Summary
- Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild share a focus on exploration and player-driven gameplay, allowing for a wealth of side content options.
- Overworld boss battles in Tears of the Kingdom offer challenging encounters that reward mastery of the combat sandbox and provide a great challenge.
- The next Zelda game could benefit from evolving combat mechanics and incorporating optional, open-world bosses for players to regularly test themselves against.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom continues many of the design choices established by Breath of the Wild, especially when it comes to open-world content. The non-linear, "open-air" structure of both games allows for a great degree of freedom, allowing players to engage with a wealth of optional side objectives that test players' problem-solving skills and gameplay prowess. Tears of the Kingdom doubles down on boss battles, adding new, mechanically unique encounters to the open-world, which largely works to the benefit of the overall experience.
Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild approach side content in similar ways. The games place a premium on exploration and flexibility, suggesting a few directions at the start but ultimately leaving players to carve their own paths and set their own priorities. This approach to game design comes with some challenges that many open-world developers are likely familiar with, but Nintendo managed to pull it off thanks to gorgeous environmental design and memorable locations, as well as rewarding encounters that make the game world feel tangible and worth exploring. While it's been confirmed that the next Zelda game will be doing things a bit differently, it can still adapt some of the features and design pillars from these last two games. Open-world boss battles should be one of them.
Adapting TOTK's Wealth of Optional Bosses in the Next Zelda Game
Optional Boss Battles Are a Great Addition to the Zelda Formula
Breath of the Wild features a good number of field bosses, which are expanded in Tears of the Kingdom. Elite enemies like Hinoxes, Taluses, Flux Constructs, and the recurring boss Phantom Ganon serve to further expand and diversify open-world activities, but they aren't just content for content's sake; these bosses can often be incredibly challenging. While BOTW and TOTK's combat isn't necessarily complex, these encounters serve as opportunities for players to test their mettle, rewarding them for mastery over the combat sandbox. The fact that they are optional is an additional benefit, as they are available for players looking for a challenge but easy to avoid for those who favor more relaxed gameplay.
Overworld bosses can be particularly enjoyable in TOTK, as their placement in the open-world means that players can better leverage things like custom Ultrahand creations without the inherent restrictions of dungeon-based, mandatory bosses.
Evolving Tears of the Kingdom's Overworld Bosses
For all their strengths, TOTK and BOTW are fairly shallow when it comes to combat mechanics. Players can do interesting things with Link's abilities, the physics engine, and environmental factors, but when it comes down to one-on-one fighting, things can feel mechanically straightforward and simplistic, especially if players nail the timing of parries or perfect dodges or have a lot of healing supplies. While it probably shouldn't attempt FromSoftware levels of difficulty, the next Zelda game could offer better combat, making it deeper and more complex while still being accessible and satisfying. In other words, with the series potentially reinventing itself again with the next release, combat would be a great element to hone in on.
Whether this manifests in the form of a totally new and inventive combat system or just a few tweaks to the current one, something like optional, open-world bosses would be a synergistic inclusion. They would let players make the most out of a revamped combat system and provide a mastery and completion goal to strive towards. Learning from the successes of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's overworld bosses, while making worthwhile improvements to combat, could help make the next Zelda stand out while honoring the legacy of the side-content-focused, player-driven Switch-era titles.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- Released
- May 12, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the sequel to the beloved open-world adventure, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This installment once again sees Link and Zelda battling to protect Hyrule from falling to Ganondorf. This new adventure takes place in the same land of Hyrule as Breath of the Wild but sees something called the Upheaval, which allows link to travel to Sky Islands, as well as deep into the Depths beneath Hyrule. Players can use special abilities to fuse together weapons, and build items to help them progress through the release.
- ESRB
- Rated E for Everyone 10+ for Fantasy Violence and Mild Suggestive Themes
- Developer(s)
- Nintendo
- Publisher(s)
- Nintendo
- Franchise
- The Legend of Zelda
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2
- Genre(s)
- Adventure, Action, Open-World
- How Long To Beat
- 59 Hours
- Metascore
- 96
