Nintendo released 10 minutes of gameplay for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom from series producer Eiji Aonuma, who also stated that development on the game is now complete.
During the gameplay reveal Aonuma showed off the game’s four new tools replacing Link’s Sheikah slate from Breath of the wild, including Rewind, Fuse, Ultrahand, and Ascend, which have overlapping functions to the Sheikah Slates, while also being vastly different. While not touched on in the gameplay, there was also glimpses of a few changes in the game’s interface and world that were spotted during the session.
Towards the end of the presentation, a new Tears of the Kingdom-themed OLED Switch model was also revealed that launches on April 28, but does not come with the game.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrives on May 12.
▍Tears of the Kingdom 10-Minutes of Gameplay
▍Tears of the Kingdom New Tools
Here is a quick breakdown of the new tools introduced in the Tears of the Kingdom’s 10-minute preview.
■ Rewind
As Link roams across Hyrule, he’ll come across the game’s new locations, the Sky Islands. While there are many ways to get across to them, one of the most common ways is with the new function, Rewind.
Rewind and all of the other tools can be accessed with the L button, and presumably holding down on the L button will now change what tools can be used,a s now the Up button on the D-pad is not for the tools, but rather to quickly access food and other materials.
Rewind lets you “Reverse the motion of an object”, sending it back to its original position, while also letting you climb onto it.
While Rewinding the world was grayed out, Link presumably won’t be able to interact with any other object during this state, however, since he could still, it also be possible to reposition himself while the world’s frozen.
However since you can rewind the position of objects, you can jump on a rock that fell from the sky islands, and use it as an elevator. Since it took Link some time to get to the Rock after it fell, Rewind seems to function off how far the object moved in a certain amount of time.
■ Fuse
Breath of the Wild’s most controversial feature was its durability mechanic. While some open-world games like Elden Ring decided to remove durability entirely for its open-world, Tears of the Kingdom doubles down on weapon durability by keeping it, but this time adding Fuse to mitigate its effects in a very clever way.
Now as Link roams around the world, he can fuse any object in the world to his shield, weapon, or arrows, granting them new effects and properties. One example is to fuse a stick with a rock, turning it into a makeshift hammer, increasing its damage and refreshing its durability.
Another use case was with longer weapons like a Pitchfork, dramatically increasing the weapon’s range, giving you new ways to approach fights. Arrows can also be infused with ordinary materials to give them new properties, such as combining White Chuchu Jellies with your arrows to make them cause freeze or flame.
Other seemingly random monster materials can also modify an arrow, such as using the eyeball of a Keese to grant it homing properties. Since you can also combine ores and monster horns into an arrow, there may be many arrows that simply grant a damage bonus, while it’s up to you to explore the many unique functions the game’s materials have to offer.
A new kind of material, a Puffshroom was also teased, that when used with fuse will cause a smoke screen, letting you sneak up on an enemy for a Sneakstrike.
Link can also seemingly combine weapons from monsters to others, such as in this footage where Link figured a cannon fused with a stick by performing a jump attack.
■ Ultrahand
The Ultrahand replaces the magnet tool from Breath of the Wild, but now has a function to stick objects together, letting you create makeshift rafts, planes, cars, whatever you can imagine using objects from the world.
One example shown was making a boat with propellers, and since you could also rotate objects to any orientation, you can also consider stacking a propeller onto tall log to reach greater heights.
■ Ascend
Finally, there is ascend, an ability that lets Link propel himself to the top of surfaces. This included the many new buildings darted around the Sky Islands, and Caves which were previously not featured in Breath of the Wild.
If a cave or building is incredibly tall, the game will play a transition animation as Link reaches the top, and then you can press A to exit from the floor.
▍Tears of the Kingdom World Changes
■ Ui Changes
The game also has a few minor changes to its UI, most notably the removal of the Champion abilities from the left side of the screen, and also the inclusion of co-ordinates on the minimap, showing Link’s X, Y, and Z co-ordinates, which could be very useful when sharing the location of items with others online.
■ Environment Changes
Most notably the environment also is different in many subtle ways. While Hyrule still has the same overall layout, certain areas such as Death Mountain could be seen with tendrils sticking out of it suggesting Ganondorf’s influence, and there were many structures with spotlights shining up into the sky.
▍Tears of the Kingdom OLED Switch Model
Finally, Nintendo is also releasing a new Switch OLED model, which will launch on April 28 but doesn’t come bundled with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Here’s a closer look at the new model’s design, and a Pro Controller, and carrying case will also be released on May 12.
