“The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” has finally arrived and is already bulldozing the sales of “Hogwarts Legacy.”
Announced back in 2019, “Tears of the Kingdom” is the direct sequel to 2017’s Nintendo Switch’s launch game “Breath of the Wild,” widely considered to be the best game in the nearly 40-year-old “Legend of Zelda” series and even considered by some as the finest video game ever made.
“Breath of the Wild” has sold nearly 30 million copies as of March 2023, making it the 4th best-selling game on Nintendo’s hybrid game system, the Switch, the 3rd best-selling game console ever with 126 million units sold.
However, the hype behind “Tears” might push both products further up in their respective lists since it is the kind of game that moves systems, especially with a Limited Edition allusive to the game made available at the same time, as it might also drum up interest in the older title.
While the “Tears” score on Metacritic is one point away from its predecessor, some critics consider it even better and a strong contender for the best game ever made.
Barely a week after its release, “Tears” had the second biggest Nintendo launch in the UK and has already doubled boxed sales of “Hogwarts Legacy” in the same territory, the latter being 2023’s best-selling title thus far having already totaled 15 million units sold and a $1 billion revenue for its publisher, Warner Bros, since its release in February.
It’s worth mentioning, though, that those figures, as impressive as they are, relate only to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, with ports for the PS4 and Xbox One released recently and a Switch release due in November. For the moment, however, “Tears” is beating “Hogwarts” soundly, which is impressive.
“The Legend of Zelda” series has always been one of Nintendo’s flagship franchises, with its consistent quality and sales numbers. Still, it always found itself somewhat eclipsed by its sibling IPs, “Super Mario” and “Pokémon,” the best-selling video game franchise and the highest-grossing media franchise, respectively.
Before “Breath of the Wild,” the best-selling “Zelda” was 2006’s “Twilight Princess” for the Gamecube and Wii, with just 8.6 million units sold… A far cry from the former’s total sales, showing that “Zelda” has become not just as gigantic as the Nintendo mentioned above’s franchises but rivaling other massive competing IPs such as Call of Duty, Minecraft, and Final Fantasy in popularity… The latter of which also has a new title launching this year.
Such is the overwhelming success of both “Tears” and the recently released “The Super Mario Bros Movie” that Nintendo is considering the possibility of “Zelda” transitioning to the silver screen.