Nintendo Managed to Hold Back Tears of the Kingdom’s Biggest Secret Until Launch

Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom of Tears.

Nintendo has done it. Giant Some of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom maps remain to be released to the public before release.

The problematic part, of course, is the depth, an absolutely huge part of Tears’ Hyrule map that was completely unavailable in Breath of the Wild.Tom Marks In his 10/10 reviewwhich best summarizes it as:

“Don’t worry, small sky islands generally don’t represent the whole new area to explore, because underneath lies a perilous pitch-black map literally the size of Hyrule itself. .” It’s huge. I played Tears over her 100 hours and uncovered half of this awesome new area. ”

As Marks points out, there aren’t as many quests in the depths below the Red Rift on the surface as there are on the surface map. Still, there’s plenty to explore, including countless treasure chests. you can avoid the dark – That is, substances that reduce your maximum health until you return to the surface or eat a meal that removes depression.

So how did Nintendo do it, especially since the depths were made available shortly after the introductory area? Including IGN’s owncould play for hours, especially the demo no It also contains deep layers and stays in the sky most of the time.

Second, Nintendo just withheld a lot in marketing to avoid giving away too much.in the meantime trailer and gameplay video Underground footage was certainly included, but they never offered the sheer scoop of the depth goodness that was left for players to discover.

To be clear, Tears of the Kingdom leak, which included the presence of Deps. But even the leaked content can’t truly cover just how huge the area is. Seriously, it’s huge.

If you need a little help navigating the depths, check out: Guide to camera work in this area.

And for all your help with Tears of the Kingdom, check out our Tears of the Kingdom walkthrough and our guide to getting through Hyrule. In fact, you can start here.

Alex Steadman is IGN’s senior news editor and oversees entertainment coverage. When she’s not writing or editing, she can be found reading fantasy novels and playing Dungeons & Dragons.