‘Tears of the Kingdom’ has so far been all about the sky, but it’s not going to leave classic ‘Zelda’ fans hanging

With The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom keeping such a tight focus on the skies of Hyrule and the fact that you can explore them in a “vertical” expansion of the game world, we were beginning to grow concerned that Nintendo was completely forsaking a key staple of the franchise.

All of the sequel’s gameplay trailers so far have either focused on the floating islands above Hyrule, or the groundbreaking new gameplay mechanic known as “item fusing.” What most of us are beginning to sorely miss, especially since they’ve been such a highlight of the franchise in its long history, are the dungeons of Hyrule, where you get to explore a vast and dangerous underground with no inkling of what might await you around the next corner.

Dungeon exploration isn’t just a staple of the Zelda franchise, but the role-playing fantasy genre as a whole, so you’ll be glad to know that Tears of the Kingdom is indeed bringing them back in force. As the Tears of the Kingdom developers recently explained, dungeons in this sequel will have a lot of surprises in store for players.

“For example, there is a dungeon that connects directly from Hyrule’s surface. If you dive from the sky straight into the dungeon, you’ll trigger an event. We think this will be a new experience that wasn’t possible in the previous game,” says Hidemaro Fujibayashi.

Not only that, the new dungeons will each be unique in their design and challenges.

“The four Divine Beasts were the dungeons in the last game, and they shared similar designs,” adds Saturo Takizawa. “This time, the dungeons are huge and each carry their own regional look and feel, just like traditional Legend of Zelda games. We think they will provide a satisfying challenge for players. They were certainly a challenge to develop!”

Now that this final concern has been pushed aside, we’re positively brimming with excitement to play this sequel. Fortunately, after many a month of patient waiting, Tears of the Kingdom is finally making its way to Nintendo Switch in two days on May 12.