The Legend of Zeldafranchise has always been one packed to the very brim with content. While some modern video game series can get away with putting out minimal content with the promise of more coming in post-launch updates,The Legend of Zeldafranchisehas never followed that design model, instead choosing to fill each and every game with an impressive amount of content, even including handheld titles. And when it comes toThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, that’s never been truer.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomis one of the most content-complete games in existence. Not content with just one open-world to explore,Tears of the Kingdomadds a whole set of Sky Islands, and an underground overworld called the Depths. Combine those with all the game’s new enemies, bosses, locations, weapons, armors, quests, and mechanics, andThe Legend ofZelda: Tears of the Kingdomhas hundreds of hours of content ready to explore right out of the box. But there’s always room for more, andZelda: Tears of the Kingdomis perfectly primed for some future paid DLC.
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What Fans Can Expect From Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s DLC
When predicting what fans can expect fromany potentialZelda: Tears of the KingdomDLC, the natural first step is to look at what’s come before it. The onlyZeldagame to ever receive proper DLC isThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Released over the course of just a few months following the game’s release,Breath of the Wild’s DLC was formed into an expansion pass that was split into two halves.
The first half ofZelda: Breath of the Wild’s expansion pass was titled The Master Trials, and included a slew of new modes and content. The main new mode included in this DLC pack is the Trial of the Sword, which sees the player engage in a grueling 45-level challenge that starts them off with no weapons, armor, or consumables. Beating this challenge awards the player with an evenstronger Master Sword. Master Mode sees the difficulty of the base game get raised, with much tougher enemy AI. This DLC pack also introduced two new key items, with those being the Travel Medallion which lets players mark out a checkpoint and fast travel there, and the Korok Mask which shakes when near a hidden Korok Seed location.
The second half ofZelda: Breath of the Wild’s expansion pass was titled The Champion’s Ballad, and is generally considered the stronger of the two DLC packs. On top of some extra challenge modes and a ton of new items and armors,Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s The Champion’s Ballad DLCadds some new story content to the game, including some side quests and a lengthy main quest that sees the player discover a handful of new Shrines and dungeons across Hyrule. Completing these quests will reward the player with the Master Cycle Zero, aZelda-themed motorbike.
It seems fairly likely that ifZelda: Tears of the Kingdomreceives any future paid DLC, it might end up looking similar toBreath of the Wild’s expansion pass. This means that players can probably expect some additional challenge modes, plenty of new weapons and armor sets, and hopefully a handful of side quests and new Shrines and dungeons. IfTears of the KingdomfollowsBreath of the Wild’s DLC model then fans can probably expect to pay around $20 for the DLC, though inflation and the game’s success might raise that price to around $30. If Nintendo really wanted to go above and beyond, then it could evenadd a whole new area toZelda: Tears of the Kingdom, though that does seem fairly unlikely to happen.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomis available on Nintendo Switch.
