does the issue happen in handheld mode?

I haven't tested that. After spending 2 hours today thoroughly re-testing in docked by playing through the whole Great Sky Island up until reaching Lookout Landing, I would have to do all of that again plus more in order to definitively prove whether or not it happens in handheld mode too, unfortunately.

does the issue happen in other games?

No. I've never experienced this in other games before.

you could try deleting and reinstalling just the update data.

Thanks. After reading your comment I gave it a try. I think the reason I didn't test deleting it back when I first had the issue in January was that I didn't have Nintendo Switch Online at the time, and my save data was not backed up to the cloud. So even though I know the save data is not supposed to be wiped if you delete the game data, I was scared by the small chance I might accidentally delete my 72-hour save.

I have Switch Online now and have the save data on the cloud, so I just gave your suggestion a try.

After deleting the data and re-updating the game, I started my original save file again. The cutscenes were playing fine... but that doesn't necessarily mean it's fixed... because as I mentioned, once the game has loaded that cutscene once, It's fixed for all future playback.

So to double-check, I decided to do a very long test. I started the game on a completely fresh profile, and let each cutscene play out without skipping them. I needed to get far enough into the game to find a scene that the game hasn't yet loaded since updating. In this case, that was the scene where you first meet Ruaru outside of the Temple of Time. Everything seemed fine, and there were no glitches in that scene. However, I wasn't satisfied yet to know it's definitely fixed, because it was not a pre-rendered cutscene like the ones I've had the most issues with. So I spent 2 hours trying to rush through all the shrines on the Great Sky Island so that I could play the next 2 cutscenes with Zelda. Specifically the one where you see Zelda inside the Temple of Time, and the one where she receives Link's broken Master Sword right before you skydive to the mainland of Hyrule below. Over those 2 hours, I didn't experience a single audio glitch in gameplay. By the time I'd watched the second Zelda scene, I was 99.9% sure the audio was finally fixed. All I needed to do now was quickly rush to Lookout Landing to meet Purah, where I would play the last cutscene before turning off the game.

I reached Purah, and the in-engine cutscene that played was perfectly fine. Unfortunately though, once the pre-rendered cutscene; the one where Purah recaps everything that happened to Link up until that moment in time played, the cutscene immediately began having audio issues!

They were only minor, but as I mentioned earlier, sometimes they are minor, and sometimes they are extreme. Back in January there were not only audio-delays, but also rough audio-popping.

I recorded all the footage again. I took the part of the video where the glitched cutscene happens, and made the word "GLITCH" pop onto the screen every time an audio glitch occurs, just to make it a bit easier for you to tell when it happens. Here it is: https://ody.sh/CzUj40fCnv

I don't believe the problem is with my HDMI port. This is a new monitor I only purchased 1 and a half years ago in early 2025. The HDMI port issue I mentioned in my main post only applies to my old monitor which I was playing on in 2023.

I also don't believe the issue is with my capture card. If the audio delay was caused by my capture card, it wouldn't only be the sound effects that glitch in the cutscenes. Notice how in the first video I sent you, it is only the sound effects of Zelda jumping backwards, away from Ruaru and Sonia, that are out of sync. The actual voice lines are still perfectly in-sync with their mouths. If this was an issue with my capture card, ALL audio would be out of sync including voice lines. But they are not. I would also be experiencing the de-synced audio everywhere in gameplay, in all my games and on all my consoles. But it's only Tears of the Kingdom on the Switch 1 that has the issue.

Few things:

• does the issue happen in handheld mode?
  • if so, this is probably an issue somewhere with your switch, either with the game files or the hardware itself.
• does the issue happen in other games?

If both of these questions are "yes", it's probably an issue with your switch.

If the second question is no, your cartridge is probably busted. It could also be the updates, so you could try deleting and reinstalling just the update data. If the update data is on an SD card (is that possible for cartridges?) it could also be an issue with the SD card.

If the first question was no, it's probably a hardware issue somewhere between your switch and your monitor: the dock, the HDMI cable, your monitor, or the display port signal chip inside the switch itself.

• Try with a different HDMI cable. If this fixes it, the cable is the problem.
• Are you using a capture card? If so, try without that. If this fixes it, your capture card is the problem.
• Try connecting the monitor with a different device and playing sounds (e.g. a laptop)
• If your monitor has multiple HDMI ports, try a different one.
• If you know anyone else with a switch, ask if you can plug your switch into their dock and see if the issue still happens with their dock.

The problem could be any range of things from the cable or port breaking to the HDMI encoder breaking. Those steps might at least help narrow it down more

I'm not entirely sure if you're being sarcastic, but they do have a short version. ^^°

The first time ever, players get the long version (about 35 seconds) and every time after that, it is only about 15 seconds with Zelda having a slightly different monologue. It was the same in BotW, and Zelda's "short" monologue even included "The blood moon rises once again" back then.

This does not yet include how long the "buildup" takes (eerie music, floating particles etc.) before the cutscene even starts to play tho, so add about 20 second to each event for that.

It still gets annoying after a while, especially since it's such a massive game with so much exploration. After the 50th time, the phenomenon just feels like a nuisance. I skip the cutscene every time nowadays but I would have loved the option to just turn it off entirely by default. Give me some floaty particles shortly before midnight and a 1 second black screen and be done with it.

i really don't get why they wouldn't just have a short version of the cutscene, yeah sure it's an excuse for garbage collection but surely that can be done in just a couple seconds?
Just have a couple different short clips of the moon and randomly play one of them, and zelda says "The blood moon rises again.."

The more you run around and interact with stuff (i.e. fight, kill, loot, destroy, move) the more often it happens. So yes, it indeed is you, in a way.

I'm walking and riding around in both games doing nothing but sightseeing, and I rarely see a blood moon.

Yeah, it gets annoying really quick.

"Oop, Switch's getting low on memory again"

The dress cuts lower in the back than in the front?

The blood moon is used as a way to reset the game state and clean unused assets. TotK has more assets that clog memory so it happens more often in this game.

It seems to happen more often than in BotW too. Maybe it’s just me.

Does she show her boobs to the moon? Every time I see the blood moon sequence I think she pulled down her top.

But why?

I thought this was Terraria at first...

Somehow, the bokoblins returned.

There's a bunch of towers that let you come up from the depths

I think the joke is that the depths are so far down he would suffocate before making it to the surface?

People don't block the power

"Word of God" says it's canon, but it can't be in the same timeline as BotW because the story of AoC actively prevents BotW from ever happening. Then again, TotK retcons a bunch of stuff from BotW as well (like pretending the Guardians and Divine Beasts never existed or somehow "just disappeared" which still cotradicts the after-credits end scene from BotW) so personally I think that's just an alternate timeline, too.

Or maybe the devs just didn't put much thought into continuity.

How is age of calamity not canon?

It is an alt timeline. It actively prevents BotW from happening.

I thought it was an alternate timeline

Age of Calamity was advertised as being canon. Then TotK ignored it for new lore involving sexy goat people, so it's not canon anymore.

How is age of calamity not canon? I could’ve sworn it was and the only hyrule warriors that wasn’t canon was the first one on Wii U

Oh i see. I somehow completely missed the whole Zelda aspect of this post.

Kids today only know these phones from images like this.

But my first phone was a step and a half before this.

Durability of weapons in the Zelda switch games is the worst aspect of them. You end up hoarding weapons because you might kill two or three enemies with one, and use multiple on larger enemies and bosses.