After Nintendo dropped the first gameplay footage from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, I called it “Lego Zelda.” It was a joke, a reference to the recent Lego Mario toys. However, it was also an accurate description of the title's new gameplay mechanics that revolve around combing items into new ones. That's the big hook that separates this long-awaited sequel from its beloved predecessor, the impeccable Nintendo Switch launch title The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
But that joke only scratched the surface. Now, after I and over 10 million other players have torn into Tears of the Kingdom, we know the full truth. These awesome “Lego” powers reflect a larger design philosophy that led to this masterpiece. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the grandest example yet of how Nintendo’s amazing gameplay comes from Nintendo being the ultimate toymaker.
Nintendo's Powerful Playthings
All video games are basically toys. You can slather them in blood, violence, or prestige TV aesthetics, but they’re still games you play. And before Nintendo made video games, the company spent more than 100 years making products that were also obviously toys, like playing cards, love testers, and ball mazes. Before legendary Nintendo game designer Gunpei Yoki made the Game Boy, he created an extendable claw toy called Ultra Hand.
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If that wonderfully schlocky name sounds familiar, it's because it inspired one of Link’s new magic abilities in Tears of the Kingdom. Just as players in 1966 could extend the Ultra Hand to pick up objects, Link uses his mystical Ultrahand to pick up and combine objects. It’s an easy Easter egg that speaks to the entertainment continuity that exists between what Nintendo did then and what it does now.
Tears of the Kingdom’s gameplay gimmick is meant to unleash childlike imagination. If you think that somehow diminishes the game’s grandeur or importance then consider all the ways The Legend of Zelda has always been inspired by childhood. Creator Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to make a game that felt like the caves he explored in his youth. Producer Eiji Aonuma designed intricate puppets before bringing Zelda into the third dimension. Haters may complain, but there’s a reason why Zelda works so well with whimsical art styles in games like The Wind Waker and the Link’s Awakening remake. It’s a toy that takes you on an adventure.
Kid’s Heart, Adult’s Brain
I can’t stress enough that I don’t intend for this toy descriptor to come across as a slight. It takes astounding craftsmanship to convey the chaotic feeling of childhood creativity while making a fun and coherent video game.
Enterprising players found many ways to cobble together weird vehicles in Breath of the Wild. We assume that’s where Nintendo got the idea to make this an official feature in Tears of the Kingdom, but it took a lot of work to turn those bootleg hacks into accessible gameplay systems. You can easily imagine a version of this game that’s too fiddly and janky to be fun, like a glorified level editor.
Yet Nintendo pulled it off! Tears of the Kingdom's construction mechanics bring an entirely new kind of magic to an already enthralling experience. Compared with other games with lots of building, such as Fortnite or Minecraft, Zelda is simultaneously more creative and freeform, while feeling infinitely more intuitive. Slap a rock on a stick and you’ve got a big club to bash stuff with. Monster eyeballs turn arrows into homing missiles. Attach boards to mountains to reach treasure chests. It’s all wonderful dream logic. Link literally uses batteries to recharge his toy cars. The game asks you to build everything from hot air balloons to pinball tables. And the community is already pushing the system to its limits with giant robots and missile launchers.
Combined with the game’s nonlinearity, Tears of the Kingdom feels like anything you try might work with enough effort and the right approach. In a way, it's reminiscent of a different Nintendo Switch title: Snipperclips. Just as that game had you cutting your paper friends into whatever raggedy shapes you needed to solve a puzzle, Tears of the Kingdom lets you build the ugliest bridges and Homer Simpson-esque cars possible to save Hyrule. Forget Super Smash Bros, this is Nintendo’s true messy toy box.
It’s especially impressive that Tears of the Kingdom adds this innovation while preserving everything cool and experimental about Breath of the Wild. Fire and wind and electricity still interact in predictable but fascinating ways. The open world becomes even more massive with entire sky and underground regions, leading to some of the most hypnotic exploration and thrilling platforming I’ve ever played. The developers somehow retain a sense of discovery in a game based on the same tech and assets of a title we’ve all played before. It’s incredibly dense. This fantasy action-adventure game may resemble an RPG, but it's more like the world’s greatest immersive sims, except made to be enjoyed by a modern audience. After all, you can’t build a homemade forklift in Deus Ex.
Interactive Innovation Trumps All
The thing I love most about Nintendo is the company's focus on interactivity. The fact that we play video games is what separates them from other mediums. I appreciate great graphics as much as the next person, but I will almost always take new ways to play over the same gameplay with fancier visuals. Relying on the same formula is what made older Zelda games stale before Breath of the Wild. To be incredibly reductive, Elden Ring's masterfully designed open world and brutal combat are game elements that we’ve played before.
Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t look new. It looks the same as Breath of the Wild, a game with a fantastic art style running the best it can on aging Nintendo Switch hardware. But its gameplay is challenging me—freeing me—to do so many new and awesome things. It activates undiscovered regions of my brain.
Don’t let the rusty weapons and post-apocalyptic theme fool you. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is Nintendo’s shiniest toy, and that’s what makes it such a magnificent game.
For more on Zelda, check out the Best Nintendo Switch Zelda games. For more recommended Nintendo Switch titles, check out The Best Nintendo Switch Games and The Best Nintendo Switch Games for Kids. For in-depth video game talk, visit PCMag's Pop-Off YouTube channel. Eager to see the new titles on the horizon? Visit The Best Video Games Coming Out in 2023.