Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Image: Nintendo

Here at Nintendo Life, we are rather excited about a little upcoming game called The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom — you might have heard of it. It seems that after six years of waiting, the run-up to the game's release date has come about rather quickly and now we are awash with trailers, promotional material and, as of today, hands-on previews.

Yes, we can now start to get an idea of how this sequel actually plays on Switch before the big 12th May release date, and the consensus appears to be very positive indeed. To shed light on what the critics have thought so far, we have collected together a handful of the available preview write-ups so you can get an idea of what everybody had to say.

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Before we dive into the thoughts of other outlets, however, let's first recap what we had to say after our hands-on experience. Simply put, we had a great time with what we've seen so far. The new mechanics are intuitive, the possibilities are endless and we can't wait to sink more hours into exploration: "we’re looking at history being made with this game".

For the most part, we were not alone in our admiration. Beginning with IGN, the outlet found the experience to be similar to Breath of the Wild, but with far more interaction and possibilities. In the write-up, Brian Altano praised the new abilities and checkpoint systems and commented on a steady frame rate throughout.

Nintendo has taken that ideology and legalized it in Tears of the Kingdom and that’s immensely exciting, even if it means there will be lots of hilarious fumbling and falling along the way.

Keza MacDonald from The Guardian continued this positive reception, commenting on how impressed they were by the new Fuse and Ultrahand options and stressing the emphasis that the game puts on fun experimentation.

It wants you to think of things and then immediately be able to try them out without worrying too much about the logistics, removing all the friction between idea and result.

For The Verge, Charles Pulliam-Moore found Fuse to be the most game-changing mechanic and a clear sign that Nintendo has acknowledged how people have played Breath of the Wild over the past six years.

once you start really using Link’s new abilities to interact with the things around him — the monsters, the weapons, the bushes full of bomb flowers — Tears of the Kingdom reveals itself to be a much more technically complex and imaginative game than its predecessor, which is saying something.

Many of these views were echoed in Gamespot's write-up by Steve Watts. The outlet found the preview to be extremely fun and they appreciated how many different solutions were available to the game's puzzles.

To my surprise, Tears of the Kingdom bridged that gap by presenting open-ended physics-based puzzles, but with solutions that felt so intuitive that I still got the satisfaction of finding my own complicated but "correct" way.

Finally, for Eurogamer, Lottie Lynn appreciated how the game appears to be changing the formula of Breath of the Wild while retaining all of its predecessor's joy. The write-up stressed Tears of the Kingdom's focus on creativity and praised how it never felt repetitive.

Tears of the Kingdom wants to fill players with a passion for creativity and experimentation in the same way Breath of the Wild urged for exploration. I can easily see myself spending hours constructing the perfect death machine, which will crush enemies without me ever having to unsheathe a sword.

Be sure to check out our full thoughts in the article above.

Have these previews got you even more excited for Tears of the Kingdom? Let us know in the comments.