After nearly 4 long years, it’s finally time! The release of *The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom* is upon us. The game will go live at or shortly before **12 AM, Friday May 12, 2023**, depending on your territory.
Arguably the most anticipated Switch title since it’s predecessor, *Breath of the Wild*, dialogue and discussion around this game is reaching a fever pitch. Before we **dive** into the insanity that will be this week, we wanted to talk about what this week is going to look like from the Subreddit’s perspective so that you can be prepared for the onslaught that is to come.
As is typical for subreddits of our size and activity, we will be focusing most posts and discussions on the game into one a few megathreads, with a few exceptions. Below are the details for these threads:
# Speculation/Hype Megathread
On **Tuesday, May 9, 2023**, we will post a **Speculation/Hype Megathread**. All posts with speculation on quality of the game, plot details, hype posts, etc. will be removed and redirected to this thread. **_Comments containing spoilers for the plot of the game based on leaks will not be tolerated and will likely result in a ban._** Please see the **Spoiler Policy** section below for more details on our how we are rolling our spoiler policy.
# Review Megathread
We do not yet know the exact time the review embargo will lift, but it will likely be around **Wednesday, May 10, 2023 at 9AM Eastern**, based on previous 1st party releases from Nintendo during the Switch’s lifecycle. When reviews are released, we will post a **Review Megathread**, where we will show metacritic and opencritic scores, as well as some aggregated scores and impressions from various outlets. Per our standard policy, we will allow individual links to reviews to be posted until the MT is up, but discussion posts on the review scores, as well as general pre-launch discussion and hype, will be removed and re-directed to the review megathread. At this point we will begin to roll back restrictions on discussion of plot details on the game. **All discussions on the plot of the game in this thread will be required to be tagged with the spoiler formatting.** You can mark spoilers in comments by either using the spoiler button on New Reddit/Mobile or, if using markdown, wrapping your comments with >! like this: `>!Link is in the game!<` >!Link is in the game!< . More details can be found in the **Spoiler Policy** section below.
# Launch Megathread
*The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom* will launch at or around 12AM on Friday, May 12, 2023, depending on your territory. eShop/Digital titles are usually available at 12AM, but that time can vary in different markets (for example, in the US, all US players should be able to play at 12AM Eastern, so 9PM Pacific, 10PM Mountain, etc.). Thursday, May 11, 2023, we will post a megathread which will cover the Treehouse Live presentation (beginning at **8:45PM Pacific US Time**) as well as general launch hype and discussion. **All plot details must include spoiler tags. Failure to adhere to this policy may result in a ban.** See our **Spoiler Policy** below for more details.
# Dawn of the 1st/2nd/3rd/New day posts:
We get these before every Zelda release. [Context](https://i.imgur.com/tUmm7Ze.png) We will approve the 1st of these that are posted at **12AM Eastern US** of each day. The rest will be removed as re-posts.
# Fan Art
Fan art submissions will be restricted to weekends, as per our usual policy. This includes Tears of the Kingdom fan art, which can still be posted in the hype thread or launch threads.
# Spoiler Policy
Everyone has different ideas as to what constitutes a spoiler and what is worthy of spoiler tags and protection. When we determine our spoiler policies, we try to walk the line between enabling discussion on details of the game without ruining people’s chances to discover new experiences in the game themselves.
The balance that we strike is as follows:
## Non Spoilers – Discussion of these items does not require a spoiler tag and is allowed in any threads
* Anything seen in gameplay from the Aonuma demonstration or the recent preview event
* Anything seen in **officially released** ads
* Anything seen in **officially released** trailers
## Spoilers – Requires spoiler tags `>!spoiler!<`
* Names or details for new characters (even ones seen in trailers)
* Overall plot details and discussion
* Gameplay elements not revealed before launch (info about shrines, dungeons, etc.)
The spoiler policy above will remain in effect until at least **Monday, May 15, 2023**. We may extend this further if deemed necessary.
## **Failure to properly adhere to the spoiler policy may result in a ban. Don’t ruin the experience for others!**
# Other items
Per our standard rules, linking to emulators and ROM sites is not allowed. We will also remove comments from users attempting to instruct or lead others in emulation or obtaining ROMs.
Gameplay clips and screenshots should be contained to the mega threads and will be removed.
We on the mod team are looking forward to diving back into Hyrule with all of you once again!
~The /r/NintendoSwitch mod team
by NintendoSwitchMods
21 Comments
Thank you all for being so organized and prepared. That kicks ass.
This is itttttt!!!!!!!
Oof idk, a girl wants to hang out… So or i play the game between rounds, or i’ll go home to play without distractions.
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Very excited… won’t really get into it till the following weekend. Mother’s Day wasn’t great timing for release.
Testing the spoiler tag just for sure
>!Link is the coolest!<
First game I’ve preordered in years.
Heh, liking the Dawn of the 1st day/2nd/etc ideas. Been 6 years, really crazy that’s it’s the big week. I’m still zen rn, keeping calm. But I can feel the hype growing in me. I can’t think about it too much lol. Not until Thursday night at least
anything I need to do to GUARANTEE I get zelda on friday? my plan is to walk into walmart friday morning. is that good? worried if I order on amazon it’ll show up saturday.
Man, I’m kind of baffled they announced this game when E3 was still a thing. I forgot it had been so long.
Waiting for 1.2 or 1.3 cart. Guna be hard holding out!
Fingers crossed it’s coming to game pass
/s
Is it the first minute of Friday or the last minute of Friday becoming Saturday I want to be sure since game stop is doing a midnight opening and my knucklehead self is hoping I can get the rumoured few Collector’s Edition.
my plans are to study for finals happening a week later 🙁
My plan: unsubscribe from the subreddit. Don’t want to of course, but within a few days everyone is gonna be talking about some secret boss or how cool the ending is and I can’t have those teasing me
Only 3 days spoiler free? You better extend that to at least a week, maybe two.
Well I can’t play this game until june 15th so I’ll just leave this sub I guess
edit cause I can’t spell
would it be okay if I play this game and never played breath of wild before
Why does the post say “after nearly 4 long years”? Breath of the Wild came out over 6 years ago in 2017. Or does it mean 4 years since TotK was announced?
>Gameplay elements not revealed before launch (info about shrines, dungeons, etc.)
Is this a spoiler that the game still has shrines?
I bought the game thru a independent store in a rural town so I will get the game between 15th and 16th.
Time to logout from reddit I guess.