The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Official Trailer 2 Breakdown and Analysis

Nintendo unveiled their latest trailer for The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom yesterday in their February 2023 Nintendo Direct. This was the longest trailer we’ve got so far, coming in at around 2mins 18secs, and it was jam packed fuill of details. Today I’m going to recap the trailer, then we can go through frame by frame looking at all the details, plus we’ve got a confirmation of the release date, collectors edition and some classic Zelda Gameboy games coming to Nintendo Switch too.

Before we get into it today, let me know in the comments what you thought of the latest Tears of the Kingdom trailer. Stick around until the end of the video where I go through your comments you sent to me on a post immediately after the Nintendo Direct.

We’re going to dive into some deep analysis today, but before we do that, lets have a look at the trailer itself.

We start out in the trailer with the rain, thunder and lightning. The camera pans out and overlooks hyrule, and we can see one of those green swirls, which we have seen before. Back in the first trailer in 2019, we saw one of the green swirls above Ganondorf’s corpse, and here we see one on the Hyrule land.

In the next shot we see some new enemies. They are flying enemies, which look like cross between bats and frogs. They have a large wingspan, and this is clearly a new enemy type in the game. It makes sense we have more flying enemy types, given we’re likely to be spending more time in the air in this game traveling up and down from the sky islands.

Next we see a wide shot of Hyrule, and we can see two glowing Towers. We’re far away from the Towers, and it’s not clear if they are the same Towers from Breath of the Wild, or these are something different. They are lit from the ground, but also glowing in the centre. We can also see in the background a glowing etching on the ground, which looks like it’s created on the surface of Hyrule. We did get a glimpse of this before with the name reveal trailer, when Link was riding his air wing.

The music is dark and ominous, but we see a shot from a sky island, looking down on Hyrule itself. We cut to a shot of enemies mining, it looks like Lizalfos and a Bokoblin, one of them is hammering some material stuck in the rock. It’s not clear where this is… it could be underground, given it’s very dark. To the right hand side we have blue flames, which we have seen in the game before representing spirits.

Next we have a couple of important details. We hear a voice say “Rise, Rise my servants, sweep over Hyrule, eliminate this Kingdom and her allies, leave no survivors”. This is very likely to be Ganondorf, and we’ll get to more of him later on.

Also very important, when we first hear the words “Rise”, in the shot we can see the Hylian Bridge, and on that bridge it appears to be a three headed dragon. This isn’t one of the mystical dragons Dinraal, Farosh, or Naydra, this Dragon is a different shape. I don’t know if it lives on the bridge, or if it roams the world, but this could be an indication of world bosses, much like we had Lynels in Breath of the Wild. We have seen 3 headed Dragons in The Legend of Zelda before, called Gleeok. This 3 headed dragon was in the original Legend of Zelda, plus the Oracle games and The Minish Cap. In the same shot we can see Malice puring out of the top of Death Mountain, which now appears like it’s overflowing with Malice.

We see a shot of Hateno Village, and once again we can see a green swirl in the middle. These could be warp points, or definitely points of interest in the game, most likely related to Link’s new abilities.

Next we see Link looking up at a Blood Moon. The Blood Moon was an important cycle in Breath of the Wild, where Ganon’s power is strong, and Princess Zelda struggling to hold him back. We saw the demise of Calamity Ganon at the end of Breath of the Wild, but given we have a full Blood Moon here, and it’s looking even more deadly than ever, it appears as if this is signaling the return of Ganondorf.

Projectiles of Malice shoot from somewhere, at first it looks like it’s coming from the Blood moon, but the angles aren’t clear. We see a huge explosion, followed by the ground crumbling, and Hyrule Castle raising into the sky. Bokoblins are being hit by this projectile Malice and it appears as if they are being transformed, and they also have spiked horns coming out of the middle of their heads. We see more enemies get hit by Malice, and perhaps a couple of new enemy types in here too.

Link gallops by on his horse. Then we move to a shot of Link standing in a blue circle, which has a Sheikah symbol underneath his feet. He’s surrounded by what looks to be Guarian legs, machanical, reaching arms or legs with pincers looking to grab, and likely cause harm to Link. We see more bokoblins and a Hinox chasing Link, and then Link running and jumping off a ledge in Hyrule in classic Link style, using his glider to full effect.

We see Link battling a huge boss, which appears to be made from cubes, Link backflipping out of the way before this huge creature slams it’s fist into the ground. Ganondorf’s corpse is reanimating, sitting up, then we cut to a shot outside Hyrule castle with Malice bursting from the ground, propelling Hyrule castle into the air. We see Ganondorf standing on a ring, arms raised, rising into the air, followed by a close up of his eyes glowing red. I think if we had any doubt that Ganondorf would be back, we can forget it. Not only is he back, he seems pretty angry!

