The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom new trailer breakdown – theories, questions, and more
What did you just see?
John Hansen 
Image via Nintendo
We finally know now that Breath of the Wild’s sequel is titled The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. But while we finally got an answer to that burning question and the release date of the game, there is a lot of new footage in the new trailer that we have not seen before. Some of it will pertain to the story, but we got quite a bit of new exploration gameplay with the floating islands in the game. Here is our breakdown of what happened in the Tears of the Kingdom name reveal trailer.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom trailer breakdown
Who is this long-eared creature?
The trailer opens up looking at a mural similar to the one we see prominently in Breath of the Wild. The big difference is, in that game, it was mainly of Link, Zelda, and the Divine Beasts fighting Calamity Ganon. This mural depicts a war between Hyrule soldiers and the Calamity’s minions. The bit that has us most interested is the look at this long-eared creature surrounded by tear symbols.
We have already seen an undead version of Ganon that we presume to be the game’s main antagonist, so we do not believe this is a foe. Possibly one of the gods that created the Triforce, Din, Farore, or Nayru? However, when one appears, the other two are usually mentioned soon after. The fact that this entity is alone really nails home that this is a new character/god made for this game. If not that, then maybe a new Divine Beast for Zelda?
The “tears” explained — sort of
Going back to the previous shot of the statue person shows seven tears surrounding them. Given that the name of the game is Tears of the Kingdom, these are likely the main items we are going around collecting for story purposes. Maybe these are the source of our new Sheikah powers, including the time reversal we have seen in this trailer and in the past. Regardless, our working theory is that there will be seven dungeons to explore and overcome in place of the four Divine Beasts that Breath of the Wild had.
Zelda’s fate
We get another reminder from this mural of Zelda falling into a dark abyss from a previous trailer. The being next to her depiction is very clearly different from the creature above, likely some version of Ganon fighting Link while she falls. There are a couple of things we want to mention, though. First, this may be nothing, but her hair is depicted as being long like usual. Past trailers have shown her with much shorter hair and distinctly different clothes, so this may be depicting a past Zelda’s potential demise, not the current one.
This mural also seems to show this “past” Zelda has survived her long fall and is working hand-in-hand with a mystery party. Looking at her in this new depiction shows that her arm and the arm she is touching are altered. We know at the end of the trailer behind the logo reveal that this is the long-eared person from above. The shining symbol above them depicts two tears in the first image above. The structure to the right may be one of the new temples or dungeons we will travel to.
Link in action
Next, we see Link pushing open a door that may be connected to the mural imagery above. He is going outside, though, not in, so he likely has completed a dungeon here. He is sporting his traditional Breath of the Wild attire, but his arm, even though covered, is corrupted as we have seen in the past.
We get another look at the time-reversal Sheikah power we saw in a past trailer. We know it is specifically that power because of how everything else has gone black and white, and the object he is manipulating shows the path going up. He uses this stone as an elevator to get back to the above island.
Link is also seen with the new hair-down look we were introduced to last time, and his arm is on full display. There isn’t much to say here, but we have a new theory about why he is sporting new clothes in this shot. We could be traveling through time or reality to a different Link in the past; that is who we are controlling here. Because both Links have the same arm damaged, some force may be “linking” them together and letting us take control of either one at any time. The Breath of the Wild Link we know could be going through these destroyed ruins, while this past one sees them when they were more pristine. This is mere speculation for the sake of a theory, and there is not much evidence to back this up, though.
The trailer ends on the Breath of the Wild Link we know landing on a new glider. Not much to say there besides this is likely your main means of transportation through the sky besides the standard glider. What is interesting, though, is a glowing symbol on the rocks in the background. To us, this looks like a depiction of one of the flying dragons we saw in the previous game. We don’t think they have much to do with the main story, but some kind of encounter might happen with this or this may let you know one is appearing.
There are a lot of questions we have about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and not many answers from this trailer. In fact, we probably have more questions than we did before. Regardless, it is good to see more on the game and get more hints as to what is happening to Link, Zelda, and the land of Hyrule. We noticeably did not get another look at Ganon this time around, and we do not know who the creature shown at the beginning of the trailer is.
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