After months of teasing, Nintendo finally gave Zelda fans some breadcrumbs to hold them over until launch. On March 28th, Nintendo released a thirteen-minute trailer showing off new abilities for Link in the upcoming game, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. There were also some very nice surprises along the way.
The video starts with Eiji Aonuma, the producer of the Zelda series, welcoming everyone with an announcement that development is now complete. The game is gold and ready to ship! He then explains that he will be playing the game for us to watch and get a good look at this new adventure.
The gameplay starts with Link on a horse standing still. You can see the familiar art style in the vast landscape as the horse moves into a trot and then full gallop. Link rides around looking at the landscape as Aonuma talks about things that have changed since Breath of the Wild. Looking up at the sky, we can see land masses or “Sky Islands” floating in the air. Are these islands the kingdom the title, Tears of the Kingdom, speaks of?
As the camera looks at one of these sky islands, we notice something falling to the ground. Link heads over to the spot and climbs the cliff to reach it. When Link gets to the spot, he uses a new ability called “Recall” on the rock, which rises in the air after a few seconds. This ability rewinds the movement of an object, in this case, taking Link into the air so he can reach one of the sky islands.
Once Link finishes the ride, he jumps off the rock and glides to the island. Link lands easily, and the camera pans around to view the beautiful view. Off into the distance, many more sky islands are scattered around, and is that one of the dragons flying around? There are many ways to reach these islands, so I can’t wait to see those montages!
The video cuts to Link on a bigger sky island with manmade structures and yellow trees. Link then starts walking around the area and picks up a tree branch. A brand new enemy then attacks him called a construct. Link attacks with the tree branch, and it breaks pretty fast, so it looks like weapon durability is back.
Link picks up a new branch was able to beat the enemy, but what’s this….? A Zonai Charge item? But they are supposed to be extinct, so what is this doing here? It looks like a mystery until we finally get our hands on the game.
After more exploring, Link finds a bolder and activates a new ability called “Fuse.” This ability let Link merge the boulder and tree branches to make a hammer. You can use this on almost everything to make new weapons with varying abilities. This new weapon’s durability is now much higher than just a tree branch, which could take on two constructs without breaking.
Link then fused a stick with a pitchfork to create a weapon with a very long attack range. You can also fuse arrows to materials like leaves, meat, and Chuchu Jelly to create arrows with new powers. Link also fused an arrow to a Keese Eyeball, and it became a homing arrow. Perfect for those small and quick prey.
Link is also able to fuse shields with things like mushrooms. When an enemy hits the mushroom shield, smoke fills the screen, and he can get a sneak attack. The next ability shown is called “Ultrahand” It combines things together to help Link do things like cross a lake. He takes three logs and puts them together to make a raft. You can attach and detach items at will and make whatever you want look however you want.
Link then finds a fan and attaches it to the raft so that it can now cross the river. This is how those vehicles were made in the previous trailers. We then get the “Ascend” ability that helps you move through the ceiling above you and come out on top. As long as there’s a ceiling, you’ll most likely be able to go through it to the top, even if the top is on top of a cliff and you are in a cave.
Link then descends onto the surface showing the whole land you can explore on the way down before the gameplay ends. With a tease that we had only just scratched the surface, Aonuma bids us farewell. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrives on Nintendo Switch on May 12 of this year.
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