Tears of the Kingdom – Trailer Analysis

The doors have opened, at least for a bit, and we got a new glimpse at what awaits us with Tears of the Kingdom, the upcoming Zelda game. It's a short trailer, but gives many things away if you look for them. Of course we still don't really know what's going on in the game, but the puzzle pieces are slowly coming together.

It all starts with a stone carving, reminiscent of the mural in Breath of the Wild, but quite different at the same time. This might be something that Link and Zelda discover while they are spelunking through Hyrule's underground, as seen in the E3 2019 trailer, where it might even be Zelda who is looking at these carvings with her torch.

This game obviously doesn't want to revisit the old mural or have anything to do with Sheikah technology. No Guardians, no Sheikah Shrines, no Sheikah Towers, no Divine Beasts. It's all gone, probably turned to sparkly dust, like the Sheikah Monks do, after the threat of the Calamity went away, because it has all fulfilled its purpose. Or maybe it was forcefully taken from the world, but we will get to that point...

The stone carvings show us a battle between monsters and men, only picturing Moblins and Bokoblins as monsters on a wave of malice, but they do already have their horns, which they didn't before. And they are clearly portrayed as the greater threat, where you can see fallen soldiers and the malice has spread over most of the image.

Then there is this divine being, which looks a bit like Armaldo (this will be the first and last Pokémon reference on this blog, I swear), on a platform in the sky. It's either a race that we haven't seen before or it's wearing some sort of mask. It's holding out its hands to reveal seven swirly orbs, which may be the titular "tears of the kingdom". Seven is of course also a prominent number in the Zelda series with the Seven Sages, though with Breath of the Wild we got the four Champions instead. However, there were also the Seven Heroines, where there might be a connection.

In any case, it feels like your typical main quest collectible at first, like the Medallions in Ocarina of Time. Find the seven tears to get something done in the story. Since you've been collecting tears in Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword – in the Twilight and Silent Realms respectively –, this doesn't really feel like a new idea, but there is probably more to it...

You can then see a Hylian princess or maiden, very likely the Zelda from that age, levitating in the air, as if she's under some kind of spell. It feels familiar to the ritual performed by Ghirahim in Skyward Sword and there is some malice shown below her. Her design is in some ways similar to the divine being that we saw before, like the eyes or the breastplate.

In another panel she joins hands with someone under a glowing circle. Your first instinct might be to assume that this is the hero, but if you look closely, then the hand is actually much larger than hers and looks to be one of the hands of the divine being shown before, where it wears the same bracelet. This is also confirmed at the end of the trailer, where this part of the stone carving is used as a backdrop for the game's logo. There you can also spot two of the "tears" in the circle above them, which could mean that there is more than just the seven we saw before, basically like the Eighth Heroine. But these tears are facing each other, much like Zelda and the being.

With all that in mind, it's likely that this being is related to the helping hand from the first trailer, which has banished Ganondorf and then gave Link his new powers.

The important detail of the new sky island footage (and also the game's cover art) is that this shows Champion Link. He already has the different shield from the E3 2021 trailer, where this might be something new that he has found up in the sky. But otherwise he's wearing the Champion's Tunic, Hylian Hood, and Hylian Trousers, so his "default" getup from Breath of the Wild. It's pretty much exactly like he already had it in the first trailer.

I haven't really paid attention to this before, but he wears the Hylian Hood down and not above his head, more like a scarf. Maybe this is a new clothing option? Or maybe the Hylian Hood simply looks like this when put on in this game?

But this makes it clear that we're not dealing with a different Link or some time travel shenanigans in the sky world. Your look will simply transform over time into that of the ancient hero, where you will find corresponding weapons and garbs. The longer hair might even be the result of a different head piece or it grows after some time in the game.

However, there is another accessory, which is new here, other than the shield. And those are some vials that have the same coloring as the Eyegore statues we've seen in the previous trailer. They store this green magic energy that has been present in all the trailers so far, which obviously is important and related to the corrupted hand, which seems to replace your Sheikah Slate. The vials are even carried in the same spot as where Link used to have the tablet device, emphasizing their importance to this game.

Maybe it has something to do with the corruption, where it's like medicine to stop the spread. Or maybe you need these vials to make use of the green energy, like a magic meter. We will have to wait and see, but it seems like something that you need to keep collecting or refilling, where Links has slots for eight vials on his belt and four of them seem empty.

(Update: I like the idea from Hyrule Gamer that these vials may be used to store the "tears of the kingdom". If there are seven, or potentially even eight, this would add up with how many slots Link has on the belt.)

We then get a glimpse at some of the mechanics from last year's patents. The sky diving is more sophisticated this time, where you can see Link dive head down first, like he did in Skyward Sword. But we already know that there is more to that, like aiming upwards with the bow while falling down. It's a shame that the trailer doesn't show anything of that, because this would have been interesting.

But it does show more about the time reversal ability and its potential. In this case you have some falling rocks at Lake Floria and Link climbs onto one that got time-reversed, so he can use it as an elevator to go up into the sky from where it came from. This is really smart, but it raises questions about the usability.

