The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom won’t release until May 12th, meaning fans heavily invested in the game’s lore and mysteries have three months ahead of them to avoid spoilers (which they’ll probably think).
The game’s Collector’s Edition comes with a 204-page artbook, and over the weekend that book leaked online, with every damn page of it being rolled up posted on the GamingLeaksAndRumors subreddit. It’s the Japanese version, which means it’s hard to tell exactly what some of this stuff is, although it isn’t gigantic Problem as it’s a fairly basic artbook, mostly just images with some captions underneath.
Of course I will not post any pictures here, but I’ve flipped the pages and have good and bad news for fans of the series. What’s good and what’s bad depends on how sensitive you are to spoilers.
First off, since this is a pre-order bonus and not a full-blown standalone artbook, it lacks context. There are hundreds of images here, but they are arranged in no order or order, and with no paragraphs from the developers and artists explaining in detail what it all means and why it’s there, There’s little here you wouldn’t expect to see in a trailer.
There are many images of Link in costume, some familiar recurring faces, some outfit designs for allies and friends, sketches of villains (known again), and many illustrations of environments that are without the context I just mentioned, basically are simply “Here is a cave, now here is a room with a stone floor”.
“This book is designed to take you home the day you buy the game.”
I’m being vague not to protect anyone, just because… this is all very normal stuff. Without the context of this art being properly explained – or actually by any of us play the game– It’s just a book full of coolness zelda Pictures.
Which of course everything should be. While it’s tempting to brood over this book three months after release, hoping for cryptic spoilers and keys Tears of the Kingdom Lore, this book was designed to take you home the day you bought the game. People could flip through it on the bus on the way home, or in the back seat of a car, or on the couch with only 23 minutes in the game. Nothing big would ever happen here because that would be extremely stupid!
For example, there is not a single image of Ganon. There is an illustration of Zelda but there is no mention of whether it is playable or not. We have insights the monstrous transformation that Link appears to be undergoing, but no more than what we have already seen in trailers. There is no plot summary.
The only things that even might removed Spoilers include a few costumes that reference older games in the series and the return of a particularly shitty enemy, but those are just… facts about the game, not narrative beats.
So if you’re sensitive to spoilers and somehow end up somewhere on the internet where this book leaked cannot be avoided, relax. This is a pre-order bonus, not a spoiler tome.
