Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom GAMEPLAY Analysis

[Music]thank youon March 28 2023 we saw Aji al-numahimself sit down to play Zelda tears ofthe Kingdom we got around 10 minutes ofactual gameplay from this mysterioussequel so let's break it down our numa'sgameplay begins on the surface of Hyrulenot far from the dueling Peaks mountainsand stable we can see that the mini maplooks very different to breath of thewild which makes sense considering thatlink no longer has the sheikah Slatethis new minimap even has coordinatesnot only X and Y but a z coordinate toolater on in the footage when linkskydives we can see the Zed numberrapidly decrease as well as the mini-mapwe can also spot temperature and weathergauges as well as the sound meter allfrom breath of the wild in the top leftwe can see that link has four hearts atthis point breath of the wild startedwith three and could be upgraded byswapping Spirit orbs at a goddess statueafter completing the great Plateaututorial Area players had the option toupgrade either their hearts or staminaWheel by one point perhaps this gameplaysection here takes place just after thisgame's tutorial and Link is upgradedfrom three hearts below this we have thed-pad right being used to swap weaponsand left for Shields just like breath ofthe wild but this time up on the d-padis marked with an Apple symbol thesymbol used to depict materials in theinventory we'll come back to this lateralong with the l button just above it inthe background we can see a new ChicaTower which we saw a lot throughout theprevious trailer and all across theworld in this sequence too they'renotably different from the towers foundin breath of the wild but at this pointwe don't know their story link beginsriding towards the dueling Peaks stablefrom which we can see a smoke signal isbeing sense this didn't happen in breathof the wilds and I'm not sure what itcould mean he rides past a group ofenemies which we actually see him fightlater on up in the sky islands known asconstructs I'll talk more about them indetail later but it is interesting thatwe see them on the ground as well as inthe sky while link is riding we can hearthe day riding theme from breath of thewild foreignconfirming that at least some of theoriginal game's soundtrack will appearin the sequel as he rides close to thegroup of constructs the music changes toa more ominous tunewhich could be the battle theme for thistype of enemy as link approaches thestable we see someone familiar akorokluckily this one doesn't seem to be partof a korok seed puzzle he's wearing agiant backpack and says that he needs tofind his friend we don't know what thisis about perhaps he's looking for hestubut there's also the fact that the greatDeku Tree appears to be missing in tearsof the Kingdom so maybe the forest'sClorox have left to find their missingfather at the stable we can spot afamiliar face beedle is back there'salso a pair of children a group ofpeople near the cooking part and aHylian retriever hopefully in thissequel we can finally pet the dog on theleft in the distance there's a strangepurple Cloud what it is though isn'tclear at this point there's also thisthis directly in front of the stablethere's a cart and there's a group ofwooden boards both small and large theseare the same materials that the car wasbuilt out of perhaps materials for usein vehicle building can be found ineasily accessible locations like Stablesjust further on is another group ofbuilding materials this time more woodenplanks and a sail found convenientlyright next to a river allowing link toeasily construct a raft there's anotherpossibility though which I'll come backto lateron dueling Peaks we can find a spiralStone of which we see many acrosshyrule's surface and even on the skyislands too there's a giant group ofislands directly above this region fromwhich A rock falls leaving behind agreen glow like the one seen at the endof the previous trailerlink climbs the mountains to reach theFallen Rock and we get a demonstrationof one of his new hand abilities recallwhich allows him to reverse the flow oftime for certain objects like we sawbefore with the spiked ball and theFallen Rock we can see that the symbolnext to the L button has changed from asword to this symbol which matches theone found on the back of his hand in thedelay announcement clip and the statuedisplayed in Tokyo and recently at PAXEast considering we see this symboldisplayed in this clip when it doesn'tactually look like link is using theability it could be that this is linkreceiving this ability near the start ofthe game link uses recall on the Rockand it begins to rise into the skytraveling back along the same path itfell it seems that link will be able tostop this at any point by pressing l orwaiting for this