Unused BotW Concepts / Ideas for Tears of the Kingdom 

The whole ‘pointless things I want the horses to do’ is THE cutest thing ever and I hope it makes an appearance in TOTK

One of my favorite little bokoblin quirks is when they're hunting wild animals, sometimes they're so immersed in it that Link can walk right past them and they won't even notice him

I think it is so sad to think about Link’s family. Like we know he had a father and possibly a sister. They either perished in the calamity along with Zelda’s father or died waiting for Link to wake from his slumber :( also the fact that the house link buys could be his childhood home hurts sm

I love the idea of the giant fossils coming to life and attacking you.

I still would love to see them do an old, veteran link for a darker Zelda game. It could be a Link we have played as before, or a new one.

Somewhere in eastern Hyrule Field, there's a monster base that looks like a life-sized Dark Beast Ganon skull. It's surrounded by bog, so don't fall in. Not only does the shape resemble DBG, but there's a hole at the top of the skull about where the Malice Eye pops out for the final death blow to end the fight. Edit: and if I just waited 10 more seconds, I would have seen your similar theory. My theory on this is that the skull at Bottomless Swamp is the remains of the DBG fight from 10,000 years ago.

5:50 Not many people realize this, but there's a mechanical reason there aren't "sword techniques" in BotW. The game is intentionally non-context-sensitive. Meaning, all buttons have ONE action, and there are none to few CONTEXT that alter those actions. The only exceptions to this is that the A button is also mapped to opens doors, initiates dialog, and item-pickup. Otherwise, all actions are straightforward. It wasn't an accident that the A button doesn't have a "mine ore" action when you are close to rocks, or "chop wood" action when you go near a tree with an axe. It's intentionally seamless. There is no question what will happen when you press a button. This is also why there isn't a single minigame in BotW that locks the player into a new control scheme. To make combat melee-centric in TotK, and add context-sensitive attacks would undermine the core of the overall mechanics. It would create a _dissonance_ that BotW artfully lacked. In this sense, you could say BotW is more like a PHYSICS SIMULATION with combat than a combat game with physics. Mechanically speaking. This is an important distinction, and integral to the game's feeling over other games.

14:16 The aliens weren't entirely scrapped. They were replaced by the Talus enemies, as shown by how often they appear in craters.

It’d be crazy if all the big skeletons around aside from the leviathans were representing the failed attempts of Ganon coming back. I hope they use those as beast Ganon attacks. 9:10

Don’t mean to be that guy, but actually that original champion next to the Kokiri was meant to be a Sheika, not a Gerudo. That’s why they had a Hookshot like weapon, it’s a callback to Ocarina of Time, the Hookshot is found in Kakariko’s graveyard.

I'd love a story where Link regrets remembering his past, learning everyone he once loved is now dead. I don't think it'd work anymore, with all the moving forward stuff, but it'd flesh out Link as a person, instead of just being a blank slate.

If TOTK ends up having an underground world, I would love to see a revamped version of the mogmas, subrosians, and dekus, where they look gruesome but are friendly tribes

So funny seeing what you got right. "Use objects in the environment for combat""rededs, wallmasters," "new technique you can learn (earthquake thing)" "they could've done more with the wolf link companion concept"

17:05 It's worth mentioning that in Age of Calamity, Octo-Polishing becomes something you can do with a Blacksmith!

I really like the leviathan idea. I’ve been wanting to know more about the species as a whole, and the manner of their extinction. It would be quite exciting to see one take form either via malice or finding one that is still alive. Also an answer to the mystery of the owners of the random half skeletons found in various places on the map would be nice. The lack of skulls makes it hard to determine to whom they belong, but I’m sure that they tie to something. If there is one thing that I love about BOTW, it’s how much it allows the player to determine their own way of finding their own conclusions to the mysteries and puzzles woven into the game.

I think it's cool that's Hinoxes were supposed to do somersaults as one of their activities considering they do it as an attack in Age Of Calamity, so the idea was still used in something based on Breath Of The Wild.

