The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom finally arrives the following day, with nowadays seeing Nintendo lovers stocking up on snacks, clearing their schedules, and getting ready to step back into Hyrule for the first time in six years. Expectations are sky-high for the Breath of the Wild sequel, and it’s more likely to dominate gaming discussion for the rest of the year.

Well, the already white-hot hype fires have just had fuel poured on them, as the evaluation embargo has simply expired, and it kind of feels Tears of the Kingdom has lived as much as expectations and then some.

The Metacritic rating is at a sky-high 97, and the reviews recommend it's going to absolutely be one of the best-reviewed titles of the yr thus far. Opencritic also has it at 97 from their “Top Critic Average’ and reports that 100% of all critics suggest it.

Here’s a selection of critics’ takes:

Gamespot offers it a instantly 10/10, calling it a “triumph of open-ended game design“.

IGN also give it a ten/10, dubbing it a “masterpiece” and announcing it raises “the bar ever upper into the clouds”.

Eurogamer has given it four out of five stars and say it’s “Hyrule reborn bigger and busier“

Nintendo Life offers it but some other 10/10: “It’s also impossible to overstate just how much there is to do in Hyrule this time around.“

Polygon says “The brilliance of Tears of the Kingdom lies in how well it imparts the fantasy of player freedom.“

With every other perfect 10, Destructoid says: “Tears of the Kingdom will be talked about for years on end.”

The Guardian offers it a really perfect rating and says “It is easy to forget how to find the fun in adult life. Games such as Zelda help to remind you that if you look at things the right way, it’s everywhere.“

The Telegraph additionally offers a really perfect rating: “I felt like a hero at every moment.“

Despite the virtually unanimous reward, there may be some criticism of the game’s efficiency on the ageing Switch hardware. Nobody used to be expecting Tears of the Kingdom to run at a locked 60 FPS, regardless that it sort of feels that it frequently slips under the targeted 30 FPS when the motion heats up. That stated, Breath of the Wild suffered identical problems and that hasn’t stopped it from topping many ‘biggest game of all time’ lists, so we don’t be expecting it to be a major factor going forward.

What’s transparent is that Nintendo has taken the unbelievable foundation set by Breath of the Wild and expanded on it in many fascinating techniques. We can’t wait to get out there and discover this wonderful open international for ourselves.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrives on Nintendo Switch the next day, May 12.

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