Summary

• Tears of the Kingdom doesn't have the same impact as Breath of the Wild's release due to timing.
• Tears of the Kingdom offers more of the same open-world style, but lacks the freshness of BotW.
• The industry has embraced BotW's style since its release, making TotK seem less revolutionary in comparison.

It's officially been one whole year since the release of best open-world action RPGs, Tears of the Kingdom stands among its peers as one of the most fully realized interpretations of the form - but so does Breath of the Wild, and the latter revolutionized what was considered possible in development scope.

On the one year anniversary of Tears of the Kingdom, I thought it would be interesting to discuss exactly where it slots into the more broad consciousness of "all-time greats." Make no mistake - TotK belongs on that list without a doubt. It has a Metascore of 96, which is just one point short of Breath of the Wild's average review score of 97. While the score for Tears of the Kingdom has a slightly larger gap - 8.4 at time of writing for TotK, 8.8 for Breath of the Wild - the numbers show that both games are wonderful adventures. But why is it that Tears of the Kingdom just feels less revolutionary?

Tears of the Kingdom's Release Date Doesn't Have The Same Impact Breath of the Wild's Did

BotW Defined The Nintendo Switch's Early Years

One of the biggest reasons I think we don't revere Tears of the Kingdom in quite the same way we do Breath of the Wild comes down to timing. When Tears of the Kingdom released last year, it arrived at what was perceived to be the tail end of the Nintendo Switch's lengthy life cycle - something that's now been more or less confirmed, with a Switch 2 officially in the works. It launched into a games library that features some of the best Nintendo games ever made, with Super Mario Odyssey, Metroid Prime, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 just some of the critically-lauded Switch exclusives that have made it such a popular device over the years.

By contrast, Breath of the Wild launched directly alongside the Nintendo Switch in 2017. The Switch was an unknown quantity - could a console that had both a handheld and docked mode really compete with the technologically more powerful options on PS4 and Xbox One, let alone their successors? What would a new Legend of Zelda game look like now that the series was going open-world for the first time ever? There were a slew of questions surrounding both one of the most important video game companies and one of its most influential franchises, and it felt like the industry was holding its breath to find out what would happen.

Tears of the Kingdom could never re-capture that moment of defining a console generation because it simply doesn't exist now.

We all know what happened next. Breath of the Wild completely altered the landscape of open-world game design, the Nintendo Switch became one of the most popular and best-selling consoles of all time, and we spent the next several years looking for Korok seeds across multiple playthroughs of Nintendo's new killer app. Breath of the Wild was a proof of concept both for its own series and for its parent company, and the way it resonated with its audience at a crucial time is impossible to mimic. Tears of the Kingdom could never re-capture that moment of defining a console generation because it simply doesn't exist now, and it's partially why it isn't as pervasive one year on as Breath of the Wild was in 2018.

Tears of the Kingdom Is More Of The Same Style Of Open-World

The Industry Has Fully Embraced Breath of the Wild's Style Now

While Tears of the Kingdom made some very real innovations to the Breath of the Wild formula, it did return to the exact same setting of Hyrule and feature many of the same characters and gameplay mechanics. That's not a knock against it - those mechanics are revered and often imitated for a reason - but it does feel less fresh than the completely new Breath of the Wild did in 2017.

The introduction of more verticality served the game well, but it was also more divisive than any element from Breath of the Wild (save maybe weapon durability). Was The Depths amazing or a slog? Did the sky sections need more to explore? With a point of comparison, criticism was more honed-in on any potential mistakes from TotK than BotW. The latter was often forgiven because of how new everything felt, while TotK didn't have the same luxury.

In the interim between both game's release dates, there were also innovations outside of the Legend of Zelda franchise. Most notably was the arrival of HoYoverse's Genshin Impact, which challenged the understanding of open-world action RPGs once more after surviving an initial period where it was accused of being a BotW clone. While it absolutely borrows heavily from Nintendo's open-world design, it also introduced team composition elements, a consistent expansion of places to explore, live-service-style monthly events, and most importantly, it was fully functional and enjoyable on mobile devices.

Arriving in a landscape like that inevitably hurt the way Tears of the Kingdom was perceived long-term - not critically, but just from a longevity standpoint. Breath of the Wild was so ubiquitous in the years after its release because it took a long time before other developers released games in the same vein. When Tears of the Kingdom launched, it had a months-long window of newness that made it feel like another Breath of the Wild moment. Then a new Genshin Impact version update happened, or an Elden Ring DLC was announced, or something else that was a distraction within the same world occupied by Tears of the Kingdom.

Where Does Tears of the Kingdom Rank Long-Term In Gaming History?

A Complicated Circumstance Doesn't Change A Masterpiece

I think it's important to analyze these moments in video games, and it's fascinating to see how six years can completely alter the landscape of a genre's competition, but none of this is meant to imply that Tears of the Kingdom is somehow inferior to Breath of the Wild in any meaningful way. Rather, circumstances surrounding the releases of both games contributed directly to their longevity in public discourse.

If anything, what this retrospective highlights is just how hard it is to capture the video game zeitgeist in the way that Breath of the Wild did from 2017-2020. The number of uncontrollable factors make it impossible to manufacture perfectly, with some of it just coming down to luck.

Clearly, Tears of the Kingdom is one of the best games ever made for Nintendo Switch. One need only look at its myriad of perfect review scores or positive audience discussions to make certain of that. But it has also faded from discussion in a way that didn't seem possible when it released as a sequel to Breath of the Wild in 2023, and that's an indication that the industry as a whole is in an unprecedented era of development. The quality of game releases is such that something as incredible as Tears of the Kingdom can be an afterthought for some just a year after releasing - although I imagine there will be an uptick in appreciation for the title now that it's celebrating its one-year anniversary.