Nintendo’s New Zelda Trailer Is A Very Sad Movie [Update]

There are all kinds of demographics who are going to be very into the next Zelda game, but this new trailer for Tears of the Kingdom—one that is somewhere between a personal appeal and a personal attack on me, a 43-year-old man—has one very specific audience in mind.

The kids, they’re gonna buy it. The youths, the young adults, this is a new Zelda game, those people all pre-ordered the game (or bugged their parents to pre-order it) months ago. But old gamers? That’s a different story. Older gamers have jobs. They might have a big house, they might have a family, they might have other things to do instead of play video games all the time.

Sure, they might own a Switch, and have been into Zelda at some point in time—maybe as recently as 2017!—but that was six years ago, and times change. In 2017, for example, I was 37 years old with two kids and was working at a video game website. In 2023 I am…OK, bad example, but there are going to be a lot of people in Nintendo’s crosshairs for this game that might not be as into this Zelda as they were the last one.

For them, Nintendo Australia made this trailer, and it sure is something:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIJODMsYbkc

There are two ways you can read this trailer. The first is the way its creators and Nintendo clearly intended, which is that this guy, who has a boring job and a boring life because he’s a boring middle-aged man, can still find some joy in this world. And he can find it by staying up late and playing a video game.

https://twitter.com/embed/status/1656077474990804992

This reading works, especially if you’re the target market! Zelda makes him happy, both at home and on the bus, and it even inspires him to look out the window and appreciate a lovely bit of scenery as he drives past it. “There is still good in this world”, he thinks to himself, and it’s all because he purchased The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Yet there’s also something unsettling about the whole thing. It’s shot beautifully, but like IGN’s Brian Altano says below, perhaps too well; it starts making you forget this is a video game trailer and think that, maybe, this is just a very sad movie about a very sad man:

https://twitter.com/embed/status/1656042304837410816

I think both can be true at the same time! More video game trailers like this please, it’s lovely seeing some genuine thought put into one.

UPDATE 9:10pm ET: Kotaku Australia’s Ruby Innes has posted a very important update, which I’m pasting below:

…somebody who worked on the commercial (and has asked to remain anonymous) reached out to let us know that the Zelda commercial was inspired by “a Japanese Amazon review for Breath of the Wild“. I did a bit of digging, and I’m almost certain that it’s this one

Google Translate isn’t perfect, and probably butchers the translation a bit, but you can get the gist of it here in English:

He is a member of society called a so-called Lehman. He was hit by the commuting rush hour, bowed to his customers and bosses, Overtime work every day while doing various things while being forced to train his juniors. I get annoyed by mountains I don’t even know the name of that I see on my way to work. When I come back home dizzy, I don’t have the strength to eat, so I drink and sleep. If you have time to play games, you have to go to seminars and get married. Days when I honestly wonder why I’m still alive.

I remembered it from the Switch store sale I saw on the day I went to buy dead sake. When I was crazy about Mario 64 when I was a kid, “It’s like Mario these days! It’s PS.” I was embarrassed when my friend told me. At that time, I was determined not to be hated by my friends, I also replied, “Surely Mario is old!”

The beauty of FF7 at that time and the shock of hearing the CD on TV, It may be a feeling that children today do not understand. That’s how appealing and innovative it was to children at the time.

I still don’t know why I picked up the Switch at that time. I just bought the main unit and Zelda with a beer in one hand and thinking that I could sell it if it was boring.

Yesterday, when I was at work, I saw a mountain I didn’t even know the name of from the window of the train. The moment I thought, “I think I can climb it,” tears overflowed and I couldn’t stop. The Lehmans of the same generation who were beside me must have thought, “What the hell is this guy?”

I would like to recommend it to Lehman colleagues who are pressed for time and who run side by side every day even if they are hated for maintaining the status quo. Don’t say it’s just a game. We were born in the golden age of gaming. Have you ever seen your family move with Mario’s jumps? Do you remember playing Smash with a controller? Have you ever discussed strategies for Chrono Trigger or FF7 with your friends? I know it now. I used to be a fucking kid, but my parents were on birthdays and Christmas, That you bought me fucking expensive hardware and software. On the side of being naughty, you managed to buy an expensive game for me with the house money.

I’m impressed that I’ve realized just now that I didn’t realize that I was working so hard on my life. I should have been more filial.

★5 There’s nothing more I can say because all the reviews are good. This Zelda gives me the “challenge and reward” that I forgot. You can experience an exciting adventure where you can freely explore the world without a map. We of the same generation are sick every day in order to surpass tomorrow. But don’t be disappointed in life. The adventure I was hoping for was in a place like this.