One thing I'd like to point out with the possibility of the green energy acting as a sort of magic bar for the new abilities is that only sometimes does the hand glow green. Every time you see the stasis like ability, it's a golden glow and the hand itself remains the same, however when you see Link using the phasing ability, the hand actually does glow green, therefore my guess is that there will be a selection of rune abilities that work on a timer like BOTW, but certain more useful or powerful abilities will require the use of the green energy as a sort of limitation.

I really want that the Green Wild Tunic have some context in the story of Tears of The Kingdom, in Breath of The Wild they never say what is the propourse of the garb, and that's strange because the Tunic is in Smash Ultimate, witch means It is a important one.

With the new info we got some of the unused concepts make even more sense. too bad the Minish didn't make the cut. I would have loved to see the fairy queen again, it was a very interesting character in TWW.

OK this is like one of the few or many theories that I actually have that I’ve been like trying to get everyone else’s attention on and it’s actually a more newer one so this theory of mine is that the island that Terry town sits on is where skyward swords great tree once stood with the landscape surrounding it eroded away and having the lake to expand truly turning it into lake Akkala a truly mere shadow of its former glory and I still believe that it was a great great great ancestor of the Deku tree still being used as a home currently known today as Terry town… now I just got myself a little bit emotional from it

A lot of these items you mention (castle town, weapon polishing, etc) made their way into the 'prequel' - Age of Calamaty

I would like to see the Twilight Realm (and Twili) come back. I'd also like to see Deku Scrubs back as an ally society (like in Majora's Mask).

Can’t believe you didn’t mention the the skeleton around Dark Beast was the same pattern as the arm! Especially around the rib cage, you can see the dark and lighter green swirls with the yellow accents!

when you said that his family would be dead in totk, that might not be true, since the average hylian lifespan is over a hundred, and impa seemed to be like in her 20s or 30s or something in age of calamity, and she was still alive 100 years later in botw, so since links sister seems to look at most 12, she could still be alive out there.

Personally I would love a ruined Skyloft, even though that's unlikely. Skykeep fell to the ground with the goddess statue but Skyoft and all the other islands did not. Just a crumb of Skyward Sword would feed me.

So excited for Tears of the Kingdom! Thanks for the amazing videos as always NBC!

I'd love to see the backstory of Ganondorf, where his mother is Gerudo and his father is Zonai (linking together the red-haired Barbarian outfit design). Perhaps an in-game entity/spirit feels so distraught over how Ganondorf turned out that he decides to help Link in his quest to stop the king of evil. Lots of potential to give Ganondorf more depth, and it helps to reiterate that the Gerudo seek mates elsewhere. This could also open up a bunch of side quests that focus on plot/backstory.

I think it would be really cool if they did an overworld Underworld juxtaposition. Keep the overworld very similar to the feel of the original game, but then have an Underworld system of caves et cetera that hits all of those dark and creepy notes and has a completely different feel

TOTK is definitely going to bring back the camera rune from BOTW. Link might either get a camera to take pictures (like in Wind Waker) or Link might keep the Sheikah Slate but it can only take pictures (yes I know we don’t see the slate in any of the TOTK trailers but it just might not be on Links model but still in his inventory).

1 idea I have, but may be a long shot, is that the gates we see in the sky, could actually be portals to some spirit realm with hidden challenges. I would also like to see some crafting mechanics, like improving lynel weapons in some way after claiming them, particularly with how easy it eventually becomes to get rupees. Finally a return of dungeons would be great. 1 idea we seem to see is that Link can use his energy to power jade structures such as the creature we see in the 2nd trailer & then the bird he rides

I wish the Zelda team was able to implement stuff like the extra interactions for the horse and the hinox! They have so many good ideas that can't be made into reality for one reason or another. :\

The Zonai are going to be important as seen in the gameplay trailer, which is really exciting

a questline that's like an expanded version of the Terry town quest would be amazing. the "Hyrule Restoration initiative" or something. maybe establish or rebuild a few new towns with Bolson and co., or get to work rebuilding castle town to get it on its way to looking how it is in the concept art.

Now we know the vials are ✨Batteries✨

Part of me wants to think that the Sheikah slate runes could have been inspired by the Zonai magic, hence the not-stasis stasis we see in the trailers.

