How high up will we go? - Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 

Let's not forget that there will likely be multiple underground areas as well. We saw that clip where link fights some worm thing in a cavern ceiling with a flamethrower shield. That could be in a cave in a sky island, but it could have also been in the surface. Hopefully we expand both upwards and downwards with where we can explore in Hyrule

Something that wasn’t mentioned in the video, but was implied, was that because of the connection between the Zonai and the sky islands, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Zonai ruins (and perhaps many other ruins) on the surface will open up or become more significant. I fully expect that many of the cool landmarks in BotW will have an expanded purpose in one way or another in TotK.

I hope we can ascend right to the edge of the atmosphere. Imagine a final boss battle where we can see Hyrule's blue sky morphing into starry space above.

I think we're being partially baited, Nintendo's showing off so many things that take place in the sky and semi-underselling the caverns below Hyrule that were revealed in the first trailer. I genuinely think that there will be more than meets the eye underground than all of us would expect.

Can we get much higher?

Really like the idea of the game’s goal being to reach the highest point in the sky. Imagine a post game unlock like the master cycle in BOTW being a loftwing and being able to fly anywhere previously explored.

Maybe the finale takes place in the highest island in the kingdom: Skyloft!

Pleasantly surprised with the amount of islands there are. Was worried that there wouldn’t be a lot. But it seems they really are all over the place, big and small

The developers have confirmed that the expanded World goes beyond just floating islands. I wonder where else we'll be able to explore, maybe the caves below hyrule, Islands further out to sea, the Lands Beyond the great canyon at the edge of the map from the first game, or all of the above.

Another thing to keep in mind about this: Nintendo has covered up or removed things from scenes first revealed in trailers before. It could well be that there are more sky islands (and creatures, enemies, people, etc.) than we've seen even in the relatively few shots they've shown us. The latest trailer also hints that at least some of the islands might actually be chunks of the earth ripped out and tossed into the sky to float there, much like how Skyloft was created by Hylia. We could definitely be looking at a lot more changes to BOTW's scenery than we might think 👀

My man out here breaking records with the amount of content he's getting up 🔥

Something id love to see would be like a secret island high up that is just the old abondened skyloft

Nintendo expanding upon a huge finished game world for almost an additional six years is very exciting. There’s likely to be so much new stuff and I think the changes to the familiar are going to be an underrated surprise.

I adore this idea! Just imagining ascending into the sky until there is nothing but clouds beneath... gives me good shivers. I've been wondering: does the mystery mural figure remind you of the Princess Mononoke deer god? Given how we already have a corrupted arm connection, there could be something here.

I love watching you analyze the different Tiers of the Kingdom

Gotta say, the execution of the background music in this video was superb. Really fitting the subject Zeltik was talking abou at the moment. (Also, Link must have some kind of super lungs if he can breathe that high up.)

In a way, that's actually the best option to make sure that even the most hardcore gamers of botw won't get bored. The surface would just be a step, something that we'll have to explore just a bit, before going up in the skies. Its always so lame and boring to do the same map again in 2 different games, and that's even worse if the games are open worlds

I'm eager to see what the lore has to say about the sky opening. What happened to the cloud barrier that separeted Skyloft/Sky Island from Hyrule/Overworld Surface. Becaouse apparently in Breath of the Wild the cloud barrier was still up.

Just wanted to say I really appreciated the use of the Stone Tower Temple theme when talking about exploring upward 👌

This is the definitive Zelda channel. Others were terrible during the content drought and this one managed to keep producing interesting content.

It's impressive how much content you can produce out of 1 minute of new footage. That's why I love this channel. Keep up the good work!

I believe there's something that we're not being shown yet and that would be underworld exploration. For the most part, I always thought of botw as something calm and relaxing at times, however this game is supposed to be darker than Majora's mask, so there's something that we're not seeing yet... In my opinion I don't believe sky exploration would make the game much darker...

Omg the idea of going higher up just open ups soo many options. Imagine going so high up that you reach the edge of space and can only continue in a space suit and then with lower gravity. Or going so high up that you reach Skyloft or what remains of it. Hell, we may even be able to ride Loftwings again at some point.

