Here are five things I learned from casually watching people play Tears of the Kingdom on Nintendo Switch.

Here are five things I learned from casually watching people (mostly roommates) playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on Nintendo Switch.

1) Even though it is a sequel to Breath of the Wild, you apparently start with nothing thanks to an introduction that strips away all of your equipment and even manages to break your sword. So, you start out with a stick that you can swing at. And Link gets to walk around mostly naked again. I told my roommate as he was playing that this is "convenient" for developers who don't have to tune tougher monsters, because they made Link weak again. That's a nice reset.

2) Link is (apparently) a really popular character among trans people. He's considered an "egg breaker." If you don't know, "egg" is a term used to describe someone who is trans, who may not fully realize that they are another sex other than the one they were assigned at birth. Because Link is smooth and hairless and extremely young (he would be a twink in the gay community if he were a real person), this is apparently androgynous enough for people to both identify with male and female aspects of the character. So people who are "eggs" can see something in the character that they strongly identify with that corresponds to their subconscious sexual awakening. Josh Hawley would probably want to ban Link if he knew this was happening, based on the few pages I've read in his book, as he's deeply concerned about masculinity in America. But even as a queer person on the left, I have wondered what exactly is going on with KPop boy bands, the seeming unlimited power that young twinks wield within the gay community as older men shower them with money and gifts (I'm serious that this totally happens in what amounts to thousands of dollars gifted to fifteen year olds), and then the rise of body dysmorphia by people who desire deeply to essentially have the bodies of extraordinarily attractive teen boys. If you think I'm making this up, I swear that I'm not. My own life experiences has included conversations with almost sixty-year-old men who wonder why they cannot look like Timothee Chalamet (attractive Dune actor who is essentially king of the twinks), and whether or not surgery can bring them closer to this goal. It is (in a word) grotesque. I'm glad I don't suffer from this. I spoke with someone recently who returned from Thailand, and they said what they saw over there kinda shocked/spooked them, and that there were signs and people warning them of the dangers of getting monkey pox. I'll let you figure out exactly how a "tourist" acquires "monkey pox" but...there you go.

That is an impressively long bridge made of logs stuck together end on end.

3) Link loses an arm, so he gets a magical prosthesis called the "ultrahand" which has powers of telekinesis and apparently can handle unlimited weight. It also allows you to glue and unglue things together. This includes monsters and individuals that you run into in your exploration. You can glue those people to things, so that they don't fall off. But imagined gluing someone to a raft in real life. It's just weird, but a kid might think it is a novel solution (and that's obviously the target audience of the game even though adults are playing it everywhere--another sign that no one is an adult anymore?). What my roommate does with the ultrahand is construct things like bridges. But people online have apparently discovered that there is no limit to how big a bridge is that you can construct, so they are erecting these huge monstrosities that are miles long and carrying them around with them so that they can easily access things by setting up their portable bridge.

4) By stripping down to your skin, you can increase your stealth. Link's belongings/clothing all generate sound that affects you sneaking up on monsters and people in the game. If you are really trying to be quiet, taking off your pants and shoes is totally a thing you are supposed/can do in this game. It's weird to even type that about a game...that the creators wanted you to strip down to your underwear. But I didn't make this up. Japanese people make some truly strange games that seem odd to my very western sensibilities. But hey, I only grew up here. My brainwashing doesn't mean that it is necessarily the proper brainwashing. I at least have enough self-awareness to say that about myself.

5) You can fall an unlimited distance in game if you land in water. I thought this was weird. Because you end up in the sky at the beginning of this game, my friend decided he wanted to explore the continent down below, so he just jumped. As he was falling, he aimed for a body of water. Once he landed, he just swam to shore. I do wonder though what would have happened if he had landed on a lily pad (in other words, would the lily pad have killed Link?). My other roommate who was also watching said, "People can survive terminal velocity into water, Mike. It happens."

The game looks like a lot of fun, which (in the end) is all a game is supposed to be. I personally don't play many games, but I do like watching. If you are more of a player than a watcher, I'd recommend adding it to your collection. Some of the ridiculous things you can do as Link seem to justify the purchase price alone. Additionally, and because my brain works this way, I have to admit that when I run into someone who really, REALLY loves the game, I'll have this question pop-up in my mind. I WILL NOT say it out loud. I have enough self-control to know better. But I'll wonder..."Hey...are you an egg? Are you trans? Just curious."