What's different from Breath of the Wild
The obvious question is whether Tears of the Kingdom is just Breath of the Wild with extra features bolted on. It isn't, and it's worth understanding why. The Ultrahand and Fuse mechanics — the tools that let you build structures and attach items together — fundamentally change the design space. Puzzles that would have a single solution in any other game here have dozens, and Nintendo has built the world around that openness in a way that feels intentional rather than accidental.
The sky islands and the Depths (an underground mirror of the overworld) add genuine vertical scale. You're not just exploring a horizontal plane — there are three layers to Hyrule now, and each has its own logic and rewards.
The Ultrahand and why it works
The Ultrahand mechanic could have been a gimmick. In lesser hands it would have been. Nintendo makes it the centre of everything — shrines, surface puzzles, combat, and traversal all bend around it. The result is a game that genuinely rewards curiosity and experimentation rather than pretending to.
There will be moments where you build something that definitely wasn't what Nintendo intended, and it works anyway. Those are some of the best moments in the game.
What works
- Ultrahand mechanic is genuinely transformative
- Three-layer world design adds real scope
- Keeps finding new ideas well into the runtime
- Story is significantly more ambitious than BotW
What doesn't
- Performance can dip during complex builds on the original Switch hardware
- Some early shrines are forgettable
- Cooking system is unchanged and was already showing its limits in BotW
Verdict
Tears of the Kingdom is one of the best open-world games made. The Ultrahand mechanic elevates the design in ways that are hard to fully explain until you're ninety hours in and still being surprised. Is it worth buying? If you own a Switch and haven't played it, this should be your next game.
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