Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Gameplay Reveals Link’s New Abilities, Weapon Durability, and More
Nintendo is finally share The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has uninterrupted gameplay ahead of its May release date. New footage shows Link with his four new abilities, details on Sky Island we’ve seen in all the trailers, the return of weapon durability, and more.
Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma kicked off his presentation by revealing the Nintendo Switch OLED Tears of the Kingdom Special Edition, which launches on April 28th.
The gameplay begins with Link riding a horse through the fields of Hyrule. The UI is very similar to Breath of the Wild, with temperature, weather, time, and a minimap displayed in the bottom right corner, and Link’s health and inventory in the top left. However, the rune icon has been replaced with his Apple symbol, indicating a shortcut for the food menu.
Aonuma indicated that the Tears of the Kingdom version of Hyrule has many changes, stating, “If we talk about all the changes today, we’re running out of time.”
The camera then panned up to reveal one of the large land masses in the sky. This is now officially known as Sky Island. As Link runs by the stables, he sees a large object falling from the sky. Link climbed onto the object and used the new Recall ability to rewind the object’s movement. Link then flew into the sky on a rock and glided to Sky Island.
Weapon durability in Breath of the Wild is back
The gameplay then jumped to another sky island featuring golden trees and some man-made structures. bottom. The weapon quickly broke, confirming the resurgence of Breath of the Wild’s durability system.
However, there are also new mechanics regarding weapons. Link approached the rock while brandishing a tree branch, and used his new fuse ability to combine the tree branch with the rock to create a makeshift hammer. bottom.
Fuse can also be used with two weapons, such as combining a stick and a pitchfork to create a very long weapon. You can fuse materials into arrows to create makeshift elemental arrows, or attach eyeballs to create homing arrows. Even enemies can use melded weapons.
Aonuma also showed off his new Ultra Hand ability, the way Link builds vehicles in the latest Tears of the Kingdom trailer. Link combined his three logs and added fans on the ground to the logs to power the raft. Then he easily crossed the river using his freshly built raft.
Aonuma then demonstrated a new Ascend feature that allows Link to move through ceilings and progress to floors above. “It can be used anywhere as long as there is a ceiling,” says Aonuma. This included the interior of a cave that Link could completely skip climbing using his Ascend ability.
The gameplay presentation ended with Link returning to the surface, revealing that the player would fall to the surface faster by holding R. The gameplay chunk definitely contained a lot of secrets. rice field. However, it won’t be long before Aonuma investigates this revamped Hyrule for himself, as he has confirmed that Tears of the Kingdom has finished development ahead of his May 12, 2023 release date. .
It’s the biggest gameplay chunk we’ve seen so far in the long-awaited sequel. A long road of delays and teaser trailers has finally led to today’s big blast since it was first announced in 2019. Previous trailers have revealed the game’s new vehicle mechanics, Link’s glowing hands, the Collector’s Edition and his amiibo. has been published. Tears of the Kingdom is also Nintendo’s first $70 game and has the largest file he size of any first-party Nintendo Switch game.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over 6 years of experience in the games industry and has bylines for IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
