Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Hyrule has had five different versions of an alternate dimension/universe, exactly one of which was connected to any of the others. (and in ALBW they still made up a new name for it lol) Expecting definitive continuations or timeline-centric storytelling in Zelda is a mistake unless you're dead certain.

(also even if we're pretending direct connections to other games matter that much to the Zelda team, sky islands would still exist after Skyward Sword happened, presumably (there are sky civilizations in other games))

@kkslider5552000 Exactly. If these sky islands are connected to Skyward Sword, at most we'll probably get like Skyloft ruins as an easter egg. There's many other sky civilizations in the series, most notably within Twilight Princess and Minish Cap.

@VoidofLight yeah the bit on here by NL that seemed to assume that this would be a prequel to SS and that the Rito would evolve(?) into the Loftwings was actually pretty freaky if you think about it.

A once-equal race of avian humanoids becomes the pets / transport for their erstwhile allies?

[Loftwings, it's been a while since I've played the game...]

@jump So Link will take a cat nap and wake up to find everything is in ruin and Zelda dead. Sounds like a normal 9-5 for Link.

Sidon becomes ruler of Hyrule because he's a bit of a laugh, but CBA with it all so leaves it to rack and ruin, all the while talking up his fabricated achievements

@Heroofthenexus I mean, Nintendo does care about the story of the games, but they don't let story get in the way of what they want to do with each title. If they didn't care about story, we wouldn't have games like Twilight Princess or Windwaker, and it would be more akin to Mario where it's just "Kidnapped Princess needs to be rescued!".

From what it seems like to me, the Ouroboros is probably representing the cycle of reincarnation which Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf go through. The endless battle that is waged through Hyrule. It would make sense, given Ganondorf is back in this game yet again.

@Rambler Also, yeah I don't get that. I could see Rito in BotW being originally from Loftwings, but them turning into Loftwings is highly unlikely.

@Magician

Yeah, I also expect that.

@Grumblevolcano

Agreed.

One thing that hasn't been discussed here (I don't think) is the price. The vast majority of 1st party Switch games have been £49.99 but BotW and Smash Ultimate were at the higher price of £59.99. I wonder whether BotW 2 will also be at that higher price.

@Grumblevolcano I would certainly expect 59.99 £GBP... especially if Sony can get away with 70 for TLOU p1 Remake! (nb I own both Switch and PS5)

I would pay 59.99 happily for TotK, and am sure Nintendo will have enough confidence in the quality of the game + hype/marketing to do so.

I'd loved to be proven wrong, but if I was Nintendo then I'd probably charge the higher price point.

Maybe the Ouroboros is a hint that the Zelda universe is connected to the Xenoblade one.

£60 is fine, 10,000 rupees is not

@RR529 it’s clearly meant to establish a connection between Resident Evil and The Legend of Zelda.

Link already has Rex's salvager outfit, so connection confirmed!

@RR529 lol probably not. But I did see zeltik and commonwealth realm do a video on it. It made for an interesting watch even if it won't be the case.

@Grumblevolcano I don't see why it would be higher than what the first BotW and Smash were. In America, most of Nintendo's first party games have been 60 bucks, aside from like WarioWare and a few smaller titles where it was only around 50.

Yeah I really don’t see why Nintendo would raise the game up to $70. Their mainline games have been $60 for as long as I can remember. I also don’t know why they would want to follow the practices of Squeenix, a company that is not very popular right now.

It came to mind rewatching the September Direct. Maybe expanding on the Tarry Town side quest idea from BotW, there's an optional farming side to TotK where Link gets to look after a farm.

That might be the main game. They've not said what the plot is yet.
The tears in the title may be the way Link waters the veg.

So how many people agree that the Zonai are likely going to be a big factor in this story?

Personally, I wasn't sure about people saying that, then we got all the exact same dragon heads from their ruins in this most recent trailer and I changed my mind pretty quickly. I'm actually a big fan of the theory that the Zonai are direct descendants of the interlopers, or the Twili.