13:09 I mean with the word kazoku 家族　for family in japanese above, it has to be his family!

11:20 I remember reading about that and was so distraught that those concepts didn't get into the game :C

Looks like there’s going to be more enemy variety based on the new trailer! Redeads, the new boss bokoblins plus that big dragon thing

While I'm fairly sure that there's no time traveling in TotK, there is a way to do it in a limited scope, instead of creating a past or future version of the whole Hyrule. They could use the time shift stones featured in Skyward Sword to create time pockets in certain places. Like a part of the Hyrule Castle Town. This could be used to access the town and meet a certain person even if the town didn't exist anymore in the present and the person in question was long dead.

The things I would like to see most is more enemies. It struck me that they could have implemented leevers for the deserts and beaches, bonus points if the desert leevers could have been treats to Link while using sand seals. Peahats in the fields would have been cool too. I also wish they would make some tweaks to cooking/potions. The different recipes were mostly cosmetic and I wish they had some more variation to them in terms of bonuses. In fact, I also think I liked how they worked in AoC. So I think it would be cool if you could only eat meals by sitting down at a fire and then you gain the benefits and you kind of choose your effects by planning ahead. And that only items like potions and handheld foods (like apples and skewers) could be eaten on the fly. Taken a step further, I'd like to see the adventure's pouchh return and work like it did in Skyward Sword where you could fit only so many items in at a time and you have to pull them out and find time mid battle to use them. I liked how Skyward Sword had you running around trying not to get hit when drinking a potion. It added to the thrill of the fights. Finally, I want the weapon fixing and upgrading from Skyward Sword back. Buffing the weapons so that they are stronger would help with the durability issue. (I have read that another game that did weapon breaking figured out that increasing durability wasn't the best way to solve the problem, but instead increasing the damage. Players don't really notice how many times they've swung the weapon, but they do notice how many enemies they've killed with a weapon. It's a bit of a psychological trick, that we don't really care how long it lasts, so much as how useful it was.)

"Why not let you pick up small object like candlesticks etc" That's mainly because of technical limitations. It would be too taxing for the processor to have to calculate the physics for a ton of small objects. They made sure the little Switch and the old Wii U could handle the game without too many hiccups by limiting interactability to larger objects. The game already drops frames when there's too much going on!

Seems a bit silly but the thing I want most is the ability to sit down. So like when it's raining and I'm hiding in an alcove with a fire, link can just sit down while I wait it out. Or i just want to spend sometime sitting in a pretty location, chilling with npcs or something.

Just a few nuggets of wisdom: We've already fought a malice-affected Leviathan in Skyward. There IS variety in the Hinox battles. The first time you fight one you only have so many different ways to beat them, but the next time you'll have different equipment and might've picked up an easier way to deal with them. One of them you fight at the end of a really tough gauntlet of enemies after all your equipment is taken away! Why does there need to be more types of beings in Tears of the Kingdom? They only started to add different types in Ocarina. They could even make a game focused solely on the Hylians featuring no other types, and it would still be The Legend of Zelda. It wouldn't be a good idea to reunite the crying child, Koko, with their mother because... and I'm sure this isn't what you intended but it SOUNDED like you wanted to "help" Koko to the other side! 😱 ...To be completely honest with you hearing you say that scared me a little bit... But also, people aren't reunited with their mothers who have passed after you complete nice little sidequests. It's insensitive to tell that story in that way. Lack of variety when it came to enemies? Breath has more different types of enemies than any other Zelda game. To add to that, the concepts of the different types of enemies are also mostly from past Zelda games, but reimagined. Well I'm going to do some art while your video continues to play in the background. As an addendum I'll say one more thing; Considering how much heart (not to mention hard work) was put into Breath, it downright flabbergasts me to learn that people wanted or expected more! From start to finish, it brought me such joy when I needed it THE MOST. I only played Breath within the last year or so, and I'm so glad that I waited... My Mom died a year and a half ago. She was THE BESTEST friend that I'll ever have. When she passed I lost the biggest part of me that I had. Since then it feels like time has stopped completely. I'm not sure if or when it'll start to progress again; Maybe it never will. And that's okay. But the time I spent in Hyrule during this legend means more to me than I'm able to put into words. A huge thanks to the content creators who gave me a look into this legend before I was able to visit it myself, and that includes NintendoBlackCrisis. And I doubt any of these beautiful people will see this, but I'll err on the side of caution and say: I'm so grateful to everyone whose hand helped weave this masterpiece! I'll never be able to THANK YOU enough!

honestly a cursed leviathan fight would have been sick af

I will always be mad at the fact that when the world flooded, the Zora for some reason evolved to be birds. THEY CAN LITERALLY BREATH UNDERWATER!! WHY DID THEY EVEN NEED TO EVOLVE???