Great theory! I would love the idea of island explorations WAY up in the sky.

I don’t know a lot about game design or gaming power but could one of the reasons why this game’s production has been so long is in part due to trying to seamlessly integrate sky, land, and (presumably) underground in terms of transitioning from one domain to another?

Something that just came to mind for me was that the jump/vertical teleport feature may be completely different from the reverse tear drop that appears directly before it in that trailer. If it were the same, then (at least the way i think of it) Link would probably be the tear drop, yet the next shot clearly shows Link himself and not a droplet. It's possible that the tear drop actually has something to do with the new vials on Link's hip, or even the 7 tears that appear around the strange figure at the start of the newest trailer

Maybe tears of the kingdom will be an origin story of the islands in skyward sword, and the oroboros relates to the coming-full-circle of the storyline.

The last Zelda game originating from an idea for an expansion had the moon crashing into us. Now, we get to crash into the moon.

I could see it happening that islands move around a bit with story progress, maybe making some islands easier to access at certain points. Maybe defeating certain bosses adds some islands or reveals more islands as the malice becomes more powerful or angry. This would impact the concept of being able to access everything from the start though so maybe it just makes reaching some islands easier. It would also possibly explain some of the delays as they try to figure out how the islands should move correctly

Have we seen any settlements changed besides castle town's ruins? its possible theres more expansion to the settlements, parts of the world are being fixed but its not worth being part of the trailer, i can see TOTK being primarely about sky and earth being treated as complementary in terms of puzzling (i mean reversal boulder scene could literally be a common puzzle where you bring objects from ground to sky and sky to ground) also its possible the sky islands aren't always seen because maybe they reveal themselves based on which ones you found, it would make the clear skies in some trailers make sense since Link would be still yet to find some of them

I'm kinda hoping we'll find a Loftwing or similar later on and can fly through the air and down and up.

I recently found this kid at woodland stable and he talks about a kingdom in the sky (this is in botw btw). The kids name is shanmae and he says "good kids can see it! They can see the kingdom floating in the sky."

If done proper, this could well be both the realization of Breath of the Wild's ambitions, and Skyward Sword's. Despite being a rare 'part II' in the Zelda series, it could end up feeling like an 'ultimate' Zelda game. :)

I have this idea of what if some sky islands suddenly appear during gameplay? like what if we are in a cave and suddenly there's an earthquake and a piece of land in hyrule gets launched into the air?

THE TRIFORCE!! THE TRIFORCE IS REEEEEAAL!!

Higher and higher baby! I know when I first saw the giant barely visible island in the top portion of the panoramic shot at the end of the latest trailer, I realized the sky was going to take up a lot more physical space than I realized

They might handle performance by using clouds to cover up hyrule or different islands as you get higher, culling them out and seamlessly reloading them as you fall. Could be the reason you dont see all the islands, they're just too far above the clouds. Who knows

I bet ya the ocean and lakes will become a possible way to explore even more. Maybe swimming anddiving underneath the seas can reveal new locations and stuff too.

The stone flying machine could be referring to the loftwings ( or I just want really ride one again )

I think the reason the shrines and towers disappeared is because they no longer have a purpose for the hero of that era and are being preserved for the next.

I think it will be both. I think going higher will be a main theme, but I do believe Hyrule Castle is likeliest to house the final boss/objective given its history and focus in the previous trailers.

Zeltik, just wanted to say I love your stuff! Listening to your videos is very relaxing and intriguing at the same time. Your delivery and cadence have a lot to do with it. Best Zelda channel on YT, hands down. Well done as always. Looking forward to all your TotK videos for years to come!

Here's another thought. Maybe the stones Link uses to reverse back up were knocked down upon reaching certain islands to create a shortcut so you can explore the surface, then quickly and easily resume your climb back up.

