Are you excited about The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom? If so, you’re one of possibly millions who will do their best to get the game on day one so they can dive into Hyrule again and experience all they can from the title. The recent trailer only highlighted how grand the game is likely to be, and that’s made gamers all the more excited about it. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t still some ‘doubt’ about the title. Specifically, many wonder how different the game map will be compared to its predecessor in Breath of the Wild.
Some will immediately note that the sequel has the “sky islands” above it, and that’ll add more depth to the game, which is true. But the comparisons to the previous title will continue until they can explore the maps in full to see for themselves what’s going on. Thankfully for those people, IGN decided to comb through the trailers we’ve gotten for Tears of the Kingdom and compare them to Breath of the Wild to see how different, or not different, the areas are. You can see the full video below.
As you can see, there are some familiar places that you can visit, while other areas have been changed since we last entered Hyrule. An easy explanation for some of the changes outside of the arrival of Ganondorf is that there has been some time passed since the first game. Recall that in the original title of this set, Calamity Ganon had nearly laid waste to Hyrule and was locked away for 100 years. During that time, Hyrule was anything but safe so people could only do so much.
But with Link and Zelda defeating Ganon, Hyrule could move toward a brighter future, which is why certain areas have grown or been built upon for the first time.
Another key difference in the world is the upheaval that Ganondorf will cause upon his return. He’ll rip chunks of the world into the sky, and that’ll cause many changes in the world itself. We’ve only seen a fraction of this new version of Hyrule from the trailers because Nintendo is trying to keep things under wraps for the most part.
Undoubtedly, when the game is out, and people scour every inch of Hyrule, we’ll learn how big or how small the differences are. But until then, the hype will build for the title until its May 12th release date.
