Video game lovers find themselves back in Hyrule with the release of Nintendo’s “The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom”, a long-awaited sequel to 2017’s “Breath of the Wild”.

The game was released to Nintendo Switch owners on Friday, May 12, six years after its predecessor’s debut. “Tears of the Kingdom” maintains the open-world format of “Breath of the Wild”, as well as the stunning graphics that catapulted “Breath of the Wild” to video game fame, while expanding on the original game’s mechanics and plot. 

“Towards the end of Breath of the Wild […] I had an inkling of a few interesting ideas that I wanted to see come to fruition,” Director Hidemaro Fujibayashi said in an interview with Brian Shea from Game Informer. “Once the development of Breath of the Wild ended, we took a look at what we had, and the idea that we had was really taking what already existed in the Breath of the Wild environment and world that we created and using just that.”

Players’ immense love for “Breath of the Wild” has made anticipation for the sequel–which has been building since its 2019 announcement at the E3 conference–sky high. The accessibility of this new generation of “Legend of Zelda” has been an entry point for many, allowing players to jump into the franchise without worrying about prior games.

“A lot of people see Zelda, and especially the older games, as part of this complicated timeline,” Youtuber Ed King said in an interview with the Guardian. “‘Breath of the Wild’ definitely made it easier than any other game before to [understand]; you needed no prior information going in. And just because of how good that game was, it’s sold 30m copies, something silly like that – and so many new fans fell in love with Zelda because of it.”

While the two games may seem very similar, there are many surprises in store for those who play “Tears of the Kingdom”. One of the most exciting features is the ability to travel between floating islands and dungeons, all the while collecting new memories of Hyrule and Princess Zelda.

“Tears of the Kingdom follows in its predecessor’s footsteps with a similarly naturalistic setting, but the world has changed in subtle ways,” Reporter Steve Watts said in a Game Spot article. “Not everything is exactly the same or where you’d expect it to be, and the map is marked with myriad opportunities for exploration and curiosity.”

While the wait for the game may have felt like eons to fans, accomplishing a project of this scale in a mere six years after the release of “Breath of the Wild” speaks to the prowess of Nintendo’s developers and producers.

“There was really a challenge in this time of making a game this large,” Producer Eiji Aonuma said to Game Informer. “And with a game this large, as a producer, I had the hope that this was something that we’d be able to accomplish quickly, but of course, I learned that making a game of this scale is not an easy feat.” 

“Tears of the Kingdom” is available on the Nintendo Store for $69.99 or $129.99 for the Collectors Edition. While the price is steep, anyone wishing to revisit the mysteries of Hyrule should consider investing in the adventure.

“Zelda is bigger than it’s ever been right now,” King said. “Especially with this game, there’s a huge amount of intrigue. There are so many mysteries and secrets in Breath of the Wild that we don’t know, but with Tears of the Kingdom we’re getting another look at them – the hype is even more real this time around.”