In order for this to work it means that you should be able to time-reverse objects that already came to a halt. So, this rock could have been dropped from above a while ago and just lies there in the water. By "scanning" the environment with your ability by holding the L button, like you could with Stasis in Breath of the Wild, it then should show you everything that can be reversed and its path.

During this bit you can also see a large, bird-like creature, which may be a Kargarok or a Furnix (the fire birds from Skyward Sword). But with a sky world naturally there will be some flying enemies around. And then there is seemingly now a cave entrance at the rock wall behind the time reversed object, which wasn't there before.

There is also this gigantic thunder tornado cloud, reminiscent of the Thunderhead, only smaller, where it looks like a major obstacle on your way up. Maybe this is even why you need to use the time-reversed rock to get up, because the storm is blocking your ceiling morph ability. Or maybe it's because the sky islands here are simply too far up... We could already see more fallen debris in the previous trailer, where those are probably additional "elevators".

It then elaborates another way of getting up a sky island: good, old climbing. Of course you would need to get high enough to reach this tree root in the first place. But it makes it seem like you can't climb the stones of the sky islands, where this may be similar to the material of the Sheikah Shrines.

This is the only time where Link is shown in the ancient garbs from the last trailer, as if it were not to make any difference, but also as a reminder that this is still a thing. He carries an axe in addition, one that looks like it was made by a caveman.

It's all mysterious here, because you can't really see the ground. This may be because of the weather and the time of day, but maybe this is because these islands are inside the "Thunderhead" seen above. The particles whirling around make it seem like it and make it feel a little bit like on Dragon Roost Island in The Wind Waker, where the ash particles showed you the direction of the wind. (Update: it could also be just snow, where earlier in the trailer we can see some winter-themed sky islands. For this to be inside the Thunderhead the weather probably isn't bad enough.)

The last scene with Link sky diving gives you a good impression of the real extent of these sky islands, which are all over Hyrule. They have all shapes and sizes, with the biggest one seemingly right above the center of Hyrule, but it's hard to say due to the sunlight. Many of the islands have these "stalactites" below them, where it looks like they were ripped from the ground below.

Speaking of the ground, this time we finally get a lot to look at. This is above Hyrule Ridge and near the area where Vah Medoh used to patrol, so I guess you could get a very good comparison from up there, but I will leave this to the fine people on Youtube.

What's obvious on first glance is the malice coming out from under Hyrule Castle and Death Mountain. The latter used to be inactive in the first trailer from 2019, where we could see how Hyrule Castle starts to crumble. But the malice in the underground seems to spread widely and forcefully, which will certainly be a major obstacle to the whole underground exploration.

However, there is also a new hole you can spot on the ground, which doesn't have any malice coming out of it. It's right where the Ridgeland Tower used to be, which makes it seem like the Sheikah Technology was blown up or forcefully removed. But this doesn't have to be related, where these holes could have been left by the sky islands when they shot up, similar to Hyrule Castle. However, then you probably would see a lot more of these holes...

You also can't really see the Deku Tree. This was already the case in the previous trailers, where this might have been an issue with rendering things in the distance, but by now we can safely assume that this is yet another intentional change to the world. Maybe it sunk into the ground, revealing yet another entrance into the underworld.

What you can see is what appears to be a new tower structure on Lindor's Brow, the mountain to the north of the Ridgeland Tower hole. It's hard to make out and it even looks like there is yet another hole in front of it, but we know that the Zonai were responsible for all these weird pillars around Hyrule and maybe whatever caused the sky islands to appear also added some more structures like those. Another new tower-like object can be seen at the end, on the border to the Tabantha Frontier. It looks a bit like a pump.

Link then lands on what looks like an old Romulan Bird of Prey, but the design of this glider is again quite reminiscent of the Eyegore that we saw last year. It uses the same coloring of green, white, and orange, where this is probably all part of some other ancient technology and related to the vials that Links is carrying.

Then on the ground you have these huge glowing pictures. The glider seems to move towards one on the Illumeni Plateau (what a fitting spot for an illuminated drawing), but in the same scene there is another one right above the Ridgeland Tower hole, where the Royal Ancient Lab used to be. These are clearly related to the stone carving from the beginning of the trailer, where the one on the Illumeni Plateau (as seen above) shows Zelda.

You can also spot a small vortex of green energy below, similar to the one that held Ganondorf down in the 2019 trailer. Maybe this is another way of getting up into the sky, like the small tornadoes in The Minish Cap. Maybe the "morph through ceiling" parts are limited to this, so it's just like a portal after all, but that would be very, very disappointing after all the potential that came with the patents. Alternatively, they could also be another way of going down into the underground. It's a vortex after all. Since the new ability can only make you go up, you will occasionally need something that let's you go back.

It all wraps up with the title logo of the game, where we see two dragons eating each other up like an Ouroboros. You can interpret a lot of things into the meaning of this, but the design of the dragons is clearly reminiscent of the Zonai statues in Breath of the Wild, where this should confirm that the Zonai will actually play a more important role to this story. The divine being from the carvings may even be a Zonai and all the technology we have seen so far may be the Zonai magic, which has been a popular fan theory for a while.

But let's get more into this topic in a separate post...