The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

[Julius]

Special livestream and Treehouse: Live leading up to the midnight launch this Thursday (local)/Friday (UK time) starting at 02:45 BST, showing some gameplay:

Yeah, I'll give this a pass I think 

Edited May 5, 2023 by Julius

[Ike]

Preloads are live so that'll be the icon taunting me for a week.

I need to finish Fire Emblem.

[Julius]

Zeltik has put out an hour long lore recap for Breath of the Wild as we're now just six (!) days from Tears of the Kingdom's release! 

Well, there's another way to get yourself an hour closer to having the game in your hands 

[S.C.G]

Nintendo Treehouse Live for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom announced

Now up on the main page.

This is to coincide with with the US launch time of the game.

So the UK time for this is... 02:45am on Thursday May 11th, 2023...

We'll erm... have a roundup article up at some point during the day. (probably)

Unless I'm playing the game by that point, we'll see...

It might arrive early...

[Ronnie]

Just seen an ad on tv. You know something is a big deal when an advert finishes with 4 DAYS TO GO, filling the screen in giant letters 

[martinist]

I saw Kotaku posted spoilers on twitter for getting blacklisted by Nintendo. What a bunch of jerks. Some "game journalists" they are.

[Ashley]

I can absolutely see why anyone would be annoyed and it is a dick move, but there's something amusingly childishly petty about it. 

[Dcubed]

Part one of the Iwata Asks Ask The Developer session for TOTK is out now!

https://www.zelda.com/tears-of-the-kingdom/en/news/#!/ask-the-developer-vol-9-the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-part-1

[darksnowman]

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

Part one of the Iwata Asks Ask The Developer session for TOTK is out now!

https://www.zelda.com/tears-of-the-kingdom/en/news/#!/ask-the-developer-vol-9-the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-part-1

"Something went wrong. Please refresh the page, or try again later." This just a problem for me?

[Ronnie]

58 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

"Something went wrong. Please refresh the page, or try again later." This just a problem for me?

Same, seems like it was published early by mistake?

Nice new ad.

[darksnowman]

27 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Same, seems like it was published early by mistake?

Right you are, thought there was maybe a typo in the URL or something. Just did a web search and got some snippets. Looks a bit of a lukewarm read.

[Ashley]

I won't be policing it (as I won't be getting the game) but can try and flag up an agreed time period for narrative spoilers to be tagged if people want? Does two weeks sound okay or longer? 

[Ronnie]

I'd say at least two weeks with spoiler tags, more like a month ideally?

[Sheikah]

I won't be policing it (as I won't be getting the game) but can try and flag up an agreed time period for narrative spoilers to be tagged if people want? Does two weeks sound okay or longer? 

It's Zelda, there's barely a story anyway. I'm going to hedge my bets here and say the new game might involve you beating Ganon.

[Julius]

1 hour ago, Ashley said:

I won't be policing it (as I won't be getting the game) but can try and flag up an agreed time period for narrative spoilers to be tagged if people want? Does two weeks sound okay or longer? 

Great question to throw out there, thanks Ashley 

Given just how many different approaches I'm sure people will have to the game, and just how long it could potentially be in the first place, I'd probably agree with about a month – mainly because I can see people not getting to the final story beats for that long. 

HLTB lists BotW's average main story playthrough as being 50 hours long, to which I say...I have no idea what they count as the main story, probably just crit path objectives and grabbing the memories? That still seems crazy long if they're just beelining it, but anyways, that's not the point 

If we take that as roughly being what a main story playthrough for TotK is going to be (based on what we've seen it could easily be shorter, just as long, or waaaaaaaaaay longer, we really haven't seen enough in its marketing to know), across the space of a month, that would be roughly 1.5 to 2 hours of play per day (on average). I know everyone's situation is different with families, responsibilities, etc., but for spoiler tags in a dedicated game thread (which you could avoid), I'd say that sounds somewhat reasonable?

And I say that as someone who is going to be taking their sweet time with the game and have no idea if they'll be done in a month  and will likely continue to stick anything spoilery in tags anyways 

1 hour ago, Sheikah said:

It's Zelda, there's barely a story anyway. 

Yeah, I'm going to be honest, while I'm sure there are those here that care most about avoiding story spoilers, for me I care at least as much - if not more - about "exploration" spoilers.

