The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

About

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a 2023 action-adventure game in The Legend of Zelda franchise for the Nintendo Switch. It is the long-awaited sequel to the Wii U and Nintendo Switch title The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and introduces new gameplay mechanics such as the ability to fuse items together.

History

A Breath of the Wild sequel was first announced at Nintendo's June 11th, 2019 Direct presentation (shown below, left).^[1] A second trailer was released two years later in a 2021 Direct, with a release window of 2022, but that was later pushed back to Q2 2023 (shown below, right).

On September 13th, 2022, Nintendo revealed the name of the title: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (shown below, left). The trailer also announced the game's release date of May 12th, 2023. On March 28th, 2023, Nintendo held a gameplay teaser video, showing off some of the new crafting mechanics added to Tears of the Kingdom (shown below, right).

Online Presence

Since the 2019 announcement of the game, there has been a considerable amount of hype for the title, leading to a bevy of fan art. On June 15th, 2021, Twitter user @zaphk^[2] posted art of Link that gained over 2,000 retweets and 10,000 likes in nearly two years (shown below, left). On October 5th, 2019, Pixiv ^[3]user Semsei posted art of Zelda, gaining over 5,800 likes in three and a half years (shown below, right).

The March 28th, 2023 trailer, which showed off the vehicle crafting mechanics, drew comparisons to Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, leading to memes comparing the two that day.

Related Memes

Rehydrated Ganondorf

Rehydrated Ganondorf refers to fan art in which the mummified body of Ganondorf from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel teaser is no longer mummified, giving him the appearance of a handsome man.

Crucified Korok

Less than 24 hours after the game was released on May 12th, 2023, players began to use Link’s new powers to bully some of the game's NPC characters. Twitter^[4] user @rindoggydog shared a screenshot of his roommate's gameplay, showing a crucified Korok (seen below). The post, uploaded on May 13th, 2023, garnered 85,000 likes and 13,100 retweets in two days.

Search Interest

External References