Zelda fans baffled as somebody made the Tears of the Kingdom subreddit a week ago

Eight days ago, a Reddit user founded r/tearsofthekingdom, well ahead of today's reveal that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom would be the title of the sequel to Breath of the Wild.

The subreddit was created on September 4, 2022 by a user named milonssecretcastle. A single 'lounge' post, common in new Reddit forums, was created on the same day, labeled as a "place for members of r/tearsofthekingdom to chat with each other." The subreddit saw no other activity until today, when fans eager to discuss the new Zelda game stumbled across it in Reddit's search results.

One of the subreddit's first new posts, simply titled "bruh," sums up the sentiment. "How is this over a week old," user Excellus asks. "Did the creator know about the name already? If it was like 5 months old yea it could be a coincidence, but since it's only 8 days old hmmmm?"

The idea that it's a coincidence is further harmed by the name of the subreddit's creator: milonssecretcastle. Milon's Secret Castle is one of the Famicom's most famous examples of 'kusoge,' or 'shitty games,' among Japanese players, and though it was released in North America on the NES, it's certainly not so well-known among Western players. Clearly, this user knows video games. The milonssecretcastle account was created six months ago - long before the subreddit was created - but it has no post history.

For now, users are pretty much convinced this was either a Nintendo employee grabbing the subreddit name early, or a leaker looking to capitalize on inside knowledge. There's no indication anyone outside of  Nintendo knew about the Tears of the Kingdom name early, however - while bits of today's Nintendo Direct did leak ahead of schedule, there's no indication that the title of the Breath of the Wild sequel had hit the internet.

Fans are still mystified over what Tears of the Kingdom actually even means, but they're still going bananas over the announcement of the new Zelda game.