Huge Tears of the Kingdom book reveals 8 scrapped Princess Zelda redesigns, and a loving Rauru and Sonia scene

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What could have been

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
(Image credit: Nintendo)

Nintendo has revealed early concept art for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's redesigned Princess Zelda, and fans are having a normal one.

Nintendo recently tweeted out the post below, announcing that it would be revealing several new Tears of the Kingdom merchandise items for the game's upcoming anniversary on May 12. Among the merch is a new 'Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Masterworks' book, a hefty 464-page tome that delves into the making of the smash-hit Zelda sequel.

The website link above gives a short preview of the Masterworks book, showing off concept art of scrapped character iterations that didn't make it into the final game. Notably, there are more eight versions of Princess Zelda, each with different hair, which you can see in the screenshot of the Tears of the Kingdom Masterworks book just below.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

(Image credit: Nintendo)

Zelda fans are reacting to this with varying levels of excitement. "I am charmed, captivated, enthralled, dazzled, fascinated, mesmerized, spellbound and utterly bewitched," writes one user of short-hair Zelda. "This is one of the first times where the final design is probably my favorite one?? Some of these are so cool though I love her," wrote another fan.

"This one looks like shes gonna call the manager," adds another user, singling out the bottom-right corner Zelda design. For all the enthusiasm of the new concept art reveals, there is an overriding sense of relief that Nintendo narrowly avoided turning Zelda into a Karen.

Elsewhere, there's a lot of tears shed for the concept art just below of Rauru and Sonia. Both are members of the Zonai people in Tears of the Kingdom, and while we won't spoil anything here, there's a pretty significant reason everyone's in tears at them happily embracing.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom supercharge the series as Switch Zeldas account for 40% of all sales.

Hirun Cryer
Hirun Cryer
Freelance Writer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.