Nintendo has released a new advert for Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and on my first watch through I had my video game news reporter hat on, looking closely at the gameplay moments for fresh clues.
My efforts didn’t really bring up much new. I now know that for your Ultrahand-made raft to not topple over in the water, you need to make sure it is balanced by some support logs on either side. But that really is about it in terms of gameplay analysis.
Then I watched it again, and this time my mind was drawn not to Link gadabouting through the sky, but to the real life, “everyday” man the advert actually focuses on. It is quite clear what (or who) Nintendo is trying to paint a picture of here.
He is a tired, 40-something man, run down by the mundane trivialities of his normal and uneventful life. He feels like a cog in the machine, getting up and getting dressed for a job he perhaps once had a passion for, but that has gone now. His morning interactions with others are saved for a few polite half smiles at fellow bus passengers, before his only company is his own reflection looking back at him from the window.