Summary
- Tears of the Kingdom's verticality helps set it apart from its predecessor, with the Depths offering exploration deep below the kingdom.
- A secret chasm was discovered, speculated to be cut content like other inaccessible areas in the game.
The Legends of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's Depths includes a secret chasm that has been uncovered by some enterprising explorers. Even though The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is coming up on the second anniversary since its release, players are still managing to find hidden secrets, and this one goes a long way down.
The immense level of verticality in Tears of the Kingdom is one big way that the developers at Nintendo made its version of Hyrule stand out from the kingdom in the game's predecessor, 2017's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Even from its earliest reveal trailers, Nintendo shone a spotlight on the cloudy Sky Islands that open up another map's worth of content high in the skies above Hyrule, avoiding too much repetition between the games' environments.
Why One Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Village Deserves the Kakariko Treatment
Just as Kakariko Village has had the privilege of appearing in multiple Zelda installments, one unique Tears of the Kingdom village deserves the same.
But just as the Sky Islands opened up the world above, Tears of the Kingdom's Depths provided plenty of exploration opportunities deep below the kingdom, spanning an area that covers almost the entire overworld map. Spelunking doesn't seem to be the most popular activity among the game's fan base, but it seems there are still some secrets in The Depths, as one player has revealed. YouTube channel Gaming Reinvented recently shared footage of a secret pit that can only be accessed by making Link clip through a couple layers of rock that have been placed overhead. There's nothing special waiting for players at the bottom, but the long drop reveals fully rendered rock walls that are covered in places with Gloom.
Hidden Chasm Discovered in Tears of the Kingdom's Depths
Since there's no clear way to access this chasm without exploiting clipping bugs, it seems to be an unused area that was added to the game for a purpose, though it's not clear what that purpose was supposed to be. Due to the small size of the walkable area at the bottom, Gaming Reinvented has speculated that it may have been intended as a hidden treasure chest, Zoanite, or Poe location in Tears of the Kingdom before the developers scrapped it and sealed it up with in-game rocks overhead. However, the height of the downward drop makes it seem impossible to climb out of, so there is also a theory that it was meant as a sort of vertical hallway to lead players to another area that was never finished.
This chasm isn't the only piece of cut content discovered in Tears of the Kingdom. Past reveals by way of glitches and mods have uncovered otherwise inaccessible rooms at the top of Hyrule Castle's main tower and in the Fashion Passion Shop in Gerudo Town. Along with these locations, players have dug up evidence of unused cooking and armor effects and the cut ability to register the Lord of the Mountain as a mount.
-
OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 95 /100 Critics Rec: 97%
- Released
- May 12, 2023
- ESRB
- Rated E for Everyone 10+ for Fantasy Violence and Mild Suggestive Themes
- Developer(s)
- Nintendo
- Publisher(s)
- Nintendo
- Engine
- Havok
- Cross-Platform Play
- N/A
- Cross Save
- N/A
WHERE TO PLAY
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the sequel to the beloved open-world adventure, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This installment once again sees Link and Zelda battling to protect Hyrule from falling to Ganondorf. This new adventure takes place in the same land of Hyrule as Breath of the Wild but sees something called the Upheaval, which allows link to travel to Sky Islands, as well as deep into the Depths beneath Hyrule. Players can use special abilities to fuse together weapons, and build items to help them progress through the release.
- Franchise
- The Legend of Zelda
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- n/a
- Genre(s)
- Adventure, Action, Open-World
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2
- How Long To Beat
- 59 Hours
- X|S Optimized
- n/a
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