I hope the vials in Tears of the Kingdom are green tea and Link drinks them. I like tea.

Game play as Zelda is what I was hoping for.. her outfits gotta stay Royal. She is THEEEE Princess of all video games. Maybe only Peach can touch her coattails.

Aliens in Zelda is something I never even considered but still sounds weirdly awesome

I've been waiting for a video like this! Thank you for making it!

Coming back to this video after the most recent direct trailer, you had some solid hits for predictions!

What if Link did have a sister? She survived the Great Calamity and eventually had a daughter. She died before Link woke up from the Shrine of resurrection, but his Niece is an adult who has a son, so link can meet is Niece and Great-Nephew in Tears of the Kingdom! Very unlikely, but I'd love It!

So considering what we got from the final trailer and everything since you really do need to make a reaction video to this

Legit, does this guy have a time machine?⏰

To take a page from Age of Calamity, what if Link has his Zonai Arm and Zelda has the Sheikah Slate.

I'd love for ToTK to feature food/items/materials that are actually dangerous to consume or use, for a game set in the wild, there sure no poisonous shrooms, plants, etc. This would make cooking more interesting, for example, having stronger buffs at the expense of health, the ability to poison enemies or even use the knowledge of certain spices or plants to nullify poison, etc.

The summersaulting Hinox is implemented into Hyrule Warrior’s Age of Calamity.

I would love to see some more flashbacks of Link's life outside of the Champion related ones, like how he found the Mastersword or how his family lived and interacted with him. Or ones for Zelda's childhood, maybe memories of when her mother was still alive and they were a happy family. I would also love the idea of more ghosts in general. Like common people, Links family etc. that the players needs to help move on. Also, it doesn't need to be super dark, but i would love to see how Zelda and Link cope with their traumas or at least have a callback to what happend to them. Zelda literally saw Link die (and even though it was censored, there must have been horrible burn or flesh wounds on link) then she goes to the castle where there are probably hundreds of dead people being devoured by malice (at least i asume so, there is a lack of graves in botw even though thousands died, i think there weren't any bodies left to bury) and then she is "awake" for 100 years, trapped inside malice with no one to talk with, probably in pain. Some Headcanons post-botw some people had, was that Zelda had some trouble walking after not moving for a hundred years, so i always thought it was a cute idea for Link and Zelda to live in Link's little house together. Could see Link cooking and teaching Zelda things he has learned, like fighting, making stuff etc. One last thing, i would love to see the World post-botw or post-totk bloom into new life as a sign that the World is finally healing from the malice. Like New Flora blooming or animals that raise their young, or the deku forest growing back into full Green areas that you can explore etc. Probably won't happen because that's a lot of new nature elements, but hey, i can dream.

A creative mode that you can build anything in or a area that is dedicated to building stuff.

I’d love more house customization and interaction! I couldn’t interact with anything unless I was taking a weapon, I’d love to use the house more in fun ways :) edit: I personally don’t like the idea of giving Zelda regular clothes cuz I feel like it’d lessen her royal feel but bring back her as Sheik! Like when she’s Zelda she wears the dresses but when she helps link and fights be Sheik, that’d be cool

11:56 "mMMMM, tastes like a Diara! Perhaps just one more?"

Omg the blacksmith idea. I’ve had this idea for a year now. Also the idea of making your own weapons and gear and armor. Great vid, very interesting.

the thought of all the large skeletal remains coming back to life for mini boss battles or just to roam the land is awesome.