blue circle to end atwhich points the object will freeze fora second then begin to fall but thatdoesn't matter link has used the rock togain a massive amount of altitude we cansee that the Z coordinate has changed toover 500. it's worth noting that thesecoordinates are four digits meaning thatit's unlikely that we'll travel uphigher than9999 though we do see that thesecoordinates can be negative perhapswe'll see a negative Z value if wetravel underground the link also doesn'tseem to have unlocked the map for thisarea the minimap just shows a blue gridwe cut to a much larger group of islandswe can see a spiral Stone up here toothough it lacks the green energy swirland looks more like the one seen at theend of the last trailerthe minimap up here has been unlockedtoo the blue grid is visible but we canalso see the geography of the sky islanddetailed here it seems that this groupof sky islands is the same one we'veseen time and time again in trailers andpromotional screenshots with the hugeTower structure visible here link dropsdown and begins to explore the island onfoot before long he encounters an enemyone of the zonai constructs we sawearlier on on the surface this cutelittle machine is obviously veryreminiscent of the larger Golemconstruct we saw in E3 2021 it's clearlybeen built by the same people I love itsdesign it has a little set of teethbelow a single eye and an orange Creston its head it carries a tree branchjust like link so it isn't very toughand is defeated without much effortinstead of exploding into a cloud ofmalice like the Goblins the consconstruct explodes into green blueenergy then shatters leaving behind asoldier construct horn and a zonaicharge we've seen that most enemies inthis game appear to have unique hornsthat are designed like weapons which itseems will be able to use to craft ourown tools the soldier construct hornseems to be no different even moreinteresting is the zonai charge whichright away absolutely without a shadowof a doubt confirms that these machineswere built by the zonai the mysteriousancient tribe whose ruins are found inbreath of the Wild's world this wassomething we knew almost for certainbefore but now we have concrete proofthe zonai are a central part of thisgame get ready we don't know what theZone I charge will be used for yet itsdesign resembles a gyroscope not unlikeGiant ancient cause from breath of thewild link climbs a hill and reaches twoBoulders like the ones which could berolled downhills in breath of the wildhere he demonstrates another of his armabilities the one I'm most excited aboutfuse this is what this symbol means nextto the L button in the top left like therecall ability each of Link's new moveswill have a symbol and be accessed withthe l button like runes our Numa pressesL and Begins the fuse right away optionsto fuse using either Link's old woodenShield or his tree branch appear eithercan be selected by pressing theirrespective buttons or link can cancelthe fuse with B Energy flows from Link'sarm towards the Boulder and by selectingthe stick link fuses the two creating asort of makeshift Hammer the bouldershrinks and fuses with the stick whichwe see adds plus two to the weaponsdamage making it now deal four alnumaexplains that not only does thisincrease strength but also durabilityand can be used for other effects toolink uses this fused Hammer to take ontwo zonai constructs and takes a longstick from one of them as well as moreSoldier horns and zonai charges he thenfuses this long stick with a farmer'sPitchfork to create an absurdly longweapon adding plus four to the stick'sdamage the farmer's Pitchfork dealtseven base damage in breath of the wildso it doesn't seem that fusing addstogether the full strength of theweapons used just a part of it eitherway link uses it to take down anothersoldier with ease from a distance nextwe see another use for the fusibilityadding materials to arrows this might bewhat the material button is used forseen on the d-pad here link draws anarrow then opens a slider where he canaccess his materials he's able to selectanything by moving the right stick andeven sort through the inventory bypressing y it is possible that this iswhat will open when you press up on thed-pad but it could also be that this isused to eat food and heal withoutopening the menuwe recognize most items on this listfrom the original game key swings andeyeballs chew jelly raw meat Hyrule herbbut there are some new ones like thishorn that seems to be made out of Ambernine leaks or spring onions two types ofzonai construct horn whatever this orbis and a small korok Leaf called a korokfrond this is what link uses first itnot only adds one to the Bose attackstrength but presumably would add somewind effects too Aluma doesn't loosethis Arrow though instead choosing