Will shrines make a return in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom?

What else would you do in Hyrule?

The launch of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is nearly upon us. New details and gameplay have come out about the open-world game, and some eagle-eyed fans have discovered that the existence of shrines may have been teased in the process.

Will shrines make a return in Tears of the Kingdom?

Nintendo released a roughly 13-minute demonstration of Tears of the Kingdom’s gameplay, giving a look at how the Breath of the Wild sequel will play.

The gameplay video revealed a lot about Link’s next open-world adventure, but not quite everything. For one, we know very little about the game’s core progression, such as everything players will be doing in Tears of the Kingdom when not breaking weapons in battle. Furthermore, there was no official comment about whether or not the fan-favorite shrines from Breath of the Wild will return.

That said, some fans on Reddit immediately noticed a certain key detail in the middle of the presentation. There is a brief moment where Link is running through a golden field on one of the sky islands. In the bottom right corner of the screen, the minimap shows a blue icon. This icon resembles the same shrine symbol used in Breath of the Wild. As such, many in the community have speculated that this nearby location could hold a shrine.

This is the biggest indicator of shrines returning to this game. While it is unconfirmed at this point in time, it seems likely that shrines will be back. The counterargument to this is that there are other symbols shown during the gameplay clip too.

What about the new icons?

These alternate symbols show a cave-like structure that has a checkmark next to it, presumably indicating the player has completed whatever was available there. These are completely different than the blue shrine symbols, so there is a chance these could be the returning shrines instead.

On the other hand, the two icons could be different forms of shrine-like content in Tears of the Kingdom that are categorized separately. Maybe there are some shrines that are outdoors now, instead of being strictly indoors.

Other than that, details are scarce about what shrines could entail in Tears of the Kingdom. For now, we will have to just wait for more information. After all, Tears of the Kingdom is rapidly approaching its impending release date of May 12, 2023.