I first found you in the build up for Botw. So excited to see these deep dives as we ramp up to Totk

It would be pretty cool if some of the islands (maybe just the smaller ones) moved around, keeping the game fresh and making traversing them a bit more interested

The games description reads, " *IN ADDITION TO* the vast *LANDS OF HYRULE,* the latest entry in the storied Legend of Zelda series will take you up into *THE SKIES* and *AN EXPANDED WORLD* that goes *BEYOND THAT* ..."

Dude link is gonna be so high in this new game

I think that rather than us actually going up super high, the cloud layer is a way of getting around loading screens for travelling exceptionally long distances.

I think we’re in for the return of Demise, the sky being explored for the first time in ages, Fi confirmed to be in the Master Sword, the Skyloft being one of the most obvious landmarks in BOTW, it all fits. I think Demise will be released from the broken Master Sword we’ve seen

I'm picturing a Terry Town-style quest where we recruit people for a new sky settlement and help them build it

I feel like the sentiment "is that it?" in regards to gameplay doesn't make sense as we do not know the changes to the surface, nor do we know how progression will work in this game. Will we port our Links from BotW? Will we start with X and Y abilities, skill or items? If we start from scratch, the surface, and all additions added to it sill have value for story plots, item gathering, and exploration.

Seeing that "seamless" transition between sky and land without any loading screens is honestly such a dream come true. One of my favorite things about skyward sword was funnily enough, the skydiving. It seems so odd and moot, it at most takes up maybe a MINUTE of total game time through out the entire game, but I loved that feeling of Link falling at terminal velocity towards the surface. It gave the surface another level of thrill and adrenaline. Likewise, in BOTW, I adored bringing link up to tall towers and using bombs to ragdoll him off. I will LOVE being able to get to the tallest point in TOTK and just skydiving all the way down.

Your already have like 100 videos abt this one min trailer 💀 HOW DO YOU DO SUCH A GOOD JOB?!

Me: vibing so hard with the SS and MM ost that I forget to listen to the content of the video not once, but three times XD. Great video as always, even if I did need to watch it three times haha!

I still think we are missing something big (the Sky islands all seem to be one biome so far), Anouma practically said as much. Wouldst be surprised if they were saving a bombshell for next year to really get the hype into overdrive closer to release.

i really hope there will be some villages in the sky, because it's the thing i loved the most about botw. Exploring new villages and making the side quests.

Maybe the castle is getting higher and higher and link needs to keep up? It would bring focus towards the castle, which does seem at least quite important based on the trailers but also ties in the new verticality

The Sky Islands also distinctly resemble the Golden Realm as it was shown in ALTTP's manual, and in BOTW, the dragons are heralds of the Golden Goddesses and both come down from the sky each night and return to it each morning. I am 100% sure the Triforce is going to be involved in Tears.

Imagine if we come to a point where we reach the top of the atmosphere, seeing nothing but the sea of clouds and the moon above...and then maybe as a twist, when we return to the surface, Hyrule has been utterly messed up beyond imagining due to the Malice. I also imagine we'll be having underground mazes based on footage from previous trailers, so maybe those green symbols in Hyrule's overworld lead there.

Thank you for covering the *tiers* of the Kingdom of Hyrule from sky islands to caverns deep in the past few videos. I hope that the homophone wordplay is intentional in the title, especially since there have been raindrop reverse footage in the trailer, calling to tears falling from the sky and even the erosion that rain/water makes to form structures in caves.

I hope there will be the ability to jump from the highest point in the world to the very bottom of the gerudo tower pit. That would be incredible

It’s been theorised that some of the islands aren’t accessible and become available after a certain event has been triggered/completed. This explains in story why the islands weren’t there initially and one some islands exist in one shot and not another.

Ahah! But aren't we all forgetting something? The focus of the first trailer was underground and Zelda fell into a dark abyss and what do tears iconically do? They fall. Even in all this sky island marketing, the rising up generally is restricted to a few small clips while much more focus is placed on going down. I think aside from sky islands, there is a chance there will be some proper deep dark depths to explore too. Actual dungeons... Dare a man dream.

