Tears of the Kingdom makes Hyrule look better than ever with a vastly improved draw distance compared to its predecessor.
In 2017 Breath of the Wild reinvented the familiar Zelda formula, giving players a huge open world to explore, void of limitless quests or a map overrun with points of interest. Instead, it gave you the freedom to make your own way. You could spend hours venturing to see what lay just over the horizon, sometimes in the hopes of uncovering a secret and sometimes just for the heck of it. And thanks to a vastly improved draw distance, faraway places in Tears of the Kingdom will be even more enticing.
Images shared on the Tears of the Kingdom subreddit show how you can see more clearly across a greater distance in the upcoming game compared to its predecessor. Not only that, but the lighting effects make Hyrule look even more majestic.
massively_improved_render_distance from r/tearsofthekingdom
Naturally, any sequel, even on the same console, tends to look more visually impressive as developers get more familiar with the hardware and push its capabilities further. Still, the improvement in Link’s upcoming adventure is more than that, as Breath of the Wild was originally made for Wii U and essentially ported to Switch. Tears of the Kingdom, on the other hand, was made for Switch and can take full advantage of the increased processing power of Nintendo’s newest console.
Tears of the Kingdom is set to release on May 12. Last week we saw fresh footage of the game during the year’s first Nintendo Direct livestream. While it's certainly shaping up to be a worthy successor to Breath of the Wild, at $70, it’s also Nintendo’s most expensive Switch game yet.
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