Verdict № 05 · Adventure
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom review
Nintendo's sequel turns Hyrule into a construction kit. It is the finest open world in our twelve, sold on the UK's strictest store.
Link gliding high above Hyrule under a clear sky. Official image: Nintendo.
Tears of the Kingdom asks an unusual question of an open-world game: what if the tools were the point? Link's four new powers let you glue objects together, fuse them into weapons, rise straight up through ceilings and rewind an object's path, and the whole of Hyrule, above and below ground, is built to be solved with them in whatever way you devise. More than three years after its May 2023 release, and now with a Switch 2 Edition, it remains one of the most admired games of the decade, with 96 on Metacritic and a 95 top-critic average on OpenCritic.
The bill is refreshingly simple. There is no story expansion and no in-game shop, just the game at £59.99 and an optional £7.99 upgrade for Switch 2. What holds the Value score back is not the price but the storefront: Nintendo sells it only through its own eShop and retailers, accepts fewer payment methods than its rivals and does not refund digital games if you change your mind.
The best open world in our twelve, priced fairly and sold under the strictest terms.The verdict in one line
The review, milestone by milestone
- mark 9.0
Hours 1 to 5
Great Sky Island: a tutorial that teaches you to invent
The opening hours on the Great Sky Island hand you Ultrahand, Fuse, Ascend and Recall one at a time. Each comes with small shrines that show what the power can do and then leave you to discover what else it can do. It is a patient start, and it matters: the rest of the game assumes you have learned to think with these tools rather than follow instructions.
When you finally drop into Hyrule, the map is familiar to anyone who played Breath of the Wild, but the ground has changed, the sky is scattered with islands and Lookout Landing gives you a base and a direction. Nothing forces the pace.
- mark 10.0
The middle stretch, roughly hours 5 to 60
Four regions, a sky and an underworld
Four regional stories, among the Rito, Zora, Goron and Gerudo, each build to a temple and a companion whose power you can call on afterwards. Around them sit the sky islands and the Depths, a dark underground map as large as the surface that you light one Lightroot at a time. Together they roughly triple the space to explore.
This is where the game earns its reputation. Zonai devices and Autobuild turn travel and puzzles into engineering problems, and the design almost always accepts a clever answer you were not supposed to find. Critics singled this out above everything else, and it is why the middle never sags despite the game's size.
- mark 9.5
The long tail, 60 to 250 hours
A world that stays open after the credits
There are 152 shrines, 120 Lightroots, 1,000 Korok seeds, armour sets hidden in the Depths and a long list of side adventures. There is no New Game Plus; finishing the story returns you to just before the final battle with a star on your save, so the world stays open for everything you left undone.
HowLongToBeat puts the main story at about 59 hours and main story plus extras at about 117; completionists report nearly 250. Few games at any price give you as much.
- mark 8.3
Craft and access
Better on Switch 2, still without a difficulty setting
On the original Switch the game targets 30 frames per second and dips in busy scenes. The Switch 2 Edition adds higher resolution, better frame rates, HDR and quicker loading, and your Switch save carries across.
There are no difficulty settings, which will stop some players, and it runs only on Nintendo hardware. Voiced scenes are subtitled, camera and aim can be inverted, and buttons can be remapped through the console's system settings.
The bill: what it really costs in the UK
One purchase covers the whole game and there is nothing more to buy inside it. The only decision is which edition, and whether you already own the Switch version.
The bill · Tears of the Kingdom
A Switch owner pays £59.99 and adds £7.99 only when moving to Switch 2; buying the Switch 2 Edition fresh costs £66.99.
Where to buy it and how you can pay
Tears of the Kingdom is sold only for Nintendo's consoles. Digitally that means the Nintendo eShop, which accepts Visa and Mastercard, PayPal for account holders aged 18 or over, and eShop cards. It does not take American Express, Apple Pay or Google Pay inside the console store.
My Nintendo Store's website sells boxed copies and download codes and does accept Apple Pay and Google Pay, and UK retailers stock the physical game.
Nintendo eShop
- Visa or Mastercard
- PayPal (18+)
- eShop cards
Nintendo eShop
- Visa or Mastercard
- PayPal (18+)
- eShop cards
Nintendo eShop
- Visa or Mastercard
- PayPal (18+)
- eShop cards
My Nintendo Store
A bundle of download codes for the Switch game plus the upgrade pack costs £67.99.
- Card
- PayPal
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
Before you pay: the eShop does not refund change-of-mind purchases. If you are unsure about the Switch 2 Edition, start with the Switch version and add the £7.99 pack later. Buying a boxed copy online gives you the usual 14-day cancellation right while the case stays sealed.
How the scores add up
| How it plays | Weight | Mark |
|---|---|---|
| First hours | 15% | 9.0 |
| The middle stretch | 30% | 10.0 |
| The long tail | 20% | 9.5 |
| Craft | 20% | 9.0 |
| Access | 15% | 7.5 |
| What it costs | Weight | Mark |
|---|---|---|
| Price against play | 35% | 9.5 |
| Honest pricing | 25% | 9.0 |
| Ways to pay | 20% | 5.5 |
| Protection | 20% | 5.0 |
What we rate
- An open world built around invention: nearly every puzzle accepts your own answer
- Sky islands and the Depths roughly triple the space of Breath of the Wild
- One price, no paid expansion and no in-game shop
- The Switch 2 upgrade costs £7.99 and keeps your save
What costs it
- No difficulty settings
- Sold only by Nintendo, with no change-of-mind refunds on digital copies
- The eShop takes only Visa, Mastercard and PayPal for adults
- Cloud saves need a paid Switch Online membership
Buy it if
you own a Switch or Switch 2 and want one game to last for months; at about 51p per hour of play it is the best-value big adventure here.
Think twice if
you want a guided story with a difficulty slider, or you only buy digital games and rely on a refund window as a safety net.
Final verdict
Tears of the Kingdom is the most inventive game in this set and, at £59.99 for well over a hundred hours, better value than its sticker suggests. Its Value score is held back by Nintendo's terms rather than Nintendo's price: fewer ways to pay, no refunds for a change of mind and cloud saves behind a subscription.
If you own a Switch 2, buy the Switch 2 Edition. If you own the original Switch and plan to upgrade, buy the Switch version now and add the £7.99 pack later rather than paying twice.
Weigh it against
Sources
This review is an editorial analysis of published evidence; see how we judge. Prices checked 25 September 2026.