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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 2023
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a 2023 action-adventure video game developed by Nintendo EPD for the Nintendo Switch. Players control Link as he seeks Princess Zelda and battles to stop Ganondorf from destroying Hyrule. The game maintains the open-world style and setting of its predecessor, Breath of the Wild (2017), but includes new areas such as floating islands in the sky and a large underground zone known as the Depths. It adds construction features that let players build tools to help with combat or exploration.
EPD started working on Tears of the Kingdom after finishing Breath of the Wild, with director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and producer Eiji Aonuma returning to their roles. Gameplay ideas came from concepts originally planned for Breath of the Wild’s downloadable content, which were too ambitious for that project. EPD took inspiration from social media feedback to promote experimentation in gameplay. They looked to Wii Sports Resort (2009), The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011), and Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) for design influences, aiming to create something similar yet different from Breath of the Wild.
Nintendo unveiled Tears of the Kingdom with a preview at E3 2019, followed by a full presentation at E3 2021. It launched on May 12, 2023, earning praise for its expanded world, fresh mechanics, scale, and narrative, although frame rate issues were noted. Within three days of release, it sold over 10 million copies, reaching 22.71 million by June 2026, becoming the Switch’s eighth-top-selling title. An upgraded version was later released for the Nintendo Switch 2 in June 2025, and a spin-off titled Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment came out in November 2025.
Trailer
Plays from YouTube only after you click.
Crew
- Director
- Hidemaro Fujibayashi
- Designer
- Yohei Fujino, Yasutaka Takeuchi, Mari Shirakawa
- Programmer
- Takuhiro Dohta, Takahiro Okuda
- Artist
- Satoru Takizawa
- Producer
- Eiji Aonuma
- Music
- Manaka Kataoka, Maasa Miyoshi, Masato Ohashi, Tsukasa Usui
Details
- Developer
- Nintendo EPD
- Publisher
- Nintendo
- Platforms
- Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2
- Modes
- Single-player
- Series
- The Legend of Zelda