I love how professional you are every and each time you upload a new video. You're always improving and bringing valuable information and investigations! ❤️🔥🙌🏼

Not gonna lie when you said reunite koko with her mother at night I thought for a second that you meant that you killed her a reunited her with her mom

I had a dream that they improved the voice acting for tears of a kingdom and a playable Zelda and she's a badass

Maybe something cool they could do is have a Terry Town like quest to restore castle town at Hyrule Castle and format it kind of the older Assassins Creed games did

The biggest unused concept is a really simple one: PLAY AS ZELDA! This series should really be called the legend of link

A game with a more alien-esque theme like they showed in Creating A Champion with that giant UFO would be so cool

If they keep weapon durability I'd love to have a little health gauge so I know how long I've got before a particular weapon breaks. I'd also like to be able to sell weapons

I think breath of the wild took a lot of inspiration from Skyrim and monster Hunter. And I believe that tears of a kingdom will take a lot of inspiration from the Witcher and Elden Ring. The Eldon Ring featured fragmented pieces of different regions on the map with all kinds of natural caves and catacombs that served as smaller dungeons, Eldon ring also featured what we call legacy dungeons which are the main larger dungeons. I'm kind of feeling that tears of the kingdom might somewhat mirror a lot of these features

therapist: dont worry casual clothes zelda cant hurt you she dosent exist me: THATS THE WHOLE FUCKING PROBLEM SHE DOSENT EXIST WHAT AM I PAYING YOU FOR

I feel like the simplest explanations are the most realistic. The green vials are most likely batteries of sorts to power links new hand. I think you'll start out with all of the base runes like the sheikah slate, but you'll only have a limited amount of magic you can use at one time. Given that we can see that the arm runes will be essential for traveling in the sky, it's possible that this is how Nintendo will limit the player in the world similar to the stamina meter.

I would love it if they would add a better system telling you the health of your weapons or ways to repair them. Secondly, I want link to be able to throw hands lmao

Love you Nintendo Black Crisis keep up the good work/vids 😉😉😊😊😊

NBC looking forward to your analysis of the new TotK trailer. Something I’m not hearing much of is that the zelda character you don’t see the head of being the reincarnation of Hylia, also when you hear zelda say “give him your power” being either to the zonai or hylia, maybe zonai connection to hylia and that being the ornation of links arm holding back a corruption that causes his arm to look mummified like Gannon stole part of links life force and the ornation helps prevent the spread.

I haven’t watched your videos in a while, and at the beginning when you started talking my brain got excited, like “YOOO ITS THIS GUY AGAIN!!” Then at the end I was reminded of your epic outro 😄

13:47 That looks more like a Shiekah to me than a Gerudo. Very reminiscent of Impa in OoT, they even have a rough outline of a Eye symbol on their chest.

With the sheikah technology gone, we will need a new fast travel system. I recommend portals. No not valve portals but those already used in Zelda such as the warp pads in most of the downfall timeline, the subrosian portals in Oracle of Seasons and the dark world portals in in a link to the past. Perhaps that’s what some of those glowing green spirals are seen in the most recent trailer? Maybe they shoot us into the sky to have us crash down somewhere else. That would be awesome. Just wonder how or if we’ll be able to interact with them out in the open or if we will have to find a nearby one to fast travel.

I still wish that they would have linkle in the games. I was thinking that they could make a game where her and link have to work together to do dungeons with each one having roles that only they could do. You of course would have the other follow you but could freely switch, during this the one you are not using can take damage but only so much. Each one would have different weapons each with roles they would play. Example is that linkle is smaller and would be able to travel in tight spaces with her being more rogue like allowing her to use things like daggers and her crossbows. In this situation linkle's crossbow would hit harder than links making it needed to go through armor that link's could not. This would also play the role in the dungeon with her shooting down chest for link to open that he could not reach due to angles. In contrast link would be able to take out enemies that would block linkle's path by shooting down bridges and killing enemies that would not be in her line of sight such as a monster that would ambush her from a corner of a ledge. The ending of each dungeon would also require both to do certain task to open the doors and get to the final rooms. This is also reflected in the outfits as between the two each could have outfits given to them due to their roles such as stealth armor for linkle to have her harder to detect while she scales walls with a grappling hook or having link with an increased agro abilitiy. As for linkle herself I would see her as a descendent of link and zelda just not the ones that are in the game. It is said to her lore that she is also a hero but it would not make sense for her to have the same gear as link given that he is reincarnated each time. That said a weapon for her to use would also be imbued with the power similar to the master sword on a lower scale. What do you think of this idea.

