It feels like Zelda fans (myself included) are sitting back, buzzing with excitement and anticipation for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom release. The game isn’t even out yet, but judging by the trailers and our preview, it already looks big. Between its large cast of characters and the nearly endless opportunities to create using its sandbox elements, it looks like our adventure in Hyrule will be packed with things to do.
Although the game won’t be released until May 12, Zelda fans have been keeping busy preparing; there is breath of the wild Quest lines to brush up on and speedrun tricks to practice. In anticipation of the launch, Polygon spoke with four Zelda content creators and professionals about what they are doing to prepare. Read on to find out how world record sprinters and theory makers are gearing up for Nintendo’s big launch.
[Ed. note: These interviews have been edited for clarity and length.]
player5the current world record holder for the fastest breath of the wild sprint (any%)
What games, if any, are you playing and why?
I’ve been trying to push the limits of breath of the wild to see how quickly I can beat him before switching my focus to the sequel. Most of the time I’ll be doing Any% speedruns until Tears of the Kingdom comes out, but I’ve been working on several informative videos about breath of the wild speedruns and tricks to be ready to make that kind of content for Tears of the Kingdom. From what we’ve seen in the trailers, I think both the casual and speedrun experience will be full of exciting new mechanics.
Will you do any specialized playthrough?
I’ve recently been doing All Shrines sprints, where I end up exploring most of the map, but I’ve shifted my focus to the Any% sprint for the past few weeks. Any% has always been my favorite category, so I really want to try to push the speed limits. breath of the wild can get hit All Shrines has a lot of exploration and clever uses of glitches and cheats, and Any% has some really intense fights, like having to take on final bosses with 3 hearts and no armor. And I guess I recently did some All Kilton Medals speedruns that were pretty unique, as the goal there is to kill every mini-boss in the game as quickly as possible. So there’s really been a lot of variety in the categories that I’ve been running through to try to see everything there is to see. breath of the wild before moving on to the next game!
Is there anything you are doing besides playing to prepare for Tears of the Kingdom?
I have been avoiding lore and analysis videos. I watched all the trailers but I just want to play the game and find out what it’s about through that. i fell in love with breath of the wild mostly due to gameplay and exploration rather than world lore.
What are you most looking forward to personally in Tears of the Kingdom?
I’m looking forward to having new mechanics to explore. I think Fusion is going to be a lot of fun to play and should also factor in speedrun as it gives us really unique and powerful weapons. I can’t wait to fight Ganondorf with a very long stick.
linkus7sprinter and streamer
What games, if any, are you playing and why?
I have focused mainly on recovering The Wind Waker again. The speed race The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker It’s unique. It has some of the most intense speedrun tricks out there. These range from Zombie Hovering, where the player has to press the B button almost 15 times per second to skip certain sequences, to storage, where they must control super hovering very precisely, while making tons of perfect tackles.
I have also been recovering breath of the wild, to return to the speedrun cheats in the game. From Tears of the Kingdom shares the same engine as breath of the wildI think there will be a lot of overlap between the two games when it comes to skill.
Will you do any specialized playthrough?
When Tears of the Kingdom It’s coming out for the first time, I want to make sure I play the game first so I don’t ruin my casual experience by jumping into the speedrun too fast. But once I’ve completed the game, I’m ready to dive into speedrunning.
Is there anything you are doing besides playing to prepare for Tears of the Kingdom?
I am mainly focused on preparing for Tears of the Kingdom doing speedrunning and studying the mechanics of breath of the wildsince the engine is shared and much of the skill and practice will be transferred from breath of the wild to Tears of the Kingdom.
What are you most looking forward to personally in Tears of the Kingdom?
I’m really excited about the quick race aspect and the challenge races, but honestly, I’m really excited to play the game. I put over 100 hours into my first game of breath of the wild, and I have always wanted to be able to recover that experience; I have seen the underworld and the new parts of the overworld. [of Tears of the Kingdom], and it has me so excited to play the game. I really hope they include Korok seeds again because I was one of the few players to collect all 900 Korok seeds, and I want more of that LOL.
HM KILLERZelda Theory creator and YouTuber
What games, if any, are you playing and why?
i’m playing skyward sword, ocarina of timeand breath of the wild. I’ll be playing them because of their overall importance to all things Zelda and its connections to Tears of the Kingdom as well as giving the most context to Ganondorf and his origins.
Will you do any specialized playthrough?
Since I know these games from multiple walkthroughs, the runs will focus on exposing lore. As I play the games, I cover the stories, characters, enemies, and more of each title. I wouldn’t call them sprints, but since Tears of the Kingdom is just around the corner, I will try to spend as little time as possible completing these three games.
Is there anything you are doing besides playing to prepare for Tears of the Kingdom?
Aside from creating my own story videos, I’m reading all the official Zelda books again: Hyrulean history, arts and artifactsthe encyclopedia and create a champion so my mind is prepared for all the revelations and connections in this game!
What are you most looking forward to personally in Tears of the Kingdom?
Ganondorf and what happened to him from the past to the present. Ganondorf is such an important piece to Zelda lore, and his cognitive existence is bound to shed an incredible amount of light on the mysteries of breath of the wild and Tears of the Kingdom!
gymnast86Zelda speedrunner
What games, if any, are you playing and why?
My main preparation to enter Tears of the Kingdom is to be well practiced with the basic game mechanics of breath of the wildwhich I suppose will be the same in Tears of the Kingdom. I do some breath of the wild Any% Speedruns as part of my streams and I’m also playing the rest of the game offline to reacquaint myself with the world as much as possible.
Will you do any specialized playthrough?
Other than the aforementioned Any% speedruns, there are no specialized games that I have planned.
Is there anything you are doing besides playing to prepare for Tears of the Kingdom?
I’m also getting reacquainted with the internals of how dropdown tables for enemies and cooking work (specifically for elixirs and speed and attack dishes, as these will have the highest chance of being useful).
What are you most looking forward to personally in Tears of the Kingdom?
I really want to speed it up more. The time right after a new Zelda game comes out is always very exciting for speedrunning because we are all constantly learning new things about the game, which will make speedrunning vary a lot during that time. New strategies and optimizations will constantly be discovered and the rush to constantly drop times is great fun and good for the world of content creation.
