After years of hype, Tears of the Kingdom is finally here. The next installment in The Legend of Zelda series, and while most of you likely expected it to be nearly as good as Breath of the Wild, in the eyes of some, its sequel is even better. Tears of the Kingdom is the highest-rated game ever right now according to OpenCritic, a full two spots higher than its predecessor.
Tears of the Kingdom has a score of 97 on OpenCritic based on 63 reviews. Not too shabby. A quick look at the overall ranking on OpenCritic reveals that's one point more than Breath of the Wild, which sits in third, and the same score as Super Mario Odyssey which also has a 97.
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OpenCritic has stepped in to explain why Tears of the Kingdom is above Super Mario Odyssey. While its site only shows a game's score rounded to the nearest whole number, behind the scenes, the average score is rounded to three decimal places. At last count, Tears of the Kingdom has a score of 97.223, while Mario Odyssey has a 96.811. Breath of the Wild settled on a score of 95.905, so technically, Tears of the Kingdom has scored more than a full point higher than its older sibling.
Now, things change. OpenCritic posted those very accurate numbers less than an hour after the review embargo on Tears of the Kingdom lifted. However, at the time of typing this, Tears of the Kingdom is still sitting atop the OpenCritic pile. Reviews will continue to pour in over the weekend though, and there's even an outside chance any of the top three gets a review that alters their score years from now. A review for Citizen Kane discovered almost a century later lost the iconic movie its perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Tears of the Kingdom's Metacritic score paints a different picture. At 96, not only is the newest Zelda game not the highest-rated game of all time, it doesn't even make the top 20. Red Dead Redemption 2 and Metroid Prime are currently higher than it, not to mention Ocarina of Time which is Metacritic's highest-scoring game ever. Again, that might change as more reviews are published in the coming days. Maybe as more reviewers discover Breath of the Wild's annoying shrine alert noise is a thing of the past, that score will creep up.
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