Tears of the Kingdom's villain has a voice – but the best Zelda games make do without it

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Another Nintendo Direct, another sneak peek at The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the long-awaited sequel to Breath of the Wild which is finally (finally!) coming this May to Nintendo Switch consoles. But aside from a couple of teased enemies, and some kind of magic car, the main surprise for fans was an overtly villainous voiceover, which seems to be the voice of the arch-nemesis Ganon himself.

Well, that part’s up for debate – while it could be Calamity Ganon, the antagonist of the previous game, it could also be some other iteration of a Zelda villain, such as Demise (from Skyward Sword) or Vaati (from Minish Cap). We know Zelda refers to the antagonist as “him”, but otherwise the jury’s out on that one, especially given how lacking in identifying details his words are:

"Rise… Rise, my servants. Sweep over Hyrule, eliminate this kingdom and her allies. Leave no survivors!"

Regardless, some big bad has got a big bad voice to go with it, but I couldn’t help feeling disappointed at what I heard.

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The Zelda games have a long and illustrious history of silent, or unvoiced characters. Link himself is persistently mute, so much so that it’s become an in-joke throughout the games from odd NPCs. In 2017’s Breath of the Wild, Zelda’s diary entry even makes it a key character trait: “With so much at stake, and so many eyes upon him, he feels it necessary to stay strong and to silently bear any burden. A feeling I know all too well…”

While Breath of the Wild had a little more in the way of voice acting – mainly Zelda, in a standout turn for the character – the series has long made do with on-screen text in place of painstakingly-recorded dialogue, and I’d argue it’s the