Traveling through an open-world title can be a lonely experience, which helps to make the introduction of the Sages in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom such a breath of fresh air. However, going beyond the comradery that comes with unlocking the new Sages, sheds new light on the concept of multiplayer in the open-world Legend of Zelda titles, and why Nintendo should support the concept in its titles.
The topic of multiplayer in Tears of the Kingdom has long been a request from fans since the early trailers were first shown, even if it was known to be an unlikely addition to the open-world sequel. This has even led to the predecessor Breath of the Wild receiving a number of mods dedicated to delivering a multiplayer experience to fans looking to explore Hyrule together.
How the Sages Make Hyrule Less Lonely
Similar to Breath of the Wild's own setting, Tears of the Kingdom opens on Great Sky Island, an isolated location where Link is given the freedom to experiment with combat and explore the new powers granted by Rauru's grafted arm. From there, it's mostly a lonely journey where Link will meet new characters, but ultimately leave almost all of them where he found them as he moves from one quest to the next. This is strikingly different, however, for the Sages that accompany Link into each of the new dungeons scattered across Hyrule.
Not only do the Sages join Link before they are given their titles at the end of Tears of the Kingdom's new Dungeons, but players are also rewarded with a permanent spirit version of the NPCs after beating the boss. While these spirit Sages don't talk to Link when outside of their intended dungeon, having the backup there can be helpful for both combat and exploration. Most notably, having the spirit partners makes it feel more like Link and a party of adventurers are heading through the world, instead of it being one man's solitary quest.
What Nintendo's Takeaway from Multiplayer Mods Should Be
This additional comradery is certainly a notable improvement from Breath of the Wild's more lonely atmosphere, but it could go a step further if the Sages were either replaced with or controlled by another player. Previously, this has been explored through multiplayer mods for Breath of the Wild, created by the fan community rather than the developer itself. Given the popularity of these mods, it is clear that giving players the ability to explore Hyrule together would be a net positive for the series.
Unfortunately, Nintendo hasn't exactly been positively receptive to fans looking to get the most out of the developer's biggest titles like the current generation of Zelda titles. The result has been takedowns for multiplayer Breath of the Wild videos from popular content creators in the community like PointCrow, as well as alleged attempts to shut down the mods themselves. This ultimately means that players will continue to miss out on this type of gameplay experience until Nintendo decides to either loosen its restrictions on how fans can interact with the games they paid for, or develop multiplayer as a first-party feature.
The best course of action here for both Nintendo and fans of the company would be for an official multiplayer feature to be introduced into Zelda's latest open-world title. One potential avenue for this could then be Tears of the Kingdom's Sages, with additional players being given a chance to control one of the NPCs and then being limited to their set of weapons and abilities. This could allow multiple players to explore Hyrule together without the problem of making the group overpowered by having access to Link's full toolkit from two or more perspectives.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available now for Switch.