Nintendo finally unveiled its long-rumored The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Collector’s Edition OLED Switch. It’s still not the Switch Pro upgrade many players have been waiting for, but it still looks pretty neat and is far and away one of better-looking special edition consoles its released in recent years.
The Tears of the Kingdom Switch comes with gold Joy-Con that have subtle patterns painted on them in green and white, and a white dock with a golden Triforce design in the middle. The best part is that there’s no logo, just pure aesthetics. The console itself comes separate from the game and will release a few weeks ahead of it on April 28.
Nintendo has been producing quite a few collector’s edition variants of the Switch these days. Following the Animal Crossing: New Horizons version, which still might be my overall favorite, there have been Monster Hunter, Splatoon, and Pokémon editions as well. Earlier this month, Nintendo released a Mario edition that effectively came with a free game.
The Zelda-themed Switch first leaked online back in December, with additional blurry images surfacing now and again in the lead up to Tears of the Kingdom’s release. While Switch sales have been slowing, the hybrid console is still doing incredibly well for hardware that’s now in its seventh year. It’s now sold even more than the Wii, and might still break a few records before its officially retired.
At the same time, new Switch games are definitely showing the console’s age, and it remains to be seen if Tears of the Kingdom can run as well on it as Breath of the Wild did back in 2017. Nintendo’s handhelds have normally received several design refreshes over their lifecycle, making the Switch an odd exception to the rule, especially given its success. If a Switch 2 isn’t just around the corner at this point, I honestly don’t want to know what is.