# The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

12 Hacker News commenters recommended The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and 6 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Fans recommend it as a fun, large open-world Zelda game with plenty to discover; the most common caveat is performance trouble on the Switch 1.

## Why people recommend it

- Strong Zelda game for fans (4 comments): "so many games I've enjoyed recently (Donkey Kong Bananza, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, etc)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48336857)) "Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom are the Zelda games we wanted on n64 as a kid, I love those games" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46817770)) "That 90's Zelda does nothing for me anymore, but TOTK does." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48554480))
- Open-world exploration and discovery (3 comments): "It's a beautiful, simple fairytale told through the medium of a huge open world game" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50142848)) "It really is fun finding new holes into the underworld from a cave" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46428763)) "The sky islands are much nicer." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46439458))
- Fun, polished, bug-free open world (2 comments): "TotK feels like it should be a skyrim-like bug ridden experience but it isn't." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50201291)) "Both BOTW and TOTK are amazing games and twice better on the Switch 2." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50152668))

## What people warn about

- Messes with Breath of the Wild continuity (2 comments): "Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom games really throw a wrench in the works." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50145827)) "ToTK can't even commit to really being a chronological sequel to BOTW" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50148267))
- Seen as overrated, worst in series (2 comments): "I consider it and TOTK to be the worst games in the series" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50267532)) "I also think BOTW and TOTK are wildly overrated" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48828778))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Breath of the Wild](https://hackerapproved.com/p/legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild.md): 27 recommend
- [The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time](https://hackerapproved.com/p/legend-of-zelda-ocarina-of-time.md): 17 recommend
- [Shadow of the Colossus](https://hackerapproved.com/p/shadow-of-the-colossus.md): 14 recommend
- [God of War](https://hackerapproved.com/p/god-of-war.md): 12 recommend
- [Horizon Zero Dawn](https://hackerapproved.com/p/horizon-zero-dawn.md): 10 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom", https://hackerapproved.com/p/legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).