Kingdom Tears on Journalism Ethics.

in The Legend of ZeldaHyrule is a land constantly endangered by evil Shadow Lords, catastrophic volcanic eruptions, and an intangible sense of uncanny gloom that sucks the will to live out of every man, Zora, and Joron. Its nations are stratified across the land, and they all live under the quantitative confines of a tyrannical monarchical dynasty. (princess zelda Demon King Ganondorf, they are all fat cats to me.) In other words, the folks zelda Need a free press, and in the latest game of the franchise – called kingdom tears-Hylians discovered that sometimes, the pen is mightier than the sword. Those who embark on the adventure will discover ancient sights, glorious ruins, and, most surprisingly, a proud celebration of the power of journalism. Finally, Link poses the tough questions.

in the americas, Kingdom Tears He already is Nintendo’s fastest selling game of all timemove over 4 million copies in the first three days. Its map is 198 miles wide, nearly twice the size of Massachusetts. Our hero — the silent Link encased in green blades — can engage in unimaginable human cruelty during his journey, as these mutilated Korok sprites can attest. But early on in the narrative, you’ll stumble upon a small town called Rito Village, where Link can put aside the bloodshed and join the staff at the start-up Lucky Clover Gazette – located in an abandoned horse stable – as a budding freelancer. The two employees, Traysi and Penn, show up and hand out tasks to Link, which usually involve the mysterious, albeit eminently expected, disappearance of Princess Zelda. Link completes his task, earns his reward, and boosts Hyrule’s reporting power. The freer the press, the freer the people.

Background characters that reproduce Kingdom Tears All bear a remarkably serious, almost Pollyanna-ish perspective in both the Lucky Clover Gazette and The Fourth Estate as a whole. There is no partisan bifurcation of Hyrule media. No one accuses Link of being a sensationalist or promoting fake news, and his superiors are hard on their G School core principles. (“We can’t print anything unless we make sure it’s correct,” Ben guides During one of the side-quest’s interstitial moments.) As you explore further, you’ll find people leafing through an open copy of the newspaper, making staunchly pro-First Amendment statements to anyone in sight. One of them says, “It is strange to think that I can learn about the affairs of the world just by reading the newspaper.” “Lucky Clover Gazette! Wow!” with another enthusiasm. “If they’re understaffed, maybe I should consider becoming a journalist.” Ben — which, it should be said, appears in Kingdom Tears An anthropomorphic squawk – Recruits sing an association with an evocative paean to the life of the newshound. “Hey, do you want to be a reporter?” He asks, “Shedding light on the truth? Exposing the evils in our world?” He cheers our stubbornness throughout the game, like a Marty Barron birdie: “The more mysteries, the brighter the journalist’s spirit burns!”

All this makes Kingdom Tears It is perhaps the only major video game with a notably positive attitude towards media, meaning that the generation of eight-year-olds who are currently enjoying their first Zelda game are hopefully pushed away from mounting paranoia and the illiberal “enemy” of the people and toward The cleansing realization that journalism, as a craft, is mostly about telling the truth and writing fun little stories. Nintendo gets to them before the strings of toxic comments do.

“Journalism has been attacked relentlessly in recent years by people who don’t like the questions they’re asking. I think it’s really important for younger audiences to get on messages like this. “I really liked the message of having to look up things in person. Too often, Reddit-style journalism is about sitting at home and Googling stuff. It often leads to incorrect conclusions. This gameplay is about good old journalism for boots and leather “.

Laura Owen, editor of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, agrees with Wu’s conclusion. “I love any journalistic screams in pop culture,” she said, noting that positive references to journalism — even within the confines of a video game side story — can leave a surprisingly deep imprint on a developing mind. “My six-year-old learned the concept of ‘pretend you’re reading a newspaper but are actually spying on someone’ through an episode of one thing or another,” Owen explained.

Of course, Nintendo itself hasn’t always lived up to the Lucky Clover Gazette. For example, Kotaku, a long-running gaming blog, has operated under a company-imposed blacklist — shutting down website staff’s access to review transcripts and preview events, making their jobs as game journalists more difficult than they need to be — all apparently because it covered up the leaks. . Link may be an advocate for Hyrule’s open airwaves, but his bosses have other ideas. Never was the character more relatable than when he was struggling to live ethically among contradictory corporate interests.

Regardless, I hope to see Link continue his media adventure in future chapters of his story, as the Lucky Clover Gazette navigates the increasingly turbulent waters of the newspaper business. Ganondorf may be an existential sly on the brink of Hyrule, but Hero of Time now has bigger threats to contend with: final bosses like Pivot-to-Video, corporate restructuring, and of course, corporate burnout. Congratulations Link. you are one of we.