The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom made a promotional appearance at the Nintendo Live event in Japan this week, and after seeing an exceptionally detailed statue of Link, Zelda fans are once again abuzz with theories about new gameplay mechanics that might be present in the Breath of the Wild sequel. The statue in question (which looks like a Zelda collector’s dream) shows Link with his arm outstretched alongside a light-up feature with that particular arm being a key focus of most of the gameplay theories thus far.
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For the many Zelda fans not in attendance at the Nintendo Live 2022 event, others shared pictures and videos of the life-sized statue online to show off the creation’s various features. Both in those photos and videos and in general, there’s a notable emphasis on the blue-green arm Link has outstretched.
We’ve seen this arm multiple times in the few instances that Nintendo has shown off Tears of the Kingdom including in the 2019 trailer for the game before its name was confirmed. Many of the popular theories suggest that this arm is colored this way because of some sort of corruption that started to spread through Link, a corruption that’s being halted or at least delayed by the brace on his arm.
This arm’s been seen in teasers since including in the reveal whenever the sequel got a release date, and on more than one occasion, Link’s had his arm outstretched just as he does in this statue. Some have questioned whether this particular pose is meant to show Link absorbing something through the afflicted arm. Others have speculated that this might hint at some sort of transformation ability while discussions in forums have entertained other ideas.
Considering how little Nintendo has shown and shared when it comes to this game, it doesn’t look like we’re going to get answers to these sorts of questions about his arm anytime soon, so don’t expect these theories to dry up in the near future. Nintendo has at least given Tears of the Kingdom a release date of May 12, 2023, however, so hopefully we’ll keep seeing promos like this one ramp up in the future even if specific questions aren’t answered.
