The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom won’t launch until May 12, which means fans who’ve invested heavily in the game’s lore and secrets have three months to avoid (what they’ll likely think are) the villains. destruction ahead of them.
The collector’s edition of the game comes with a 204-page art book, and over the weekend that book leaked online, with every damn page of it swept away. posted on the GamingLeaksAndRumours subreddit. It’s the Japanese version, which means it’s hard to tell exactly what some of this stuff is, even though it’s not the Japanese version. big problem because this is a pretty basic artbook, mostly just images with some captions underneath.
I obviously won’t post any pictures here, but I’ve been flipping through the pages and I have good news and bad news for fans of the series. Which is good and which is bad will depend on how sensitive you are to vandals.
First, because this is a pre-order bonus and not a full-fledged, standalone art book, it lacks context. There are hundreds of images here but they are not arranged in any order or sequence and there are no paragraphs by the developers and artists that explain in depth what everything means and why it is there. there, There’s very little here that you wouldn’t expect to see in the trailer.
There are lots of pictures of Link wearing the costume, some familiar faces back, some outfit designs for allies and friends, sketches of bad guys (again, familiar) and lots more. the illustration of the environment without context that I just mentioned, is basically just “This was a cave, now this is a room with a stone floor”.
“This book is designed to be taken home with you the day you buy the game”
I’m being vague not to protect anyone, but just because… these are all very standard stuff. Without the context of this art being properly interpreted — or from any of us really play game—it’s just an interesting book Zelda photo.
Of course, that’s all it means. While it’s tempting to mull over this book three months after its release, hopefully revealers and the key to Tears of the Kingdom lore, this book is designed to be taken home with you the day you buy the game. People can comfortably skim it on the bus on their way home, in the back seat of a car, or on the couch when they’ve only been playing for 23 minutes. There’s never going to be anything big here, because that would be insanely stupid!
For example, there is not a single image of Ganon. There is an illustration of Zelda, but there is no mention of her being playable. We have look fast about the terrible transformation Link seems to be going through, but none other than what we saw in the trailer. There is no plot summary.
The only things that are even possible from far away considered spoilers are some of the costumes that relate to older games in the series and the return of a particularly bad type of enemy, but that’s just… the truth about the game, not story telling.
So if you are sensitive to vandals and somehow you end up somewhere on the internet where this book is leaked Ineluctable, relax. This is a pre-order bonus, not a Spoiler Tome.
