Highlights

  • Lookout Landing serves as the hub for players in Tears of the Kingdom, resembling the familiar Castle Town from previous Zelda games.
  • Despite being a smaller area, Lookout Landing offers quests, shops, and a growing town feel similar to Castle Town. Still, its small size is a reminder of how great Castle Town was.
  • The addition of Castle Town in future Zelda games would bring back a beloved hub location that appeals to longtime fans while also enhancing the overall gaming experience via a bigger hub area.

Lookout Landing in Tears of the Kingdom might feel familiar to longtime Zelda fans. While the name of the location is brand new to the franchise, the purpose of the area is one that has been served in previous games by Castle Town, the capital town of Hyrule that sits near Hyrule Castle. Tears of the Kingdom uses Lookout Landing as a hub for the player, just like Castle Town has been in the past.

Castle Town is a recurring location throughout the franchise, often serving as a hub location for the player during their quest. The most notable appearances come from Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, but the central seat of Hyrule has a storied history, appearing in a majority of the games in some shape or form, making it one of Zelda's best hub locations. The setting for Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t allow for a proper town as players would expect due to the post-apocalypse feeling the game is intended to have. However, Tears of the Kingdom does have a hub in the form of Lookout Landing. Though smaller than the hubs of other games, Lookout Landing scratches the itch that some players had for a version of Castle Town, but its size is ultimately a reminder of the need for a proper town in the next Zelda game.

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Is Lookout Landing the New Castle Town?

Previous games in the Zelda series have taken a hub-and-spoke direction in gameplay and story, giving the player a central area to return to before undertaking the next main questline in the game. Castle Town served as this hub in most of the games that needed one, while also serving as an in-universe hub of commerce and central location in the kingdom. It was an area full of shops for the player to stock up on arrows and potions, NPSc to talk to and receive quests from, secrets to discover, and so much more. When Breath of the Wild presented players with a version of Hyrule destroyed by war and calamity, it made sense that this town wouldn’t exist. With Tears of the Kingdom being a direct sequel, developers decided to make some changes to Hyrule in order to show rebuilding in progress, leading to the location of Lookout Landing.

Games that include a notible version of Castle Town Include

  • A Link to the Past
  • Ocarina of Time
  • Minish Cap
  • Twilight Princess
  • Spirit Tracks
  • A Link Between Worlds
  • Hyrele Warriors: Age Of Calamity

Lookout Landing is a very small area compared to Tears of the Kingdom's overworld map, but does still offer most of the activities that Castle Town has become known for. It is the location where the player receives their main quest, and a place they return to frequently for updates on it. The budding town also grows throughout the game. Each time the player completes one of the main quests, some inhabitants of the region they saved will show up around Lookout Landing. That region's armor sets and specialties will also appear in the small shop in the area. This gives players a real feeling that they are helping Hyrule in the process of rebuilding the world that they saved in the last game.

A Return to Form Should Include Castle Town

Looking at the series moving forward, it appears that it may keep the open world style that so many players love about Tears of the Kingdom. The next game in the series will probably move away from the post-apocalyptic ruins of Hyrule that have been present lately. With a more thriving setting, a true version of Castle Town would be the perfect hub location for the next open world Zelda game. Lookout Landing gives a taste of what that town might look like, but imagining the growing area being the size of a town rather than a small encampment brings exciting ideas to mind.

While Lookout Landing is far from a full-fledged Castle Town, it shows that the developers still wanted to include some version of that central hub in Tears of the Kingdom. This is a good sign for the next game. Because of the ruined setting, Tears of the Kingdom didn't have room for a large settlement, but a future open-world Zelda game could. This could help the next open world Zelda title feel like a return to form for the series while still keeping some of the lessons the developers learned about open-world gameplay. The future of the Zelda series is bright, but it shouldn’t be taken as a given that the next game will be as good as the last. Adding Castle Town is just the improvement the series needs in order to appeal to old school fans while still moving forward.