toattach ice chew jelly to create amakeshift ice Arrow freezing a zonaiconstruct link then demonstrates what wesaw in the previous trailer using a kisseyeball to create a homing arrow with ithe's easily able to snipe two birds outof the skynext we see that link has fused a newtype of mushroom called a puff shroom tohis old wooden Shield this creates agreat defensive tool when a constructhits his shield the puff shroom is usedup creating a cloud of spores causingthe enemy to lose sight of Link thiswill be incredibly useful for escapingdangerous combat encounters or forsetting up sneak strikes like we seehere he then fuses this stick with a loglaying on the ground just like with theboulder the log shrinks down and isattached to the end of Link's weaponincreasing its strength and creatingwhat the game refers to as a log Clubnext link is faced with a problem heneeds to cross a river to reach theother side which we can see has a railwhich we know link can ride using hisshield the river is too wide for him toswim across so he needs to find anothersolution this solution is ultrathe third arm ability we see in thisgameplay video Ultra hand was also thename of a toy sold by Nintendo in the1960s which is a fantastic littlecallback Ultra hand is represented bythis symbol the same one that appeared acouple of months back on the Zeldawebsite it appears to function similarlyto magnesis like we saw in the previoustrailer where link lifts a wheel out ofa bog on the great Plateau it can beused to manipulate certain objects butalso to stick them together if two ofthe right objects are placed close toeach other then a green glue willconnect them while Ultra hand is stillactive this glue can still be seen likehere where the log is close to thepropeller but the glue doesn't set untillink switches off the ability Ultra handis the vehicle crafting mechanic with itwe see our Numa build a raft out of logsand power it with propellers these arethe same smaller propellers we saw onDeath Mountain in the previous trailerdifference to the larger ones used inthe flying machine here they areactivated when struck causing a batteryicon to appear on the screen depletingas the propellers spin they can be hitagain to deactivate them and the batteryrecharges by itself when link uses Ultrahand here we can see viable objects gloworange the logs and propellers nearbysome barrels even these largerstructures in the distance which matchthose found on the first island linkreached during this gameplay clip exceptfor these this island was empty andstill a considerable distance from theothers maybe link needed to use ultrahand here to build himself a bridge orstaircase or even a vehicle to reach thehigher Islands here though link usesUltra hand to build himself a speed boatwhich is just incredible all he's easilyable to float across the river on it andreach the other side where we seeanother zonai construct this one isn't asoldier though it's much more similar tothe gollum creature seen in E3 2021 andit doesn't seem aggressive for a splitsecond we can see its name Rangerconstruct we don't know if this is theexact same construct their designs areidentical but I initially got theimpression that the one from E3 2021 wasmuch largernext link uses Ultra hand to buildhimself a flying raft he's able toactivate four propellers by striking thecenter of the vehicle where the glue isit seems all moving parts will beactivated and deactivated at the sametimeand finally we see the fourth armability Ascent breath of the wild gavelink four sheikah Rune abilities rightat the start of the game on the greatPlateau so perhaps we'll see the samething in tears of the kingdom and unlockfuse Ultra hand recall and Ascend all atthe very start Ascend is the ability wesaw first back in 2021 the same one thatpatents were filed for link needs tofind an area with a ceiling then canactivate the ability to jump through itand emerge on top this can be used inbuildings like we see here but alsocaves link enters a cave with anotherRanger construct and a cooking pot maybethese ranges are found near their ownlittle camps he uses Ascend to jumpthrough the cave ceiling where we get anincredible looking transition while heswims through the Rock and emerges onthe Mountaintop Above This ability hewill be huge not just for traversing TheSky Islands but for Hyrule itselfnext link battles a soldier constructbut this one wields a fused weapon whichit uses to push him off the islandsending him into Free Fall plummetingtowards Hyrule below here we can see acompletely seamless transition from Skyto land there's no loading screen notransition just free-falling from herewe can get a great look at Hyrule belowthe mysterious glyphs on the ground theholes with malice at their edges the newsheikah towers and of course the skyislands