Why Tears of the Kingdom’s physics are so mind-blowing

Yes, we may be giddy about Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and Super Mario Bros. Wonder right now, but they're going to have their work cut out if either of them wants to be named Game of the Year. Tears of the Kingdom might still have that particular award wrapped up, and an amiibo restock at Walmart today may have reminded a few people of that after a very big video game weekend. Pre-orders for Zelda and Ganondorf's figures are available again for the first time in a while.

Many players have celebratedThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the space it made to find queer expression in Hyrule. Its story provided just enough possibility space for players to explore in ways that did not conform to its developers’ intent. But stepping into Hyrule Field again in Tears of the Kingdom, I felt much more constrained.

A Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom fan has crafted a skeleton plane for whizzing around the skies of Hyrule, and it's sure to cause sleepless nights for the citizens below.

I tend to remember video games for their “master stroke” — the sequence, set piece, or revelatory discovery in which everything the developers were trying to do coalesced in one defining moment. In some cases, as with Resident Evil 4’s village battle, these moments set the pace and tone for the rest of the game. In others, such as Red Dead Redemption’s farm epilogue, they work as a reframing of the dozens of hours that came before. In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo’s open-world epic, the master stroke does a little bit of both. And this particular moment’s seeds were planted 32 years ago, in A Link to the Past.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's Vincent Valentine is being voiced by famous voice actor Matthew Christopher Miller, better known as Matt Mercer.

Among the various Temples featured in , one perfectly encapsulates why ‘s lack of DLC is so unfortunate. ’s Temples partially return to the classic dungeon format, which was notably absent in, although the Shrines of both games are effectively miniature dungeons in their own right. Each Temple utilizes a new mechanic to match its theme, but they can reveal more about the game than simply introducing gameplay features.

In the video game space and certain other media brands, there is an “expectation” and belief that when something does really well, there will be “add-on content” to give the title, or they’ll find a way to grow it via a spinoff or expansion of some kind. In video games, that means you give a game DLC more times than not. When The Legend of Zelda Tears of The Kingdom released and was an instant hit, many felt that the game would receive DLC of some kind, if for no other reason than its predecessor got some meaningful DLC a year or so after its release.

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's director has finally shed light on a mystery linked to Breath of the Wild, but it isn't what fans wanted to hear. 

One of the biggest mysteries in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been (sort of) solved, as director Hidemaro Fujibayashi has offered an explanation as to why there’s no Sheikah technology in the Nintendo Switch title, despite the prevalence of it in its predecessor, Breath of the Wild. 

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom brought players back to the open world of Hyrule for a second time, though not everything was the same as it was the first time around. For starters, all of the Sheikah technology that littered Hyrule in Breath of the Wild was mysteriously missing, leaving fans curious as to where it actually went. The Sheikah Slate and shrines vanishing wouldn’t be too alarming, but it’s pretty difficult to imagine Link and friends accidentally misplacing something as massive as a Divine Beast.

One of the mysteries of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been answered, as Nintendo has finally explained why the Guardians have vanished from Hyrule. The answer probably won’t be that satisfying to longtime fans, but at least the developers have acknowledged why they were cut from the game.

It’s been a few months since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was released, and since then, players have poured hundreds of hours into crafting clever contraptions and exploring every crevice of Hyrule. Despite this, there may still be aspects of the intricate world that most players have yet to discover.