I think being able to swim underwater isn't a primary focus of totk, but it would be a new way to explore the world in a way we havent before, without needing to change the terrain. The bodies of water are already there, just need to add in some underwater content to explore. A lot of content would open up with this feature. I know the main focus is on going up into the sky, and to a lesser degree exploring a potentially vast cave system below hyrule, but overall it would be nice to explore the already explored surface in a new way.

I seriously hope this game adds more dungeons and makes them "proper" Zelda dungeons.

5:07 Why do the islands' locations have to be static? Since none of them seem to have lifted from the ground (as Hyrule Castle did), they had to move into view from somewhere unless the mcguffin conjures them from thin air. If so, it makes sense that they move around in the air as well. This also makes use of the day-night cycle: the islands could be in certain positions at certain times of day, and part of accessing them is figuring out what location you need to be in when to access which island.

Tears of the Kingdom bout to be higher than Snoop Dog

Pretty sure they are still holding back lots of information. We still have 9 months of promotions, and we still need at least 2 full 3 minute trailers. They didn't reveal Cappy from Mario Odyssey until the final trailer, and he's incredibly important

During Skyward Swords development, there were rumors that supposedly you would fall to the surface while fighting the final boss. So, like a freefall battle. Maybe that was a genuine leak from earlier in development that never materialized and now we will see things like that in this one. Maybe the tech on Wii couldn't handle it so we get it now.

It's funny looking at this in retrospect. The prerelease marketing made us question how high we could soar, when the real question was "how low can we dive?". I do have to wonder if the focus on the depths were actively hidden from us to preserve the surprise, or if the visuals of the darkened depths just made for poor trailer material.

I hope Link can dive now - we need the full experience here

In BotW, if you went up to certain heights (while gliding/riding) in the air, the temperature would suddenly drop, and Link would begin to freeze (if he didn't have the proper garb/meals/elixirs). Considering just how high some of these islands appear to be, Link might run the risk of nearly freezing to death (or passing out due to thin air) just about every time he's up there exploring (and we've already seen one or two ice/snow covered islands in the recent trailer). On the other hand, depending on just how DEEP some of the new Cave Systems are, Link might run the risk of suffocation, being melted into goo, and/or being crushed to death due to some of the extreme pressures down there. It would also be nice to finally explore the depths of the lakes, bays, and oceans around Hyrule (if Link is finally given the ability to properly swim underwater).

man, with all this map verticality i hope they give us the hookshot back botw made me miss it real bad

I don’t know if you noticed this in any other videos but for the stone depiction of Zelda in the trailer if you look at her eye it’s replaced by a Yiga clan symbol almost

This game could be something really special. They've already ensured a masterclass in horizontal exploration using BotW's Hyrule as a starting point, if they put as much focus and depth into vertical exploration, oh my god. Veritcal exploration however means also being able to go _down_ from your starting point. I'm all for the skies being the main focus, but here's hoping for some deep, mysterious underground sections too.

I think we'll be exploring the Sky, the surface, underground and underwater. I also think the draw from looking down to the surface from the Sky Islands hides possible things that will come into view or pop in as we get closer to the surface. I'm wondering if re exploring the surface will be more about looking for subtle things like that massive hole in the yiga clans den where master Kogha fell, or a sand storm in the desert uncovers an entrance into arbiters grounds and so on, activating something in the sky islands might effect things down below unveiling new dungeons and so on. There are so many possibilities, hope Nintendo really gives us something special. Lastly, expanding the boarders would be great as well. Roll on May 2023

How high up will we go ? Zelda : Two mining carts

I really like the theme of “climbing to the heavens” I hope that’s the marketing of this game lol

My question is where did the divine beast go did they disappear like the towers and shrines something that massive had to of gone somewhere?

Something you didnt mention in this video is how at 4:40 to 4:41 when the camera is panning around you can see multiple large islands ABOVE the giant building structure in the air. So if that island is super high up, theres even more above that one as well

can we get much higher

High enough that a space ship crashes into one of those fancy skyislands. And low enough that we might go into a ravine.

