'Zelda holiday': Tears of the Kingdom is a blitz of merch and ...

As soon as Friday began, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom went live around the world.

The sequel to 2017’s Breath of the Wild, a game many have put forward as the best of all time, Tears of the Kingdom has big shoes to fill as familiar hero Link returns to the eminently explorable land of Hyrule. One of the most highly anticipated releases of the year, the latest entry to the nearly 40-year-old franchise boasts a reported 100-plus hours of gameplay and will surely occupy gamers across the world for many weeks to come.

Tears of the Kingdom was released on an otherwise normal Friday workday in Japan, but plenty decided they couldn’t bear to wait any longer.