The anticipation for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been mounting as the release date approaches and it certainly doesn't help that the game's producer, Eiji Aonuma, keeps on hyping it.

At the Famitsu Game Awards, Tears of the Kingdom was honored with the Most Anticipated Game award, which Aonuma accepted. According to Twitter user Genki_JPN, whose tweets have since been deleted, Aonuma made the following statement:

In the sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, furthermore, the player’s free imagination will be filled with new gameplay that will bring about changes to the game world.

He also expressed his desire for players to be "pleasantly surprised" by these changes and to relish the opportunity to give players a chance to explore Hyrule in an "unknown" state."

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is set to release on the Nintendo Switch. Unlike previous standard edition titles on the digital Switch platform, the game will be priced at $69.99, a $10 increase.

Despite this, Doug Bowser, the president of Nintendo of America, reassured fans that the game's quality would justify the price increase, stating:

We look at what the game has to offer. I think fans will find this is an incredibly full, deeply immersive experience. The price point reflects the type of experience that fans can expect when it comes to playing this particular game.

Expounding further on the game's increased price, Bowser clarified that it would not be a blanket policy for all first-party Switch titles moving forward, saying:

This isn’t a price point that we’ll necessarily have on all our titles. It’s actually a fairly common pricing model either here or in Europe or other parts of the world, where the pricing may vary depending on the game itself.

"Game-changing" is certainly not something to be taken lightly, albeit it wouldn't surprise us if the game actually is. It's worth remembering that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild marked a shift in the franchise and in the gaming industry as a whole. The game explored several different types of traversal options in an open-world setting and proved to other developers that such mechanics can work.

We won't have to wait for too long to find out if Tears of the Kingdom can deliver. The highly anticipated sequel comes out on May 12 and it's expected to get post-launch DLC.