It’s May, which also means we’re mere days away from the release of the hugely anticipated The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. As the sequel to 2017’s iconic Breath of the Wild, online hype for the game is huge, and the stakes have never been higher. With word coming out that the game has already been leaked online, you might be looking for a way to hide from spoilers. You’re not alone.
Most of these spoilers will be found on social media. Simply deleting all your apps and living like a caveman won’t work in 2023 for those of us who like to keep up with other things we’re interested in, so I’ve spent the afternoon devising some solutions. It’s dangerous to go alone onto the internet and dodge spoilers, so take these tips on how you can avoid Zelda spoilers, both on social media and the wider web at large!
What to avoid
Following this guide will involve filling in a bunch of lists to mute certain words. You’ll be filling the lists with as many words as you can think of to avoid spoilers you care about, but that can vary per person.
For me, I don’t want to see any spoilers at all, and I’m willing to miss out on legitimate Zelda coverage to pay for that. So, I chose key franchise terms like ‘Zelda‘, ‘Link‘, ‘Ganondorf‘, ‘Hylia‘ and ‘TLOZ‘, as well as a barrage of specific Tears of the Kingdom terms such as ‘TOTK‘, ‘Gleeok‘, ‘Calamity‘, ‘Malice‘ and even ‘Time Travel‘ based on the long-held fan theory. You can go wild here and even add words like ‘Spoiler‘ and ‘Leak‘ to avoid those with the courtesy to mark their spoiler posts.
Avoiding spoilers on Twitter
For those of us stuck using Twitter even in its dying days, it’s a very risky place to be when it comes to spoilers. The most obvious course of action here is to block key words – it’s an obvious solution, but it’s a necessary step on our journey.
To block words, go to ‘Settings and Privacy’, then click ‘Privacy and Safety’, followed by ‘Mute and block’ and then ‘Muted words’. Enter each of your words individually, and adjust the parameters in which you want the site to block those words from your timeline. If you trust your mutuals, you can let people you follow still use those words and remain visible to you, or you can go full cautious and mute them from anyone.
Note you can also mute hashtags as well, which may help you when it comes to avoiding seeing certain words in the trending section.
Avoiding spoilers on TikTok
If you’re like me and a billion others on the planet, you probably spend at least a few minutes a day gawping at TikTok. The ‘For You’ page does exactly what it says on the tin, and trust me, TikTok knows what you’re into. TikTok was a key platform for spoiling Hogwarts Legacy, so you’ll probably want to be careful here for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
It’s a relatively new addition, but TikTok now lets you block keywords just like Twitter does. Just head to your profile on the bottom right, then tap the menu button in the top right and select ‘Settings and Privacy’, then ‘Content preferences’, and then finally ‘Filter video keywords’. From here, just repeat what you did above for Twitter.
Also like Twitter, it distinguishes between words and hashtags, so you may need to double up on some terms for extra safety. Handily though, TikTok will not only keep these videos off your For You page if they contain these terms in the caption, but also if they use these words in stickers on the video. Neat!
Avoiding spoilers on Instagram
The last big social media you might want to avoid spoilers for – Instagram – does also have a way to mute certain terms. This is particularly helpful, since the app has gradually shifted towards recommended content instead of just keeping up with your friends.
Let’s get to the point. Tap the menu icon on your Instagram profile, then hit ‘Settings’ and ‘Suggested content’, followed by ‘Custom words and phrases’, and then fill in the box. Thankfully, Instagram lets you set multiple words to hide all at once without fuss, just write them all out and separate them with commas.
Avoiding spoilers across the web
The above steps will help you dodge spoilers on social media both using mobile apps and desktop, but many of us like to browse the greater internet at large. If you want to hide everything all at once, then Spoiler Protection 2.0 is for you. An extension available for both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, this handy tool will hide chunks of your browser screen if it detects your spoiler keywords being used.
This is a little trickier to get set up, but it’s far more powerful so it’s worth the effort. First, install the extension using the above links. Once it’s installed, navigate to the extension on your browser in the upper right corner, and find the section that says ‘Spoiler keywords’. Fill this box with the keywords you want to block, and they’ll be censored on every website you browse going forward. The boxes can be a bit intense, but just clicking them once will remove them.
By default, the extension will write which keyword is being censored over the blocked areas. I like to turn this off by clicking the ‘Hide keywords on websites’ button in the extension menu, which will just block the area without letting you know what’s hiding under there.
And that’s it! These features and the powerful extension should block the majority of spoilers you’d encounter with every day social media usage. If we find any more options for other popular apps or websites, we’ll be sure to update this list. Keep your eyes on GameLuster for more The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom coverage – and don’t worry, it’s spoiler free!
