It sure seemed like Link would have to explore some pretty big dungeons when Nintendo releasedThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’sthird trailer. Link was briefly shown falling down a cavern covered in lasers while a giant stone golem stepped out of its rocky tomb. If that’s not a huge, puzzle-filled dungeon, I don’t know what is.As it turns out, fan intuition was right about dungeons being back in Tears of the Kingdom. In the third part ofNintendo’s own developer interview, game director Hidemaro Fujibayashi confirmed that dungeons are back in a big way for the Breath of the Wild sequel.Related:Tears Of The Kingdom Needs Proper Dungeons"They’ve changed from the previous game," Fujibayashi explained. “For example, there is a dungeon that connects directly from Hyrule’s surface. If you dive from the sky straight into the dungeon, you’ll trigger an event. We think this will be a new experience that wasn’t possible in the previous game.”
Programmer Takuhiro Dohta described Tears of the Kingdom’s dungeons as “unique” with a “wide variety of regional characteristics,” while lead artist Satoru Takizawa noted how difficult it was to design these larger dungeons.
“Making a ‘wide variety’ was pretty challenging. The four Divine Beasts were the dungeons in the last game, and they shared similar designs. This time, the dungeons are huge and each carry their own regional look and feel, just like traditional The Legend of Zelda games,” Takizawa said. “We think they will provide a satisfying challenge for players. They were certainly a challenge to develop!”
In earlier parts of the interview, we got to seehow Tears of the Kingdom developed over time. Several clips were shared showing footage of Link’s constructible vehicles, with carts made from wheels and large chunks of metal and a boat made from turbines and wood. Curiously, these early tests appeared to be using Breath of the Wild’s map and were taken on the Wii U. Tears of the Kingdom will be a Switch-exclusive title when it releases later this week.
Zelda fans are already lining up to get their hands on Tears of the Kingdom.A line outside of Nintendo New York started forming a full 72 hours prior to the game’s Friday release, with fans bringing lawn chairs and even a few personal tents to keep warm and dry as they await Link’s return.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrives on May 12.
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