The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

How do you follow a classic that not only tore up the Legend of Zelda rulebook but set a new gold standard for open-world game design? If you're Nintendo, you go large - very large indeed...

- Matt Tate

Back in 2017, Breath of the B Wild overhauled the Zelda franchise with a sprawling world that rewarded player experimentation. Tears of the Kingdom is what happens when Nintendo truly embraces this mayhem.

Ganon might've been bested at the end of the last game, but it quickly becomes clear that evil is still bubbling under the surface. Before long, Princess Zelda has vanished, Link has lost his arm, and a supernatural event known as The Upheaval leads to a floating Hyrule Castle and the appearance of islands in the sky.

It's here you encounter Zonai devices tools that can be used to make anything from simple powered rafts to absurd makeshift planes and chaotic concrete tanks. Smartly, you don't get everything at once, and bigger vehicles burn through energy quickly, so you can't easily fly across the entire map. In fact, most of the time you might largely ignore the crafting; but while exploring Hyrule on horseback is great, it's nowhere near as funny as doing it in a rocket-powered, fire-breathing carriage of destruction.