The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom dares to do something most games never do: trust your imagination. There isn’t one right answer — only your own. It’s freedom as play, where even the wildest solutions work because they’re yours. You start out confused and end up in love.
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Disclaimer: Apropos Magazine received access or a review copy. As always, we share our own impressions — unfiltered.
Six stars
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the ultimate open-world experience — even for those who usually tap out when the map gets too big and the objectives too many. Where other games drown in endless icons and pointless fetch quests, Tears of the Kingdom manages to make everything you encounter feel both entertaining and meaningful. There’s a reason the game is already being called a new classic: it isn’t just another sequel — it’s a creative breakthrough.
Hyrule is larger and more alive than ever. Three layers — sky, land and underworld — create a sense of depth and discovery rarely seen in modern games. Everywhere you look, there are characters balanced somewhere between the silly and the moving. You want to help them. Every figure feels written with warmth and a crooked sense of humor, and the many small stories you stumble across along the way create a feeling of kinship with a world that could otherwise have felt cold and overwhelming.
The real strength of Tears of the Kingdom, though, lies in the player’s freedom to play with the building blocks of reality. Elements can be combined, physics can be bent, and weapons and objects can be fused into creative solutions that feel like being inside a Lego set with a god complex. It’s not about solving puzzles the right way — it’s about solving them your own way.
It’s an experience that constantly rewards you for thinking differently. Want to fly over a mountain, build a catapult, or just line up a row of logs and walk? Everything works — in its own strange way. And it’s precisely this freedom that keeps the game from ever feeling tiring or repetitive. Every task is a chance to experiment.
As in earlier Zelda games, atmosphere is a cornerstone. The music, the landscapes and the shifting moods of the different regions create an emotional journey that’s hard to shake off. Tears of the Kingdom captures that particular blend of adventure, loneliness and hope the series is known for — but renews it with a more open and complex world.
The game’s first hours can feel tough. Weapons break, enemies hit hard, and everything seems unfair. But slowly, it all clicks. You get a grip, find the rhythm, and then the adventure really opens up. It’s one of those experiences where “just one more temple” quickly turns into several hours.
With hundreds of side quests, hidden treasures, collectibles and upgrades, there’s never any need to follow the main story slavishly. The game supports both the goal-oriented player and the curious explorer.
Let’s put it like this…
Tears of the Kingdom is not only the best Zelda game to date — it’s a milestone for the open-world genre. It does what Ocarina of Time did for its generation: it sets new standards for what the medium can be. Not through graphics or realism, but through play, curiosity and the feeling that you’re part of something bigger.
You don’t need to be a Zelda fan to enjoy this. It’s enough to turn it on — and let yourself disappear into it.
