Is the First Zelda: Breath of the Wild DLC Worth It?

If you've already spent the ungodly amount of time it takes to see everything The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has to offer, fret not — more content is on the way.

Nintendo's massively successful open-world adventure game is getting its first piece of downloadable content for both Switch and Wii U this summer, delivering a variety of new modes, features and costumes that should keep things fresh for folks who have already explored every inch of Hyrule.

Dubbed "The Master Trials" (available exclusively as part of a $20 expansion pass), this new add-on introduces Trial of the Sword: a new challenge area where Link must slice his way through roughly 45 rooms of enemies with limited resources. There's also a new Hard Mode that throws high-ranking enemies at you more frequently, and allows your foes to recover health mid-fight and spot you more easily.

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The new Hero's Path feature allows you to track your steps from the last 200 hours (!) of gameplay, making it easy to look back on your adventure so far and figure out what spots on the map you haven't visited yet. You'll also be able to find a Travel Medallion, which lets you create a fast travel spot that you can instantly warp back to anywhere in the game world.

Perhaps most importantly, you'll be getting a bunch of neat cosmetic items that let Link don iconic pieces of Zelda equipment such as Majora's Mask, Midna's helmet and the Phantom Armor. Oh, and you can dress Link up as Tingle, which is both incredible and incredibly terrifying.

Should you buy this DLC?

There's a promising amount of content in The Master Trials, though it seems primarily aimed at folks who simply want Breath of the Wild to offer more of a challenge. There's no new story content here, and it doesn't look like you'll be seeing many parts of Hyrule you haven't seen before. Features such as Hero's Path and Travel Medallion are the kind of updates that typically get added to games for free, so it's a bummer that they're locked behind a paywall.

That said, if all you want to do is dress Link up in a bunch of cool outfits and take down a ton of unforgiving enemies, The Master Trials should deliver. Unfortunately, you can only buy this DLC as part of the $20 expansion pass and not a la carte, so if you're still on the fence, you might want to wait until later this year to see what the second half of the package will offer.

Image Credits: Nintendo

Michael Andronico

Mike Andronico is Senior Writer at CNNUnderscored. He was formerly Managing Editor at Tom's Guide, where he wrote extensively on gaming, as well as running the show on the news front. When not at work, you can usually catch him playing Street Fighter, devouring Twitch streams and trying to convince people that Hawkeye is the best Avenger.