Princess Zelda then says “But Link, I’m not sure you’ll be able to stop him”. I am assuming she’s talking about Ganondorf here. What exactly happens in that scene where Link and Zelda find the Ganondorf corpse is unknown at this time, but we’re getting more and more clues as to what is going on.

Link then dives from a sky island, eyes closed and falling. He’s using a bow and arrow, which appears to home in on enemies, which is a new arrow type we haven’t seen before. Link then grinds on some railings using his sheild as skateboard or surfboard.

Next up is very interesting. Link is using his right arm, and projecting green magic out of it and appears to be controlling some kind of puzzle piece. He’s up in the sky on one of the Sky islands. Given we have seen Shrines yet, it could be that the Sky Islands replace shrines and we have to explore Hyrule and solve puzzles here on the sky. That’s not confirmed, just looking what what we have here in front of us. I don’t think we’ve seen the shrines, and they were such a big part of Breath of the Wild, given you had to explore and find them. The sky islands would work a little differently, because you can easily see them in the sky. We’ll have to wait and see what happens here, but Link looks like he’s solving a puzzle with his right arm and green magic.

Link then uses some kind of canonball projectile throwing device, which explodes onto some rocks. We’ve seen Link use a flame thrower, now we’re seeing him throw explosives, so it’s good to see some new items or weapons to use in Tears of the Kingdom.

We then see a mystical creature, which looks like it could be a spirit of some kind. Perhaps it’s Princess Zelda? Maybe she died, and now she’s a spirit? Link appears to be holding out his right hand, this ‘new’ right hand with the long nails, holding the hand of this mystical creature. This could be a dead Princess Zelda, or it could be a manifestation of the Godess Hylia herself, reaching out to Link and lending her power.

Link is looking up into the sky, looking through his fingers, clenching his fist, extending his fingers, looking in wonder at his right hand… so perhaps this is the moment where he gets his new abilities. We cut to Link using his new powers, raising something out of the water. This looks very similar to the magnesis power from before, although this time perhaps things don’t need to be metal. This appears to provide confirmation Link doesn’t have a sheikah slate, and instead he’s using his right arm related to runes, or whatever replaces runes and their abilities. Nintendo could attempt to simplify it all down into a couple of powers, btu we’ve seen Link use the green magnesis replacement a couple of times.

Next up we see a shot of Link driving a car or vehicle of some kind. It appears to have four wheels, two headlights on the front and what appears to be an energy cell in the middle. We also see a show of a hot air baloon, although we can’t see who is riding in it. We move onto another sky vehicle, this time what looks to be a sky car. Link is way up high in the sky. The car on land and the vehicle in the sky do look similar, so it could be we’re about to get some kind of build your own vehicle situation in a Zelda game, which is kind of wild.

Finally we see a shot of the Malice bursting from Ganondorf’s coprse chest, and this is what attacks Link. We see Link in anguish, half his shirt has been burnt off, his arm scorched and burnt. Link dives down and reaches out to Princess Zelda… and we hear the phase “Please, lend him your power”. We end with Princess Zelda falling, Link desperately reaching out to her.

Who is Princess Zelda speaking to when she says “lend him your power”. Is that Godess Hylia, is that the being from the name reveal trailer in the tapestry?

It looks like the introduction to the game is shaping up. This isn’t confirmed, but putting all the pieces together, Link and Zelda find Ganondorf’s corpse, Malice erupts from Ganondorf causing an earthquake, killing Princess Zelda and mortally wounding Link. Ganondorf instruct’s his new malice infuses minions to destroy Hyrule, and Link is given new mystical green powers which he can control through his right arm. We have beat back the dark forces in Hyrule, and perhaps find a way to resurrect Princess Zelda from death. Previously we’ve always had to save Princess Zelda, but this time, can she be saved?

Veyr exicting stuff. Nintendo managed to show a lot in that trailer, but also not give too much away. The release date has been confirmed at 12th May 2023, plus we’ve got a collectors edition to look forward to, if that is your thing. you can sign up to register your interest in the collectors edition via the Nintendo Store, just head to the Nintendo website, search zelda tears of the kingdom, and you’ll find links to the collectors edition there.

Espen Selé

I bet it will be possible to ‘build’ vehicles by putting objects with different properties together. Also; is there a dark world now? Ganondorf’s voice was a bit generic.

browneyes89

I think the mural in the other trailer wasn’t what happened in the past. It’s a prophecy.

Crunchy Cookie

I don’t even have any additional thoughts yet I’m just too excited I can’t get over it

Callnight

I really wantthe collectors edition, but i am afraid it might be sold out by the time i get the chance…even if its on launch day

Yeti Master studios

can’t wait

Let me know in the comments what you thought of the trailer, and also of the breakdown too. Let me kno if you think I missed anything, it’d be great to hear your theories too!

That is for this look at the The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Official Trailer 2 Breakdown. For more Zelda content like this check out Triforce Times on YouTube and subscribe today.