Discovering new things was at the core of BotW's experience, and given that they've shown decidedly little in TotK's marketing up to this point, I imagine there's plenty left for us to find for ourselves. Heck, we still have no official word on temples returning, let alone every other thing we've speculated about for the last 4 years! I mean, we also don't know if simple things like the Hero's Path from the DLC for BotW are returning, or if they've updated the Pro HUD to get rid of those pesky hearts outside of combat (here's hoping, eh? LET ME TAKE SOME GLORIOUS HEART-FREE SCREENSHOTS AND CLIPS MIYAMOTO I SWEAR TO BOWSER). 

I think it's a trickier one to track than narrative spoilers, and I do think it takes some self-policing. Essentially, I think, with a game like this that's about exploration and discovering new things, if you think something is incredibly cool when you discover it, just take a sec to think about whether or not openly sharing it would spoil finding the same thing and experiencing how cool it was for others 

(unrelated but how are we only three days wth)

Edited May 9, 2023 by Julius

[Ashley]

Yeah I think self-policing will be required and in fairness I think collectively we're good at that. 

I did think of how you'd cover mechanics because there could be spoilers with that (particularly certain slates if not yet revealed) but some people may think a post explaining how it's been used is a spoiler, others not. 

I think we'll have to make it clear to act out of caution and if in doubt, use the spoiler tag. 

Happy to go with a month and then after that move to a courtesy kind of thing because not everyone will play at the same pace, or even get it at launch

Update

Now that I'm in my hotel room rather than on a train; so shall we say until June 9th (4 weeks) all narrative spoilers in spoiler tags. Following this common sense discretion (e.g. late game story beats etc tagged as courtesy). Gameplay/mechanics use discretion and air on the side of caution but if there's any new items etc that were not revealed pre-launch (or if you cannot recall) then use tags during that time too.

That sound good?

[Julius]

7 hours ago, Dcubed said:

Part one of the Iwata Asks Ask The Developer session for TOTK is out now!

https://www.zelda.com/tears-of-the-kingdom/en/news/#!/ask-the-developer-vol-9-the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-part-1

Yeah, as has been mentioned, looks like they might have jumped the gun a bit.

Chapters 1 and 2 are now up through the below Twitter link, with Chapter 3 arriving tomorrow: 

 

1 hour ago, Ashley said:

Now that I'm in my hotel room rather than on a train; so shall we say until June 9th (4 weeks) all narrative spoilers in spoiler tags. Following this common sense discretion (e.g. late game story beats etc tagged as courtesy). Gameplay/mechanics use discretion and air on the side of caution but if there's any new items etc that were not revealed pre-launch (or if you cannot recall) then use tags during that time too.

That sound good?

Sounds good to me 

[Julius]

Piggyback have announced that they will be working on the official guide for the game, which is due to ship 16th June:

 

[Ronnie]

Yes please. Amazon link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1913330028 

[Ashley]

Spoiler Policy:

Until June 9th please include all narrative spoilers in spoiler tags.

Following this we ask for common sense discretion (e.g. late game story beats tagged as a courtesy to other visitors who may not have finished).

When it comes to gameplay/mechanics use discretion and air on the side of caution but if there's any new items, slates etc that were not revealed pre-launch then use tags during that time too. If you can't remember it it was in the pre-launch material than please air on the side of caution and tag them as a spoiler.

---

I've "recommended" this post so now a preview of it should appear at the top of each page. It's a feature we've not used before but I played around with it a while ago. 

[Ashley]

Mark Brown has recreated a talk Nintendo gave back in 2017 (in Japanese) discussing creating their first open world game for Breath of the Wild:

 

[Dcubed]

No idea what happened with the first part of TOTK’s Ask The Developer earlier on, but part 2 is out now…

https://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/ask-the-developer-vol-9-the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-part-2/

Edit: Warning! There is a mild-moderate story spoiler in this part 2 of ATD! I don’t believe it has been officially announced outside of this ATD, so viewer discretion is advised.

Edited May 9, 2023 by Dcubed

[drahkon]

2 hours ago, Ashley said:

I've "recommended" this post so now a preview of it should appear at the top of each page. It's a feature we've not used before but I played around with it a while ago. 

Seems to be working fine.

[Ashley]

The "should appear" is really a carry over from a previous version of the post where I had pinned the topic before realising I'd done the wrong thing and that's why I wasn't seeing it 🤦

[drahkon]

10 hours ago, Julius said:

if they've updated the Pro HUD to get rid of those pesky hearts outside of combat (here's hoping, eh?

I could give you the information, if you like.

Edited May 9, 2023 by drahkon