It's so surreal watching this now, after Tears of the Kingdom's release. Zeltik got some wrong, but got a lot right!

The way the castle stands out in the world of Tears of the Kingdom reminds me of the dark Ganon Castle in Ocarina of Time.

Someone already commented this but CAN WE GET MUCH HIGHER?

Some sky islands could be really high up but they could also move. If rock formations can float in the sky its possible that they could move too.

Ewww commonwealth is the worst zelda tuber, so much clickbait.

It's great seeing people theorise about all the small details shown in the trailer. You're gonna be pleasantly surprised.

When link is climbing the sky island in the Spetember 2022 teaser, the roots of the tree are identical to that of the trees in Faron.

the buds of the ranger constructs are the same egg shape of the lights around the monks in BOTW shrines

High enough to reach the actual heaven, letting Link meet with King Rhoam and the Champions.

No matter what we do end up getting, I think it's incredible that they have managed to not only keep the original breath of the wild map, but expand on it. It's just impressive that the switch can even do that, especially at the fps we have seen in the trailerz

the tears in the last trailer are structured like this: * * * * * * * maybe this symbolizes that you need to go higher to reach the final one

I'm sure theres alot more to the world than what we can see in the trailer, I like the idea that theres more islands higher up that we can't see above the clouds, kinda like how skyloft was in skyward sword. But did these islands come from the surface and left craters? Or did they appear there from say the sacred relm due to some event? Either way it sounds like there is an underground area below the surface, since we have already seen ganon awaken in a cave, hyrule floating above some hole, and death mountain has malice spewing out of it, and there is more than likely other locations like this in hyrule. I cant wait for this game its going to be crazy.

The floating islands have spikes on the bottom like they're tears dropping up from the kingdom (with that sheikah tech to move things back in time). Maybe the green spirals/cones underground (as seen in the first trailers) are what makes these islands go up in the sky since that shape is part of the drops. 7 tear-shaped icons in the latest trailer might be 7 underground dungeons that once you complete them go up in the sky to create new floating islands. Or they've added something similar to sheikah shrines underground that ends with a mummy (similar to BotW's monks) and each of these create a new teardrop, i.e. a new floating island. So you create the islands in the sky throughout the game! :)

There's totally going to be an underworld that can be accessed from empty spots where pieces of land raised up to the sky.

Between many landmasses being elevated, and chunks of said landmasses no doubt falling as things crumble, it's only natural that there'll be changes in the environment. I just thought I'd bring up that (astoundingly obvious) point.

Couple things that may have been previously mentioned. 1. What we can see in the trailer(s) may be the same as what we see in the outer rim of BotW, meaning there's terrain there but inaccessible. 2. This is a teaser trailer, a simple glimpse of what lies ahead. It's not enough footage to make any concrete speculations. I've been pondering this new trailer since it was shown. A new(er) world that I have to patienlty wait to explore. Thanks for your video Zeltik, and thank you for your corroboration with Commonwealth Realm. :)

A good thought, imo. It's also worth mentioning that the part of the trailer where Link is climbing a root shows a very different location than the sky islands. It also seems like the "island" itself is made of a different material than the sky islands. I believe this to be a location underground, rather than in the sky. If so, when combined with some of the things we've seen elsewhere, I believe we might also be going deep undergound. The more I think about it, the more I wonder: what if we'll be doing some sort of world manipulation? Such as having to first release the sky islands from underground or, vice versa, causing the sky islands to fall down to Hyrule? That may start to explain some of what we're seeing here and why this game has been taking such a long time to make. I don't want to get my hopes up, but I also kind of will, because they really should understand how important it is for them to make this game worth playing lol.

There will be: 1. Sky islands--several layers of them. 2. Cave systems--massive ones that go deep underground. 3. A dark world that changes the whole of the overworld. 4. Areas where Link can shrink to Minish size. The area will seem tiny until Link shrinks. Then they will seem huge. 5. Many areas to explore around the original Hyrule from BOTW. 6. Massive themed dungeons that will take hours to complete. 7. Boobs.