The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom got a big, rambunctious new trailer on Thursday, revealing all-new gameplay, story, and character details about Nintendo’s sequel to Breath of the Wild. But Nintendo still has some secrets to share, like a newly leaked ad for it Tears of the Kingdom And the game’s official website have revealed. The latter contains a small but tantalizing detail: Link’s journey begins in the skies of Hyrule.
According to the official Zelda website, the mysterious floating islands “that have suddenly appeared in the sky above Hyrule” are where players first take control of Link. “There, our hero will have to acquire new abilities before returning to the surface world to begin his epic adventure,” Nintendo says on the game’s website.
It is logical. Some of the earliest artwork – in which Link looks out from high above Hyrule – teased that, and trailers show the game’s hero doing a lot of diving to the land below.
Much has changed on the surface of Hyrule, says Nintendo: “Familiar locations have been dramatically transformed, with new towns, dank caverns and mysterious gaping chasms popping up all over the world.” Exploring the underground areas of Hyrule has also been teased from the start, with Link and Zelda apparently exploring caves where Ganondorf’s apparently mummified corpse resides.
But players can go deeper into the bowels of Hyrule than they expected. A video advertisement for Tears of the Kingdom shows Link surveying at a depth of -470 units below the surface, based on the coordinates at the bottom of his minimap. The Sky Islands have an elevation of about 1,500 units, indicating that Link will go deep underground.
While in that deep underground area, Link is seen shooting an arrow at a tree to illuminate the area around it. This seems to be a feature of Tears of the Kingdom‘s Fuse mechanic, where Link seemingly attaches a flower – perhaps a nightshade – to an arrow to create makeshift light sources.
That video also confirms that the three-eyed dragon Link faces is indeed a Gleeok. The video shows the name Fire Gleeok, so it’s possible there are other elemental types of the dragon in it Tears of the Kingdom. Whether related to the elements of fire, earth, wind and water, or simply the elemental weapon types Breath of the Wild (fire, ice, lightning) remains to be seen.
Soon everything will be revealed; The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrives on Nintendo Switch on May 12.