Sad Zelda Dad is still playing Tears of the Kingdom, but his marriage is doing better

If, like me, you were a little overinvested in the sad fate of the central character in one of Nintendo’s launch ads for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Realmso here’s some balm for your soul: Sad Zelda Dad is back, and things are looking up for him.

Nintendo Australia has made a sequel to ‘Rediscover Your Sense of Adventure’, the viral advert featuring an extremely tired middle-aged office worker whose work and travel exhausted him and left him little time to communicate with her family. Alone in a dark living room, Sad Zelda Dad started Tears of the kingdomand immersing himself in his magical world rejuvenated his outlook on life.

In the new sequel (titled “Decide Your Own Path”), Sad Zelda Dad is still playing the game, five months later. He didn’t even buy much better equipment for his Link. (It’s another example of the realism that earned the original ad its partly ironic reception: In the real world, extremely tired fathers, like our hero, play video games in bursts of about half an hour per week.) But there is a big difference: this time, his wife, instead of wishing him good night and disappearing, is sitting next to him on the sofa.

However, Sad Zelda Dad still isn’t very good with Ultrahand. His wife steps in to help find a solution at the sanctuary. They hear the familiar tinkling of the piano and mutually rejoice in this shared accomplishment. Cut to the kitchen the following evening. Finishing the dishes, Sad Zelda Dad, who has taken off his work clothes for once, smiles as his wife heads to bed again. But wait, twist! — she actually went looking your own Switch so she can play too Tears of the kingdom on the couch next to him. And she found an alternative solution to the same sanctuary puzzle, because she’s better than him.

“Good,” says Sad Zelda Dad, who doesn’t seem very sad anymore.

Once again, Nintendo Australia’s advertising confirms my own personal experience that the path to marital harmony runs through two Switches and two copies of Tears of the kingdom. Oh, and sharing interests, finding time for each other, not letting work rule your life, all that. As the man said: nice.