link can also hold R toaccelerate his descent he pins his armsto his sides to lower the air resistanceand drops like a rock of course this isa video game Landing in water negatesall fall damage link lands neitherproxim Bridge not far from dueling Peaksand this is where the gameplay sessionends there are a few interesting detailsfails to note here on the ground like acoblin being carried by a circlingflying creature like we saw in theprevious trailer more smoke signalscoming from the Riverside stable in thedistance and another set of buildingmaterials close to the waterso that's the entire gameplay sessionwith our Numa from the dueling Peaks tothe skies above and back down againwe've gone through the clip roughly inorder but now let's go back and coversome interesting details that are worthpointing out the first is the minimapsicons we can see a few interestingsymbols appear here throughout the clipfirst a symbol which appears to be acave which matches up with the cave linkenters to perform Ascend interestinglysome of these cave symbols feature atick while some don't perhaps indicatingwhich of these caves have beenpreviously explored there's also thissymbol which in breath of the wild marksa shop here it seems to line up withthis structure a Blue Ball filled withsmaller ones above a shoot so as it is ashop it seems that this will dispenseitems in some way like a Pachinkomachine we can also see Minecarts andrails next to it so it seems that linkwill be able to Traverse the islands byrail as well as on foot there's alsothis symbol very similar to the shrineicon from breath of the wild thesimilarity in design and color makes methink that these will be fast travelpoints just like some chica structuresin the original game however the designof the icon appears to match the designof the Spiral rocks found across Hyrulea rounded shape surrounded by a ringwe're not yet sure what these rocks arefor it seems that there'll be fasttravel points but they could also beways to access the sky islands or eventhe zonai equivalent of sheikah shrinescontaining mini Dungeons and puzzlesthere's also a glowing blue point on themap here next to one of the pachinkomachines the color obviously connects itto Link's arm and the zonai technologyand Magic but we can't say what it isyet for certainfinally there's this a battery icon thisprobably has some connection to thebattery-powered zonai vehicle partsperhaps this symbol depicts batterypacks like what appears to power the carin this shot here but we don't know forsureUltra hand might let us build housesfrom these sets of materials in a latershot we see another set of materialsthis time next to a pile of brickscovered in a cloth with a mysterioussymbol it's quite close to beadle'ssymbol but not exactly it looks likesome effort is going into rebuilding thekingdom maybe Ultra hand will allow linkto helpwhile link is shooting birds we can spota dragon in the skies above this isn'tone of the main three dragons frombreath of the wild nadra din raal orfarash it's a new Dragon gray with ayellow Mane and blue accents we saw thisdragon in an earlier screenshot herecircling this same group of Sky Islandswe've now seen two possibly three zonaiconstructs a Ranger and a soldier theRangers appear to be caretakers they'refriendly to link and are found nearcampfires but I don't think this meansthat the soldiers are evil or corruptedI think they're designed to defend theislands and they're just following theirprogramming and when link uses Ascend toreach the roof of a small Hut on theisland we can spot the Box Golem enemyin the distance though it seems to be ina deactivated State here I previouslymentioned some of the game's music butwe can hear the game's soundtrack atother points too some is identical tobreath of the wild like the stable themeand the music for cold areasof new music like the sky island music Iplayed earlieror this which plays while link isfree-fallingforeignspeaks we can hear a different fullversion of the tears of the Kingdom maintheme[Music]is[Music]which is just beautiful so that aboutwraps this analysis video up we'vecovered the entire gameplay video andnew mechanics in detail of course Ihaven't covered absolutely everythingI'll be sure to post more videos overthe coming days and weeks digging moreinto this game and I'm sure other Zeldacreators will be posting analyzes andTheory videos too I honestly can'tbelieve how good this game looks it'severything I wanted it to be and morethanks so much for watching this videoif you liked it leave a like Andsubscribe if you haven't already formore Zelda content I apologize for myvoice in this video I'm not feeling ahundred percent and I'm sorry if itcomes across a bit rough but I reallyappreciate you tuning in anyway cheersguys and I'll see you next time