If you want to play the entirety of Nintendo's big new 'Zelda' game, you'll have to pay $80

pulse

February 14, 2017 6:39 PM

For the first time ever, Nintendo's selling a $20 "season pass" to a major new "Legend of Zelda" game. Here's what's in it.

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The new "Legend of Zelda" game is almost here.

Link, Zelda, and the Kingdom of Hyrule all look better than ever in "Breath of the Wild," which arrives on March 3. Better yet, it arrives alongside Nintendo's new console — the Switch — as a launch title. You might call it the launch title because of its prominence.

It's been over five years since the last major installment in the beloved "Legend of Zelda" series, "Skyward Sword." To say that "Breath of the Wild" is an "anticipated" game is to dramatically undersell its hype — and rightfully so, as the game looks fantastic.

Here's one of the many shots of the game looking impressive:

Nintendo claims that "Breath of the Wild" is its largest-ever "Legend of Zelda" adventure — but, to get the full breadth of that adventure, you'll need to snag the game's "expansion pass." The term may sound strange given that we're talking about a narrative-driven game rather than, say, this year's "Madden." It's a video game industry term that, in this case, means you pay a flat fee in exchange for two "packs" of add-on content to "Breath of the Wild."

More plainly: For an extra $20, on top of the $60 asking price for the base game, you'll get two additional packs of content. It's coming to both the Wii U and Switch versions of the game.

Here's how Nintendo describes the two pieces of content for "Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild":

Notably, the second piece of content sounds like the juicier piece — Nintendo's no doubt hoping it'll attract holiday shoppers to the Switch, in addition to bringing back dedicated fans. Also of note, this is the first time Nintendo has ever created additional content for a main series "Legend of Zelda" game.

It's a major shift for a company that's notoriously slow to adopt prevailing trends in the video game market; Nintendo's still years behind its competition when it comes to paid online services, for instance.

The man in charge of creating "Breath of the Wild," longtime Nintendo game director Eiji Aonuma, announced the pass in a video shared by Nintendo. Here it is:

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