Daily Debate: Did Tears of the Kingdom Get Too Large?

We’re long over the one year mark for Tears of the Kingdom. Inevitably, the honeymoon phase of a game elapses, and with time opinions can properly simmer to produce the most critical reviews. There are a lot of aspects to Tears of the Kingdom that people seem divided on still, but if there’s any common ground to be made, I believe it’s that the game is a little too big for it’s own good.

I’ve played the game for 265 hours. I probably have ~40 hours of gameplay left if I want to complete all Shrines, Light Roots, and sidequests. The thought of spending that extra time feels duanting to me, because I feel like for the most part I’ve already seen everything I wanted to. I’ve gotten all Shrines on the Surface and re-explored the “Wild era” Hyrule to my heart’s content. At this point I’ve been to the most unique sky islands already, the rest feel copy and pasted with only slight differences. The Depths are a giant mostly empty expanse that is a chore to traverse without maxed out batteries and a Zonai crafted hoverbike. The Depths and Sky are very interesting places conceptually, beyond a doubt. In practice, however, they lack the substence to make their gameplay loops sustainable. I think that might sum up Tears of the Kingdom in a nutshell: it got so big it couldn’t sustain the experience at such a large scope.

Do you agree that Tears of the Kingdom has too much space but not enough content to fill it, or did you appreciate the size and felt it was utilized to it’s fullest potential? Let us know in the comments below!

Charles Xavier

Charles is a Senior Editor at Zelda Dungeon. He is a Visual Development artist focused on enviroments and pitch paintings. Check out his Instagram and Twitter to see his latest artworks, a lot of which is Zelda fan art! His favorite candy is Skittles – he feels the world should know this.