Tears of the Kingdom – Secrets of the Zonai (Art and Histories Book) Announced

It's happening after all. The Master Works artbook for Tears of the Kingdom was released in Japan back in 2024 and Dark Horse has announced that they are going to publish the English version this year, on October 20th. This piece of news came yesterday and somehow flew under my radar, so this isn't some April Fool's joke.

 

They are also going to release a "Hero's Edition" with some goodies, which is similar to the one for Creating a Champion. I really liked that one, so I might be getting it as well, even though this looks like a cheap knock-off. That basic artwork of the Sages simply doesn't have the same class as the photo of the Champions. And a map of the Depths isn't all that exciting, because there is nothing in the Depths. But I appreciate the idea of mirroring the previous Hero's Edition, and the Secret Stone collectible is a actually an upgrade.

Tears of the Kingdom – Master Works Announced

The second big announcement by Nintendo of Japan for the first anniversary of Tears of the Kingdom is a dedicated artbook, called "Master Works". As you may recall, the Creating a Champion artbook for Breath of the Wild was called the same in Japan, so this is a direct follow-up on this.

I didn't expect this to happen, because the Collector's Edition of Tears of the Kingdom already came with an artbook, where this may seem a bit redundant. But of course not everyone has that edition of the game and this new artbook will be a lot more detailed and also contain concept art of things that didn't make it into the game.

One example would be the different short hairstyles for Zelda. I like the first one of the two where they even have ingame footage, because it truly has a regal feel to it, but overall I think they made the right choice.

The timing is still a bit odd. With Breath of the Wild it made sense that its "Master Works" wasn't released right away, because it included all the DLC stuff. There hasn't been any DLC for Tears of the Kingdom, however, so nothing was stopping them from announcing this book a year ago. (Well, a part of me still hopes that they may release Master Mode this year, but it's very unlikely.)

I will wait for an English version of the book, where hopefully Dark Horse will take on the task once more. But there hasn't been an official announcement yet, of course, because the alternative options look either too cute or too boy'ish.

Via NintendoLife