50 Fun Facts About Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Tears of the Kingdom launched in 2023 on which console?

An enhanced edition followed on the Switch 2 in June 2025.

In which year was Tears of the Kingdom released?

It arrived on May 12, a year after Nintendo had finished it.

Tears of the Kingdom is the direct sequel to which 2017 game?

Its gameplay ideas began as DLC concepts for that game that grew too big.

Who directed Tears of the Kingdom?

He had also directed the 2017 predecessor and the 2011 Wii entry.

Who produced Tears of the Kingdom, as he has most Zelda games since the late 1990s?

Miyamoto's role was minimised because he was busy producing The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

What is the vast underground area beneath Hyrule called?

It is pitch dark and needs items to illuminate.

What is the harmful substance that temporarily reduces Link's maximum hearts?

Returning to the surface clears the effect.

Which ability lets Link pick up, move and attach objects together?

Combined with ancient devices it builds rockets, sleds, fans and worse.

Which ability combines materials and objects onto a weapon or shield?

Fusing a rocket to a shield lets Link launch into the air.

Which ability lets Link swim upward through solid ceilings?

Polygon likened it to a noclip cheat.

Which ability rewinds an object's movement, sending a fallen rock back upward?

It is one of five powers replacing the Sheikah Slate runes of the previous game.

Which ability instantly recreates a device Link built earlier?

It scavenges nearby parts and conjures missing ones for a price.

What material is spent to recreate a device when parts are missing?

It is mined in the underground and also charges batteries.

How many main temples must be completed to advance the story?

Water, Wind, Fire and Lightning, tackled in any order.

How many Lights of Blessing are exchanged at a Goddess Statue for a heart or stamina upgrade?

They are earned by completing Shrines.

What do Korok seeds buy Link?

More slots for melee weapons, shields and bows.

Whose spirit provides the arm that replaces Link's wounded one?

He was Hyrule's first king and sealed the Demon King at the cost of his own life.

Where does Link awaken after the cavern disaster?

The game's final scene returns there.

What name is given to the cataclysm that lifts Hyrule Castle into the sky?

It also shatters the Master Sword and drops Zelda into the dark below.

What is the ancient race whose devices and ruins fill the sky islands?

Link's new arm belonged to one of them.

What was the ancient conflict against the Demon King called?

Murals beneath Hyrule Castle depict it; the 2025 spin-off is set during it.

Sidon, Link's ally, is prince and later king of which people?

He is one of the four allies who become new sages.

Tulin, the young archer, belongs to which bird-like people?

He becomes the Sage of Wind.

Tulin is the son of which ally from the previous game?

Teba had helped Link reach Divine Beast Vah Medoh.

In Tears of the Kingdom, Yunobo the Goron is president of what?

His mining company has been digging up something it should not.

Riju is the young chief of which people?

She becomes the Sage of Lightning.

The Zelda Link finds at Hyrule Castle turns out to be an illusion created by whom?

He is a servant of the Demon King.

Which last ancient sage survives as a spirit and needs a mechanical body?

She is the older sister of Hyrule's first king.

Who was Hyrule's first queen, killed by Ganondorf for her secret stone?

Her stone turned him into the Demon King.

What does Zelda become after swallowing her secret stone?

She loses her sense of self in order to repair the Master Sword over millennia.

What is the term for the transformation Zelda undergoes?

Ganondorf undergoes the same change at the climax.

What does Ganondorf become in the final battle?

Link shatters its secret stone with the repaired Master Sword.

What are the items scattered across Hyrule that reveal Zelda's fate called?

Each sits inside a giant geoglyph on the surface.

Where was the game first teased as an untitled sequel?

The full reveal, with a 2022 window, came at E3 2021.

By which month was the game reportedly complete, a year before Nintendo released it?

Nintendo delayed it a full year to refine it.

How long before release did a playable version leak online?

It circulated as a disk image.

Tears of the Kingdom was the first Nintendo-developed game sold at what US price?

The hike did not slow it: four million US copies in three days.

The game passed 10,000,000 sales within how many days?

That made it the fastest-selling Zelda game ever.

Roughly how many copies had the game sold worldwide by December 2025?

That ranks it eighth among the Switch's best-sellers.

In which month of 2025 did the enhanced Switch 2 edition arrive?

It added better resolution, performance and HDR.

What is the 2025 Switch 2 spin-off set in the kingdom's founding era called?

It released on November 6, 2025.

Which company developed the 2025 Hyrule Warriors spin-off?

Its AAA Games Studio mixed Zelda with Dynasty Warriors gameplay, as before.

In the 2025 spin-off, what does Zelda name the automaton powered by a Master Sword shard?

She names it for its resemblance to Link.

Which Wii game did technical director Takuhiro Dohta cite as an inspiration for new mechanics?

Skydiving over familiar locations was one lesson taken from it.

Developers originally used the ceiling-swimming ability for what purpose?

Aonuma and Fujibayashi used it to exit caves quickly during testing, then kept it.

What body-part theme runs through the game's mechanics, story and visuals?

It expresses the idea of connecting, from Link's new arm to joining hands with allies.

What was the most common technical criticism in reviews?

Critics said it showed the Switch's limits but mostly forgave it.

Who voices Ganondorf in the English version?

He had unofficially played the character years earlier in the web series There Will Be Brawl.

Aonuma cited which earlier Zelda game as unable to allow a seamless sky-to-surface descent?

Its hardware limited Link to diving from specific points.

Economists suggested the game's sales boosted consumer spending in which country?

It sold 2.24 million copies there in three days.