I Still Want DLC For Tears of the Kingdom

The Zelda community is gearing up for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, which releases tomorrow. Before that happens, I wanted to finally confront one of my gripes with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

When Nintendo announced that there would be no DLC for Tears of the Kingdom and that they were moving their focus to the next Zelda game (later revealed to be Echoes of Wisdom), many were upset. There was an expectation of a DLC since we got two after Breath of the Wild; to get nothing for TOTK was surprising and disappointing. I shared these feelings too, but tried to see it from their perspective.

While we have become familiar with this version of Hyrule for seven years, the Zelda team has known it for over a decade and then some, having started working on it after Skyward Sword. They were probably tired of constantly coming back to the world and wanted to move on to a new project. With the release of TOTK, they had exhausted everything that they had to offer and just wanted to move on. And in an interview, Eiji Aonuma did confirm that they felt they offered everything that they could for the game, therefore, no DLC.

However, the more I think about it, the more it aggravates me. There was definitely room to give us at least one DLC. We could have gotten one that revolved around learning more about the mysterious Zonai since the base game didn’t give us much to work with about the tribe. It certainly would have been an upgrade than having to learn about them through the Master Works book and seeing the contents released through social media. At the very least, they could have given us a Master Mode as TOTK is harder game than BOTW.

With no DLC and the BOTW/TOTK era suddenly brought to an end, I feel this has made some fans turn against the game. I keep seeing on social media that some are dismissing TOTK as a bad game, saying that it didn’t live up to the hype and was a disappointment. Granted, I can see why some feel this way with how some of the elements of the game were played out, such as the story. But I do wonder: if Nintendo gave us a DLC and just had that era go on for a little longer, how many people would still feel this way? We may never know, though in time, perhaps people’s opinions could soften.

I saw somewhere on a forum where someone hoped that we would get TOTK DLC for the Switch 2. While I would love for that to happen, realistically, I think Nintendo has no interest in returning to this version of Hyrule in the future. I hope they prove me wrong though, and we can finally get DLC that properly ends the BOTW/TOTK era. Until then, here’s to Echoes of Wisdom and a new age of Zelda!