Tears of the Kingdom In-Depth Trailer Breakdown

Max Blumenthal (RinHara5aki) goes shot by shot over the newest trailer for BOTW's sequel, Tears of the Kingdom. From unused assets finally being used, old Zelda enemies being reimagined, and new attack animations, we go deep into what might happen in the highly anticipated sequel.

The February 2023 Nintendo Direct finally dropped the biggest trailer to date, while we STILL have NO clue what the game is actually about, they at least showed way more of Hyrule in this trailer than any other trailer to date. So, let's go back shot by shot, and break down everything we see here in the upcoming Tears of the Kingdom.

The first shots start off fairly slow, only showing us a couple new things. This angle facing Death Mountain from Mabe prairie shows more spiral patterns on the ground that we’ve seen in previous trailers. The lightning also has a slight green tinge, usually lightning has a more of an off white-ish color in Breath of the Wild so this may not be a normal thunderstorm. Throughout the trailer there are dozens of examples of strange boulders, piles of malice, and new buildings that repeat themselves, so I won’t go too much into it since we already know the land of Hyrule has changed quite a bit.

The military training camp next to Korok forest, without the Sheikah tower, is now infested with the new longhorn bokoblins, and a new flying enemy type seen in a previous trailer as well. Previously thought to be Kargaroks, these seem to be entirely new enemies. Since they seem to be plentiful in Hyrule by the amount of times they show up in this trailer, they’re likely to be our new common annoyance while traveling downwards or upwards, and we’ll likely get into lots of aerial combat with them.

The area between Tabantha and Hebra range is shown next, with two shining towers attached with spotlights. We also get a closer look of a circling storm surrounding Hebra Peak. With another ground design seen again from previous trailers, the purpose for all of these still goes unexplained. Do keep in mind these tower’s shapes and colors though, because you will see them again later in the video. One thing to point out is that Vah Medoh is missing from its perch here above Rito Village, and we still don’t know what happened to the Divine Beasts.

It starts to pick up a bit here, as we get to see some strange ground formations that are completely unique from Breath of the Wild. Besides this square platform here, and the ground symbol from the previous shot, you can see this structure North of Gisa Crater sitting on top of Cuho Mountain with a center and sections that jut out in different directions. This is interesting because this is the largest new structure we’ve seen on the ground floor so far.

This is when it starts to get interesting. With every trailer underground exploration became teased more and more, and now it is a confirmed reality. In this shot we see a Longhorn Bokoblin with a backpack and rock hammer chipping away at a regular ore. While we can’t see upwards to confirm the cavern ceiling, you can pretty much confirm it from the background audio here, which has reverb to match its cave setting, which will be a new addition audio wise since even Breath of the Wild’s underground location did not account for this kind of audio. You can also see Longhorn Lilzalfos equipped with throwing spears and Lizal Bows, and covered in rising malice, likely all empowered by the new villain. There are also new po ols of malice that line the ground as well. Besides the new vegetation and alien looking trees in the background, blue fire dots the ground to the right side. These will-o-wisp type fires could possibly be Poe, but are more likely something seen before in Twilight Princess, souls as seen in the Twilight Realm. We have seen multiple Twilight references along with Skyward references in previous trailers, so we’ll see how this all connects.