Summary
- Prior to its release, critics dismissed Tears of the Kingdom as mere DLC for Breath of the Wild, but fans have since praised it as the greatest game ever made.
- TOTK already offers a massive amount of content, making additional DLC unnecessary and potentially detrimental to the game's experience.
- Nintendo's decision to release TOTK as a complete and polished game without requiring additional payments sets a great precedent for the AAA gaming industry.
Prior to the release of Tears of the Kingdom, many skeptics would revel in referring to Breath of the Wild's upcoming sequel as "$70 DLC." The reason for that was twofold: first, TOTK was not only based on the exact same version of Hyrule as BOTW with the same map, but it also carried over many of the same character models, monsters, and story beats as its predecessor. The second—but no less important—reason TOTK was being referred to as "BOTW DLC" was that the producer of the game, Eiji Aonuma, revealed in an early interview with Kotaku that TOTK first started as a series of ideas for BOTW DLC until developers realized they had more than enough new content to just make this into its own separate game.
Following the game's release, those calling TOTK "glorified DLC" all but vanished in place of fans calling it the "greatest game ever made" and the "game of the year." For every person who initially claimed they wouldn't buy TOTK because they'd never pay $70 for DLC, there was a person willing to pay even more money for additional TOTK content. In the end, neither side got its wish. Not only was TOTK far from DLC, but it looks like it won't even be getting DLC of its own. In both cases though, things have worked out for the better. For many of the same reasons the game can't be considered DLC, TOTK is even better off without Downloadable Content entirely.
RELATED: A Guide To Hateno Village In Tears of the Kingdom
There's More Than Enough To Do In TOTK Already
When The Master Cycle Zero was first revealed as DLC for BOTW, it seemed so out of place for many fans who had never seen that kind of modern technology used by Link in a Zelda game before. Fast-forward to today and the hovercrafts, vehicles, and mecha war machines players have built to torture Koroks in TOTK make a mere motorcycle seem tame in comparison. This coincides with many of the other features included in TOTK that actively improved on BOTW's initial concept. The world is over twice the size, there are several quality-of-life upgrades, and even fan-servicy additions that tap into the more traditional Zelda gameplay aspects many fans were missing in BOTW (like Gleeoks and elementally themed Temples).
TOTK is an extremely large game with a multitude of quests, secrets, and treasures to find, and simply beating the game doesn't quite cover everything. Even if players do 100% the game, there's always more to explore and do like discovering the endless hints to other games, exploring the depths, and of course, building ridiculous creations with Ultrahand. With everything the game already has in it, adding more content on top of that so early after the game's release could actually undermine the sheer magnitude of the main game's content. Players have grown increasingly accustomed to simply wanting more without appreciating everything a game already has to offer, but BOTW was a great example of a game that players could keep finding more to do in well after completing all the content in the game—DLC or otherwise. Given the fact that TOTK has even more in it than BOTW with its DLC included, adding more content on top of that really isn't necessary and could even prove detrimental. Anyone who spends an hour or two searching up the fascinating creations players have been pulling off with Ultrahand on Reddit or YouTube can safely say that the depth of the possibilities in TOTK's engine have only barely begun to be uncovered.
RELATED: Are Link And Princes Zelda In Love?
This Version of Hyrule Has Run Its Course
Even though the Zelda series has some great and memorable story moments, the games have always been more about the gameplay than anything else and BOTW's DLC was a great example of that. Its DLC wasn't as much about adding story as it was about adding interesting gameplay elements that could make the game more fun such as the Master Cycle and Travel Medallion. Things are different with TOTK though, because all of that is already in the game, and then some. Even the Depths almost function like a built-in Master Mode with more powerful enemies and the same sized map below Hyrule.
With that in mind, the biggest thing that could be built on in TOTK is its story, which left a bunch of plot holes and questions up in the air for fans who were willing to look a bit deeper. However, if history is any indication, the storyline has never been the central focus of Zelda games, and that's undoubtedly the case for TOTK, too. As a result, the Zelda Team wouldn't make DLC just to expand on the story, they would only do so if there were something worthwhile to add to gameplay that would make the game better. That being said, there really isn't anything else of great substance they could conceivably add to the gameplay in TOTK aside from more of the same. As it is, TOTK is already pushing the absolute limits of the Switch hardware, so adding any more could literally prove game-breaking. As Aonuma said in the same interview with Famitsu about TOTK's lack of DLC, they've already done everything they could with this version of Hyrule, so instead of just adding additional content it's better that they focus on something fresh and unique that could take Zelda to the next level.
RELATED: Twilight Princess Is Great, But The Wind Waker Is A Masterpiece
More AAA Games Need To Learn From TOTK
Prior to release, Tears of the Kingdom was a game that initially seemed plagued by release-date delays. At the time dubbed "BOTW2," TOTK was initially slated for a 2022 release, only to be pushed back to 2023. While the release-date delays seemed worrisome to fans at the time, in retrospect, this was the best decision Nintendo could have made. TOTK's devs reportedly spent that entire extra year alone polishing the game to make sure it ran smoothly with the least amount of bugs as possible. The result was a near-flawless release: a rarity in an age of less-than-perfect big game releases that require multiple patches and updates to become playable (e.g., , Cyberpunk, etc).
In fully polishing the game and putting out all of its content at once without added paywalls, TOTK and Nintendo did what other big companies are supposed to be doing but seem to have forgotten. Paying $70 for a fully polished, top-tier game with everything included at launch is much preferred over a $60 game that requires several patches and charges $30 extra for additional content after the fact. In many ways, it's an admirable position for Nintendo to take, as TOTK DLC would have been the easiest money they could ever make. In recognizing that this was not necessary and simply not doing it, they set a great precedent for AAA gaming.
TOTK is already more expensive at a $70 price tag, but that's well worth it for the fullness of the experience instead of hiding content behind an even higher paywall post-launch. Not every game needs DLC, and TOTK already stands on its own as the kind of complete, polished gaming experience that has been increasingly hard to come by these days.
RELATED: How Does Reincarnation Work In The Legend of Zelda?
DLC Still May Not Be Entirely Out Of The Question For TOTK
It's been a rough time for many Zelda fans following series producer Eiji Aonuma's recent announcement that there is no DLC planned for TOTK. However, while Aonuma and director Hidemaro Fujibayashi seemed to make it clear that it wasn't their focus right now, they didn't necessarily take the possibility of DLC in the future off the table.
Fujibayashi made it clear that he was already looking forward to the next game, but Aonuma's own statements at least left the possibility open for later. In the same Famitsu interview where he shut down rumors for planned DLC (translated by Eurogamer), in reference to TOTK's version of Hyrule, Aonuma did state that "if such a reason is newly born, it may return to the same world again." Whether he and the Zelda team decide to return to TOTK and BOTW's version of Hyrule or not in the future is seemingly up to fate at this point, but perhaps it's for the best if they don't. This late into the Switch's lifecycle, it seems only inevitable at this point that Nintendo will be looking toward their next-gen system in the coming year or so. With that being the case, it's likely in Zelda fans' best interests that the next stage for Zelda is already being developed with that new hardware in mind. Pushing the next game's development back to add more onto an already full and complete game like TOTK would only hurt fans more than it helps them in the end.
Nintendo proved the haters who initially claimed TOTK would just be DLC wrong by creating a game that is so jam-packed with content it doesn't even need DLC of its own. It's truly a poetic moment, and it could potentially set a great precedent for AAA developers going forward by proving that modern games can still be a singular, complete package upon release that are better off without the added fluff of unnecessary DLC.
