link to sidestep the whole stamina thing, but there will definitely be places that require a combination of Ascend and climbing to reach.

Lowlights

The Direct didn’t even elaborate on the sky islands, the underground that we have seen in previous trailers, or mention if dungeons are returning, hopefully they are or what role shrines will play. The world in Breath of The Wild was already massive and it got even bigger with these new additions. I can’t wait to find out what else Nintendo has in store for one of the most revered gaming series of all time.

The best part about all of the changes coming to Tears of The Kingdom is that just like BOTW, the only limit for a lot of the features is your imagination.