Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Could Outgrow Elden Ring’s Map
Sooner rather than later, the mysteries of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will come to light, joining the likes of Elden Ring as another hotly demanded open world game. The game has been teasing fans for over three years now, and many can't wait for it to finally show its hand. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's nature as an ascended DLC expansion is fairly well-known, so it wasn't too surprising when trailer analysis revealed that the game shared a fundamental base with Breath of the Wild. Mechanics, characters, and even the land of Hyrule itself are expected to carry over into the new game with a yet-unknown number of changes.
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There will be more to the game than just touched-up old content, however. A lot of attention has been drawn to the floating islands that now dot Hyrule's skies, and new caves have also been spotted. Some sort of vehicle crafting system has been teased for navigating this expanded game world, which carries some implications. Breath of the Wild's map was massive, but hardcore fans may feel they know what to expect coming into another game using the same version of Hyrule. There's a good chance that Tears of the Kingdom has taken after its big-name contemporary Elden Ring in designing a map that should surprise players with how it chooses to unfold.
RELATED: How Breath of the Wild's Towns Might Change in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Maps Help Players Feel The Scale Of An Open World
Gradually expanding the player's access or understanding of a game's map has become old hat for the open world genre. Just about every successful open world title has done it in some way or another, whether through surprise area transitions like The Witcher 3 used, or by guiding the player to unseen biomes like in Shadow of the Colossus.
Sometimes, play areas like Grand Theft Auto 5's are just so large and detailed that players will have to go off the beaten path by themselves to see everything. Even things like Genshin Impact adding new areas through major updates can be enough to keep curious players coming back. The best map reveals in gaming often come about as a marriage of mechanics and narrative. Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring are both accomplished in this respect, though they go about it in different ways.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild starts players on the Great Plateau, a tutorial zone they can't leave until they've progressed in the main quest. This location is roughly as large as Ocarina of Time's overworld, and could take a few hours to fully explore. But when players gain map data from the first Sheikah Tower, they will be stunned to discover that the Great Plateau makes up a fraction of the larger Hyrule. Even though the full size of the map is unveiled, understanding its true scope can only come through exploration, something players are now more motivated to do.
Elden Ring is far more cunning with how it approaches its map. Initially, the player can only see the region they're in, that being Limgrave. With three map segments, it's quite large on its own, but then players fall prey to a teleportation trap and end up in Caelid. Suddenly, they are far to the east of what the map once displayed, and unlocking the Roundtable Hold will similarly deposit them in the previously empty southwest.
Progressing through the main story will keep expanding the player's fully zoomed-out map, making it unclear when Elden Ring will even end. The existence of an entire underground map layer to Elden Ring may be the most shocking revelation of all, and the narrative ramifications of each distinct region just make their appearances hit harder. This element of discovery, a feeling that The Legend of Zelda also often inspires, is what made Elden Ring feel special to many intrepid players.
RELATED: Elden Ring DLC May Have the Most Room if It Went Underground
Tears of the Kingdom Must Fully Exercise Its Verticality To Impress
All of this leaves Tears of the Kingdom with stiff competition in the modern open world space. The game no longer has the privilege of surprising players with its base Hyrule map like Elden Ring did, as Breath of the Wild shares its topography. The world has been repopulated with new monsters and attractions, but that isn't enough to excite returning adventurers. With pressure mounting, Tears of the Kingdom needs to make some big moves to keep players impressed with its massive scale.
Fortunately, the game's premise already gives it plenty of room to do so. Hyrule's sky has become part of Link's playground, and according to the trailers, there's a lot up there. Whether the sky islands will receive their own map like the ground has is currently unknown, but they seem to stretch upwards quite a ways. It wouldn't be hard to fill two or three primary layers of islands with almost as much content as Breath of the Wild, especially if there are major new narrative and gameplay elements exclusive to the sky.
There May Be More Maps In Tears of the Kingdom Than Elden Ring
However, it seems like Tears of the Kingdom may be going even farther than that. Alongside strange spirals appearing throughout the landscape that some theorize could be the new Sheikah Shrines, there are also holes in the ground spewing forth Malice. These could be entrances to the deep underground, far lower than most Zelda games have gone. A particular scene in the latest trailer even suggests that Tears of the Kingdom could show the underworld that the bottom part of Skyward Sword's Ancient Cistern dungeon was based on.
Chances are rising that Zelda will share the concept of an underground map with Elden Ring on top of its airborne locales, making Tears of the Kingdom one of the largest open world titles ever released. How Malice, the Zonai, and the different civilizations built on Hyrule's land play into these locations may only be revealed upon the game's release. Only time will tell if Tears of the Kingdom is able to justify its vertical layers, but knowing Zelda's track record, it just might pull it off.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will be released on May 12, 2023, for the Nintendo Switch.
MORE: Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2's Sky Islands Have Big Implications for Horseback Riding
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