Wishlist for Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom DLC

A couple of years before it was released, I shared my wish list for Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (aka BotW 2). The list included all sorts of things that I wanted to see in Tears of the Kingdom. Fast-forward to the much anticipated May 2023 release of Tears of the Kingdom — I was overjoyed to find that most of my “wishes” came true. Apparently somebody at Nintendo is listening to user feedback, as the new game is almost exactly perfect in every respect..

Needs more monsters

The only thing that is not perfect, in my humble opinion, is the verticality of battle. That is, a serious lack of monsters. Just like with Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom is absolutely amazing first starting out. You start with nothing and have to scrap and scavenge your way up the food chain. During the ascension, you go from fighting weaker monsters with weaker weapons, to fighting stronger monsters with stronger weapons. This ongoing struggle is the whole essence of the game.

For example, when BotW first starts, one of the very first battles is to fight a Bokoblin with a flimsy tree branch. You’re basically naked with nothing and getting chased around by these savage ape-ish looking villains. You scramble and find a tree branch that you can use, but it breaks quickly and you’re left scrambling again, trying to deal with encroaching enemies while staying alive in the game. Such sport is bare bones, white-knuckle excitement — running around using found objects and weak weapons to survive the various monsters and challenges scattered throughout Hyrule.

Then of course, later in the game, after you’ve leveled up to stronger weapons and armor, the monsters also have gotten more challenging, to the point where you’re doing things like fighting Lynels with 100+ swords and 60+ bow and arrows.

But then at that point, where you’ve risen to the top and are looking for stronger, more challenging bad guys… you find there are none. The verticality of battle sort of just fizzles out after so much game play. As mentioned in my wishlist post, it just sort of ends the otherwise endless playability of the game. This same weakness happens in both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom 😥

Waaaayyyy more monsters

Tears of the Kingdom is an absolutely amazing game. It just needs more challenge — more monsters — for the more advanced and adventurous players. IF there is to be any Downloadable Content (DLC) for Tears of the Kingdom, something like a “Super Monsters” pack could populate Hyrule with a serious avalanche of deadly enemies. It would be utterly legendary.

WAY more monsters. Stronger monsters. Legions of monsters. Monsters everywhere..

In fact, that is my only wish for TotK DLC — more monsters, more challenge, heavier battles, and more monsters — everything else is perfect.

My Wishlist for TotK DLC

So without further ado. My wishlist for TotK DLC, put simply:

• More monsters.
• Way more monsters.
• Monsters everywhere.
• Gangs of hundreds of monsters.
• Gangs of Lynels.
• Gangs of Dragons.
• Lynels and Dragons working together.
• Gold Lynels. In packs of 10 or 20.
• Gold Gleeoks. In packs of 10 or 20.
• Random monsters in random locations.
• Waaayy stronger monsters.
• And waaaayyyy more of them.

Seriously. TotK gives us SO MANY weapons and Zonai devices and endless ways to kill monsters. So many more ways to battle than in BotW. It’s like TotK gives Link super powers. Amazing almost god-like powers that make it stupidly easy to beat just about any monster in the game. The lack of battle verticality (i.e., challenge for greater skilled players) is much more pronounced in TotK just due to how powerful Link can get. The monsters have almost ZERO response or ability to fight back..

Yes there is some serious monster action when you battle Ganondorf and his minions, chasing fake Zelda around the castle, and with all the villains in the depths in Glooms Approach. BUT you can’t replay those incredible monster-heavy scenes. It’s once per game and done. And that sucks because it’s EXACTLY what the game needs more of.. more challenging — and re-playable — insane monster battles.

This place should be crawling with monsters..

Dear Nintendo

Nintendo if you are listening, please make a “Super Monster” DLC pack. Crank up the monsters and make the whole game more like the Gloom sequence. Do what they’re doing for Relics of the Past, where everything is super leveled up and you’re basically running around fighting for your life. I would pay much $$$ to be able to play Relics of the Past, or anything even close to it.

So to sum up: TotK is the best game ever. Seriously. Except for the monster department. It is pretty weak. BEEF up the monsters, and make TotK the absolute most amazing fun game of all time.

About the Author

Jeff Starr = Designer. Developer. Producer. Writer. Editor. Etc.