Tears of the Kingdom – The Beginning?

One of the biggest mysteries about Tears of the Kingdom is still how the game will begin. We have a rough idea, but we can't really be sure about any of it, because we haven't seen any actual gameplay. It's in stark contrast to Breath of the Wild, where Nintendo has showcased the entire beginning of the game in great detail prior to its release...

Our understanding so far was that the story begins with Link and Zelda spelunking, as seen in the original teaser. There they discover the mummified Ganondorf, who is sealed by some magic hand with a giant, green vortex above it. Things go downhill from there: Ganondorf awakens, Link's arm and the Master Sword get corrupted by the Malice, and Zelda falls into a dark abyss. Link gets a/the bracelet from the magic hand, however, which grants him new powers for his next adventure of saving Hyrule.

The question is now how these scenes will unfold in the game. One possibility would be that you start playing as Link (and maybe even Zelda) in this scenario, where you go to some underground exploration together. Zelda would have the new Sheikah Slate from the artworks, while Link would use the Master Sword and maybe other basic weaponry. This game's tutorial could be some underground dungeon with coop elements, which lets you run into Ganondorf at the end.

However, the problem with this idea is that you won't get your new abilities until you reach Ganondorf. There is no point in having an underground tutorial area if it doesn't introduce you to the game's basics the same way the Great Plateau did.

And the Great Plateau is simply fantastic. It teaches you everything you need to know without ever holding your hand too much. In fact, other than some short prompts, which are showing you the controls, and some hints from the old man, it's all learning by doing. It's essentially a small Zelda game for itself, where your goal is to obtain the four Spirit Orbs for the Paraglider. But how you approach things is completely up to yourself...

You also obtain all the game's main abilities there and learn how to utilize them effectively. It was a really strong beginning, so strong that it's often stated to be the best video game tutorial ever made, where Tears of the Kingdom will have big shoes to fill.

One way to do this is with a new area that teaches the new mechanics of the game in a similar, but slightly more epic fashion. And what if we've already seen this area multiple times by now? One of the new screenshots, where Link has nothing on him except for some pants, a pair of sandals, the bracelet, and the destroyed Master Sword, might give it away:

Here we can see Link sky diving down towards the group of golden sky islands, with the huge shrine and the flying dragon. And I really liked a thought from Zeltik's video about the spiral stones that this could be this game's tutorial area. After the second teaser trailer from E3 2021, I first assumed that Link with his long hair and the ancient garb is a state that you will transition into. But what if it's the other way around? What if you start the game like that and you will slowly turn back into Champion Link?

In the new trailer we can see how the Champion's Tunic gets destroyed by the Malice as well, so Link will have to get a new one after the Ganondorf incident. Maybe the force behind the magic hand, which is speculated to be Hylia, brings Link into the skies to recover, where he is safe, and provides him with the ancient garbs. And you begin the game with waking up there, unaware of what has happened.

This is story-wise very similar to Breath of the Wild, of course, but it's likely that he didn't sleep for 100 years this time and the setting will be very fresh. It will also work great as a confined tutorial area, as long as he hasn't all the necessary tools yet. There is no need for some mysterious fog, which lets you disappear, because you will die for sure should you decide to jump down to Hyrule without a Paraglider this time.

Reaching all of the sky islands in this cluster would also act as a very effective tutorial. You will learn how to sky dive properly to land on islands below you. The bracelet's abilities, like the time reversal of objects or morphing through ceilings, then could act as keys to reach areas that are above you. And I wouldn't be surprised if the goal of this tutorial area were to reach the top of the temple structure... This would overall make for an excellent starting area, one that is worthy to be a successor to the Great Plateau.

Now, the story of what has happened before, down in the underground with Zelda and Ganondorf, can be told in memories again, just more condensed. Maybe there will be simply one big memory that unfolds once you reach the top of that tower... You will learn what has happened and what your mission will be, just like at the end of Great Plateau. From there you will descend into Hyrule to explore its undergrounds and to let more sky islands appear. It may even be that the tutorial area has the only existing sky islands at the beginning.

In the new footage we can spot that the Lomei Labyrinths are still on the ground at one point, but will float later on (see the huge flying cube above), which suggests that you might make them go up for some reason. Maybe this is also a mechanic that will be taught during the tutorial, where the green vortexes could be related to this and might let you create new sky islands by activating them. Maybe it all starts with one of those vortexes, where the big one above the sealed Ganondorf is what creates the initial large set of sky islands.

We will see, but one thing is for sure: a game's beginning is very important and Breath of the Wild has taught us how impactful a strong beginning can be. Let's hope that Tears of the Kingdom will start its adventure on an equally high note, which will leave a lasting impression.

(PS: I started writing this before the artbook leak and decided to post it chronologically before it, just to have a clean cut there, since this may be the last post speculating about Tears of the Kingdom, unless I decide to study the leak after all.)