Today, Nintendo launched The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for the Nintendo Switch. The long-awaited game is out now on the console, although it’s been playable on Switch PC emulators like Yuzu and Ryujinx for a few days.
While the performance was less than great at first, the new version of Yuzu Early Access appears to run the game very smoothly. Here’s an example of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom running at 8K resolution and nearly locked 60 frames per second. Granted, the YouTube video was captured on a PC among the most powerful you could buy, equipped with the following specifications:
- O.S: Windows 11 Pro
- CPU: I9 13900K P Core@5.9GHz E Core@4.6GHz
- GPU: RTX 4080 Founders Edition
- Motherboard: ASUS Z690-PLUS TUF Gaming
- Power Supply: Corsair RM1000x
- System Memory: 64GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB DDR4 4000MHz
- Boot Drive: Samsung 970 Evo 500GB NvME
Still, it is an impressive feat on launch day, although Yuzu and Ryujinx have often surprised their users by providing optimized versions of Nintendo Switch exclusives on day one. Needless to say, being able to play the game at a higher resolution and frame rate is a very appealing proposition.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was hailed by most critics as one of the best games ever made, with an average score of 96 on Metacritic and 97 on OpenCritic. Our reviewer, Nathan Birch, was slightly less enthusiastic and rated the game 9 out of 10.
Ultimately though, despite the number of 10 out of 10 reviews the franchise has received over the decades, most Zelda games aren’t immaculate, perfectly-consistent adventures. They’re fantastic overall experiences, each with their own quirks and issues. The same can be said about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which has its brief rough patches but pulls off the “make a new game using an existing map” gambit better than anything I’ve played before.
Still, you do start to feel the strain of everything Nintendo is trying to load onto the BotW framework. As much as I enjoyed the vast majority of my time with Tears of the Kingdom, toward the end of my playthrough, I felt something I don’t often feel with a Zelda game – a desire to wrap things up. To be done. I didn’t feel that with BotW, which I played for far longer than I had to before I finally tackled Ganon, because I was just so immersed. Some of the enchanting, indelible moments I experienced exploring this Hyrule the first time around just aren’t replicated in this sequel, but perhaps expecting that of TotK isn’t realistic given the nature of the project.
If you’re just entering The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom today, make sure to check out our beginner FAQ. Look forward to more guides soon.
