Daily Debate: Would You Like Tears of the Kingdom DLC That Expands Home Building into Settlement Building?
Posted on July 12 2023 by Nick Miller
Spoiler Warning: This article and the comments section may contain spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
In a recent Daily Debate, we asked you if you’d like more customization options for your dream house in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and the answer we got was a resounding yes! For those of you who don’t know, Tears of the Kingdom introduced a side quest that lets players build Link a new house. It seems that Princess Zelda has commandeered Link’s home in Hateno Village — you know, the one he cut down 30 trees and paid 3,000 Rupees for? So, a now-homeless Link must turn to Hudson Construction to build him a new home. Just hop on down to Tarrey Town, do a few small tasks for Hudson and Rhondson and they’ll set you up with a scenic cliffside property at half price. Using Ultrahand, Link is able to build his own home from a selection of rooms and assets, courtesy of Hudson Construction.
The aforementioned Daily Debate established that most of us feel that, while home building is a worthwhile addition to Tears of the Kingdom, it left us wanting more. I propose that we expand the scope of this feature with a settlement building DLC à la Fallout 4’s Minutemen questline, which would have Link raising settlements for the many residents of Hyrule as a contractor for Hudson Construction. Between Breath of the Wild’s Tarrey Town quest and Tears of the Kingdom’s home building, we get a taste of this idea, but I don’t think they took it far enough.
Hyrule is in a state of rebuild after the fall of Calamity Ganon. More areas of the world are habitable than before, evidenced by the construction of Lookout Landing on the remains of old Hyrule Castle Town and the many Hudson Construction sites scattered across Hyrule. With the help of Link, Hyrule’s rebuilding efforts may be broadened. We could see Link building new villages, establishing infrastructure like shops, stables, farms, and inns. He could set up trade routes or Rito postal routes between villages. Link could organize militias and use Zonai devices to build defenses against Bokoblin attacks.
Such DLC would lend to Tears of the Kingdom’s replayablity by giving players the ability to reshape the landscape of Hyrule and by creating on-going conflicts for Link to resolve. Maybe one settlement is seeing more enemy invasions than usual and needs better defenses. Maybe a village is low on supplies, so you establish a trade route or build farms to address their needs. The possibilities are endless.
So, what do you think? Would settlement building be a worthwhile inclusion to Tears of the Kingdom? How deep would you want the game to go with an idea like this? Let us know in the comments!
Nick is a writer for Zelda Dungeon and a longtime fan of the Zelda franchise. In his free time, he enjoys fishing, archery, skateboarding, and some good ol’ fashioned family time. He’s an advocate for physical media and an avid video game collector. His favorite Zelda game is Ocarina of Time, though Breath of the Wild and the Link’s Awakening remake are close contenders. His other favorite video games series include Kingdom Hearts, Fallout, and Ratchet & Clank.
