The game, which was formerly known under the tentative title of the "Sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild", began life as DLC for the original Breath of the Wild. However, producer Eiji Aonuma elected to make it a full-fledged sequel, because there were too many ideas the team wanted to include:

When The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom launched, a player who acquired the game early posted an image of them playing it and tagged multiple accounts associated with Nintendo to provoke them. This would be responded to by former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime with a quote from the movie Taken. While the gaming press and many fans thought this was humorous, it also received major backlash (particularly from people who had already grown to dislike Reggie due to his comments on the blockchain and the police force, and allegations of Nintendo's corporate culture during his tenure) due to Reggie directly quote-retweeting the post for all of his audience to see, screenshotting the post without censoring their username when the user took precautions to protect themselves from the audience attracted by Reggie's post, and using a quote that - in its original context - was a death threat, which only intensified when it was discovered that the user in question was 16 years old at the time.

On September 8, 2022, the United Kingdom's Queen Elizabeth II died, starting a national mourning period of ten days. In that time, rumors began to circulate that Nintendo had postponed a planned Nintendo Direct in response to the news. On September 12, the Direct was formally revealed to air worldwide the next day, although it was not livestreamed in the UK. Instead, it was published as an on-demand video on Nintendo UK's YouTube channel at a later time. This Direct featured the full title reveal for the then-untitled Sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, revealing the game's subtitle to be "Tears of the Kingdom". This led to even more speculation that the poor timing of this subtitle being the name of one of Nintendo's most anticipated games at the time coinciding with the Queen's death was what resulted in the Direct being delayed, rather than doing so purely out of respect. It wouldn't be until October 3 for Nintendo UK to begin their own promotion of the game, long after the mourning period ended.