8:45 OR could be a similar fight concept to Stallord from Twilight Princess? a Fossilized animal who due to the malice brought to life like the dark magic that brought Stallord to life for that fight

After seeing the gameplay, the runes are pretty similar. The ultra hand ability is VERY similar to magnesis.

I can’t believe that Tears Of The Kingdom is just 4 months away

Some type ofundead boss Hats for link not just like helmets and stuff Buyable potions Underwater swimming Claw shots More settlements Dungeons Human boss that is super hard to beat kinda like maz koshia but not like a relic of the past

Funny thing about the Hinox somersaulting... They actually do something similar to that in Age of Calamity, as a attack you can stasis them with to stun them to break their weak point gauge. Just a Lil something I wanted to mention!😅

Re-uniting koko with her deceased mother at night doesn't sound as wholesome as you think it does.

95% sure most of this is gonna be in the game. The entire project was based off of them having an excess of ideas for a DLC. So all the unused concepts were at the top of the list for what they wanted to add to the game considering since they're making a whole new game instead of a dlc, they have time and resources to fine tune the whole thing.

Your videos are fun. Thanks for making them. I've been subbed for years.

A lot of these missed potential ideas never used even in tears of the kingdom. I feel like they spent waaayyy to much time on ultrahand at the expense of impimenting these diverse ideas.

9:32 Imagine a Zelda game about fighting with music. Something like the game Brütal Legend. And in the final battle Link and Ganon have an insane guitar duel like in the movie Crossroads. And instead of making there own soundtrack they could just insert there mixtape and call it a day. It would be crazy and nothing like a Zelda game at all but dammit I want this to be a thing now.

Unpopular opinion, but I feel like Tingle would be a perfect inclusion for TotK. Not only would he kinda fit thematically, given the seemingly dark parallels to Majora's Mask, having a cartographer in an open world LoZ game makes too much sense. If we don't have the Sheika slate, give us a physical map that we pay Tingle to update as he floats around from region to region on his dumbass ass balloons. Also, Minish would be awesome. Make Minish a mainstay race in LoZ! 12:20 I am assuming the reason Hinox are always sleeping is purely a hardware limitation. But here's hoping that TotK not being originally made for Wii U, and having plenty of time to optimize as an asset flip, allows Nintendo to pull off large, wandering enemies.

For the love of god let me pet dogs! please and thank you!! I also want Kass to appear somehow, I loved all the quests he (or his family) were involved in.

Well look who called the Redeads out. :)

10:09 - I would *TOTALLY* be down with a modern telling of the recurring tale, or even a futuristic one. It make sense if the curse really is eternal (assuming nothing happens to change this... I'm looking at you, Tears of the Kingdom...). Obviously it could very easily end up a corny, gimmicky mess, but if you apply a formula similar to Nier, Persona or even Horizon Zero Dawn to the Zelda universe, I think it could be really special and really *SICK!!* Those who don't like Nintendo messing with their precious medieval dungeon crawler would hate this, but remember when we first heard Mario Odyssey was going to have "New Donk City"? That sounded whack! But it turned out preety cool! All I'm saying is, it doesn't have to end up Kingdom Hearts 3 is all haha

Imagine they bring back the scrapped Guardian designs lmao

If they give us a Sheika Slate knock-off but with limited uses, that would be really cool for resource management.

I definitely agree with the Hinox stuff, it’d been way more interesting to see them do more than sleep as you approach them.

very good video idea. Was very intressted when i saw the thumbnail and title

Anyone else not a fan of the idea of like grappling hook and bombs coming out of links arm/ hand? Think having them as physical items would be so much cooler and just more appealing

OK about link's hand port… Ever see a bottoms-up draft beer system? Could be like that, but 'upside down'.

Looks Magnegloves are back as Ultrahand