The story campaign is the main focus for any Legend of Zelda game, however, it could be time to add in meaningful endgame activities into the series. In Breath of the Wild we could finish up the Shrines and find all the Korok seeds, and the Zelda community have been making up their own end-game adventures. Today I want to look at what we can do after the story in Breath of the Wild, and what Nintendo could add to Tears of the Kingdom to give players reasons to come back time and time again.

Before we get into today’s topic, let me know in the comments if you want to see an endgame, or post campaign content in Tears of the Kingdom, and let me me know what kind of activities you want to see.

Breath of the Wild is a huge game, and it varies in terms of how much time it takes to go through it. On my first playthrough, it took me roughly 30-40 hours or so. I pretty much mainlined the game, didn’t do too much exploring, did the Divine Beasts and enough of the Shrines, then beat Ganon. Once I beat the game I spent a little time exploring, and finishing up as many shrines as I could find.

It was a memorable experience and it’s not really something you can repeat. Since the game first came out in 2017, I have played through Breath of the Wild again, a couple of times. I played through on Master Mode, plus played through the DLC. More recently I’ve been playing through for a third time, this time I am taking my time, I’m taking the complete opposite approach compared to when I first played it by exploring everything, and trying to find all the hidden stories, sidequests, korok seeds. My plan is to leave no stone unturned before I even think about going for the Divine Beasts.

I love the Legend of Zelda series, and I love spending time in Hyrule, however, when I finish the game there isn’t much left to do other than playing through the game again. We might be lucky, and Nintendo may release some DLC, although that’s not a given. I’d like to see more from Nintendo when it comes to supporting end-game or post campaign content to keep me in that world, especially when considering how long it takes for a new Zelda game to come out. It used to be a couple of years between releases (Majora’s Mask to Wind Waker was 2 years 7 months) but more recently it’s 5 or 6 years. That is a lot of time without a new Zelda adventure.

Breath of the Wild’s Endgame

Breath of the Wild does not have a great endgame. Once you have defeated Calamity Ganon and Dark Beast Ganon, then you go back to the point just before that fight, so if you want to explore the rest of Hyrule, then you are free to do so. There are sidequests, you can find all of the 120 Shrines and get the Classic Link armor. You can find all 900 korok seeds if you really want to. The shrines are probably the most fun post-campaign activity as at least you have a little direction, and the prize of a puzzle or somewhere new to explore as a prize or motivating factor.

We did get DLC content months after release, which included Trial of the Sword, Master Mode, The Hero’s Path and new armor. We then got more with The Champion’s Ballad, plus more armor sets. This is a good direction, but obviously this takes time and effort from Nintendo to keep making this kind of content.

Tears of the Kingdom was born because the Zelda team wanted to keep adding to Breath of the Wild, but they found they had too many ideas and too much content, so they decided to make a full sequel. If mainline Zelda games are going to continue to take 5-6 years to develop, then I would like to see a couple of years of support after the main game, post-campaign DLC updates, or other features that will keep players engaged.

How Nintendo could improve endgame in Tears of the Kingdom

One improvement to Tears of the Kingdom could be the introduction of New Game Plus. Master Mode was introduced in Breath of the Wild in their DLC expansion, however, it’d be great to see this feature added as standard so everyone can experience it via the base game. New Game Plus is an unlockable mode which becomes available after players complete the game at least once, and players often get to keep the items they acquired from their first playthrough.

Breath of the Wild is famous for it’s speed running comunity, and it’d be good to see Nintendo embracing this and adding speed running support in the game. I know players have software to calculate their split times and shwo that to their communities, but I would love Nintendo to embrace speed running and include these features as standard, and manybe offer incentives to players for speed running. I wouldn’t want this during my first playthrough, but it would offer up an interesting challenge post-campaign.

It’d also like to explore radomiser content. A Link To The Past is famous for it’s randomiser community and once again, it’d be good to see Nintendo embrace this and offer up a randomiser mode post-game for Tears of the Kingdom.

For a more traditional approach, Nintendo could offer us an Epilogue, much like we saw in Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s been reported that the Zelda team had been playing a lot of Red Dead Redemption 2 during the development of Tears of the Kingdom, and perhaps that influence could make it into the game. We could play as different characters, like Princess Zelda for example, or new side quests could open up.

I’d love to see more meaningful side quests, much like we see in The Witcher 3. These side quests were so good they were on par with the main story content. While good, the sidequests in Breath of the Wild weren’t as good as they could have been, plus the rewards for sidequests were often rupees.

I’d like to see more weapon quests. It’d be great to go off on adventures, and have to solve a number of steps including elements of travel, solving puzzles and having to defeat large and diffult enemies to get powerful weapons. Once we get these weapons, I’d like to see us able to invest in those weapons, and power them up over time.

Finally, how about co-op mode? We’ve all seen the videos of Breath of the Wild being modded to add two Links. A co-op mode added post-campaign would give you a big reason to go back and play with family or friends, and enjoy the experience all over again.

Let me know what you want to see from Tears of the Kingdom endgame, I’d love to hear from you.

That’s it for this look at why we need a better endgame in The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. For more Zelda content like this check out Triforce Times on YouTube and subscribe today.

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