Review: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is video game bliss
It starts with an archaeological mission. A so-called gloom – a scorching red mist that seems to have risen from the depths of the Earth – is believed to be the cause of a widespread sickness.
For just a few minutes, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the most anticipated game of the year, will guide players by the hand, taking them down into the caverns beneath a medieval castle.
Zelda here, all braided golden hair and enchanting oval eyes, is a leader and a scholar. She's directing Link, the voiceless video game hero who has come to her rescue many a time since the mid-1980s, to follow her lead and walk in the shadow of her torch.
These tunnels, Zelda tells us, have long been forbidden, forever off limits even to princess royalty such as her.
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“I can't tell you how excited I am,” Zelda exclaims, before pulling out a smartphone-like device to snap photos of ancient hieroglyphics believed to depict the founding of the kingdom of Hyrule.
For a fleeting moment, the gloom seems a distant memory. But these catacombs are home to more than The Legend of Zelda lore.
This patient, cinematic beginning is building a mystery, giving us glimpses of Link's magical Master Sword but never letting us attack with it.
We hear of an advanced and ancient sky civilisation, a great war and a demon king, and we know, partly because a new Zelda game arrives every few years and partly because of the ominous, stark soundtrack – a chilling sound that seems fashioned out of whooshing weapons – that history is about to repeat itself.
And yet Tears of the Kingdom is not a game of
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