Tears of the Kingdom was officially titled and dated by Nintendo last week, and fans have been combing through the new trailer, looking for clues that point to the content in the next mainline Legend of Zelda game. Today I’m going to go through the trailer with you in minute detail, and pick out 10 details you may have missed from the latest trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Before we get stuck into the video today, let me know in the comments what you are looking forward to about Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, and what details did you notice in the trailer that got your attention?

Without further delay let’s dive into 10 things you may have missed from the latest Tears of the Kingdom Trailer.

10 Device attached to Link’s hip

The Sheikah Slate was one of our main items in Breath of the Wild, which gave us access to various runes to control gravity, stasis and magnetism. This time Link appears to have something else attached to his hip, or perhaps attached to the Sheikah Slate itself. Now Link has some cylinders attached to his hip, some with a liquid inside and some not. It could be this is a new addition to the Sheikah Slate, or perhaps separate from the Sheikah Slate. Some have speculated this is going to be fuel or power for Link’s arm abilities, given he seems to have a strange new right arm. My money is on some kind of battery situation, where we have to go and collect whatever is in the vials, to power up the Sheikah Slate.

9 Tears

On the mural, we see this big new figure that’s surrounded by seven items. They appear to be quotation marks, runes or even perhaps ‘tears’ which are referenced by the title. On many Zelda adventures, we have to collect items, or we’re directed around Hyrule either by completing dungeons in previous games, or The Divine Beasts in Breath of the Wild. It’d highly likely we’re going to need to collect these seven runes or tears, that will help give us back power or level us up to take on Ganondorf, or whoever this large creature is surrounded by the seven items.

We have collected tears before in a Zelda game, in Skyward Sword (which appears to be linked to Tears of the Kingdom in many ways!). In Skyward Sword, we collected Scared Tears. The Sacred Tears are found within the Silent Realm of each respective region. The Tears of Farore are found in Faron Woods, the Tears of Din in Eldin Volcano, the Tears of Nayru in Lanayru Desert, and the Sacred Tears in Skyloft. To leave a Silent Realm and obtain a new item required to locate the Sacred Flames and later the Triforce, Link must collect 15 Sacred Tears that must be stored in the Spirit Vessel.

8 Twilight Realm

A big feature of the new trailer is the mural, which takes up roughly half of the trailer. This details a large being, surrounded by seven items. The very first opening scene is interesting, with Bokoblins and Moblins appearing to attack soldiers holding swords. There are lines along the ground which look very familiar, similar to designs found in Twilight Princess. The same lines appear in the logo for the bottom half of Master Sword, plus you have the design on Link’s arm. These lines or markings are similar to those found in The Twilight Realm in Twilight Princess, meaning we could be about to enter the Twilight Realm once again.

7 Skyloft connections

There have been many comparisons between Tears of the Kingdom and Skyward Sword in terms of design; for example, Link Skydiving looks very similar, plus another similarity is the floating islands above Hyrule. In Tears of the Kingdom, parts of Hyrule start to lift into the air, and it looks as if we’re going to be exploring not only Hyrule, but also the floating islands in the sky in this game. Skyloft was a floating island, albeit a large one, which was our original location in Skyward Sword. Tears of the Kingdom could be calling back to Skyward Sword in terms of design, but it could be something more. Tears of the Kingdom could be at the very end of the timeline, with Skyward Sword at the start, and the whole Curse of Link, Zelda and Ganondorf fighting through the ages could be a big circle. The sky islands that break off Hyrule and raise up into the sky here in Tears of the Kingdom could become Skyloft, which would have a major timeline and Zelda lore implications.

6 Link’s Right Arm

Link’s right arm is still modified here every time we see Link in the trailer. We’ve had a closer look at this before the E3 2021 trailer and the delayed trailer from 2022. With Link wearing his blue tunic, and other wrist armour, most of his arm is covered up, but we can still see those long fingernails. This is likely from the encounter we saw in the E3 2019 trailer, with Link and Zelda encountering what we think is Ganondorf under Hyrule Castle. It’s likely to be a very powerful magic that has attached to or transformed Link’s arm. What this magic is, or who it belongs to remains a secret for the moment.

5 Traversing the Sky

In the trailer, we see a couple of moments of action going on in the sky. First of all, Link opens up the big double doors and sprints towards the edge, sky diving off without much of a second thought. Later in the trailer, we see Link grab onto a piece of an island that’s going back up into the sky, although we’ve seen this type of animation or visual treatment before with Link ‘activating’ some kind of rewind feature. Back then it was rewinding a spiked ball going down a hill towards Link, and he used the abilities to send it back. This time it looks like a traversal method, with a piece of sky island that was dropping down, now going back up ointo the sky again and Link holding on for the ride.

4 Sky Mount

We are likely then to have a huge area to explore in Tears of the Kingdom. Hyrule on the ground, the Sky Islands above Hyrule and there’s going to be travelling up and down between them. We’re likely to have fought in the sky if the Nintendo patents are to be believed with various poses and postures for Link shooting arrows as he falls. We haven’t seen too much of the Sky Islands yet, although here we see Link regularly travelling up and down in the sky.

As well as fighting in the sky we’re going to have to travel large distances in the sky, and it looks like we have a sky mount. In the trailer we see Link diving through the sky from above, landing on a wooden wing vehicle of some kind. We don’t see Link call vehicle, but it looks like a deliberate landing from Link here, so before you land on the wing it’s likely you have to summon it. We’ve seen this done before with horses on the ground, and we could be about to do the same in the air.

3 Location shrouded in the clouds

When we see Link travelling upwards into the sky, in the background to the left we see a sky island or series of sky islands shrouded in dark clouds. It looks like there is a lightning storm there also, and this could be a location for a returning Dungeon in Tears of the Kingdom. Given we potentially have seven items to collect, as indicated by the runes on the tapestry at the start of the trailer, this could be one of the locations for a dungeon set in the skies of Hyrule.

2 Malice coming from Death Mountain

In the shot with Link falling to the ground, just before he lands on the wing to travel in the sky we can see a quick glimpse of Death Mountain. Only this time it looks like Malice is coming up and out of the top of Death Mountain. We have seen in previous trailers Malice bubbling up and out from below Hyrule Castle, and here it looks like it has spread to all four corners of Hyrule, completely disrupting all of Hyrule. Back in Breath of the Wild the Malice was most concentrated around Hyrule Castle, but if Death Mountain is erupting Malice, then who knows what kind of damage this has done to the rest of Hyrule.

1 Time is a circle

The logo for Tears of the Kingdom does give away some interesting clues to the theme of the game. The dragon eating it’s tail is an important design, it’s called an Ouroboros.

“The ouroboros or Uroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. The ouroboros entered Western tradition via ancient Egyptian iconography and the Greek magical tradition. The Ouroboros is often interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of life, death, and rebirth; the snake’s skin-sloughing symbolizes the transmigration of souls.”

This could be referring to Demise’s curse, where on being defeated by Link in Skyward Sword, he cursed Link and Zelda to face off against his hatred for eternity, which would eventually become Ganon. Skyward Sword is the first canonical game in the Legend of Zelda series, and Tears of the Kingdom could be the last game of the timeline, with all the other mainline entries taking place somewhere in the middle. The Zelda timeline is notoriously complicated with branches. Nintendo could be trying to tie all this together with a sensible narrative.

Let me know in the comments what you think of the Tears of the Kingdom Trailer, and let me know if I have missed any details you’ve been thinking about.

That’s it for 10 details you may have missed from the Tears of the Kingdom Trailer. For more Zelda content like this checkout Triforce Times on YouTube and subscribe today.