A rundown of how amiibo work in Zelda: Breath of the Wild

They’re mostly item bonuses

For months we’ve been wondering what some of the Zelda: Breath of the Wild amiibo do in-game (others were revealed very early), and now that I have access, the mystery is solved.

If you don’t want any in-game spoilers of any kind (it’s purely mechanical, nothing story related whatsoever) look away from the text below and the gallery.

After roughly 30 minutes of play you’ll have access to the game’s spell system, dubbed “Runes.” You can swap spells at any time, and very early into the campaign you’ll unlock the amiibo rune, which, you guessed it, can summon amiibo power-ups into the fray. You just need to manually go into the game’s options menu and enable it, cast the spell (by aiming where you want the power-up to drop), and then tap the figure to the right analog Joy-Con stick (or the Pro Controller).

As Nintendo said months ago, Wolf Link summons the Twilight Princess rendition of Link as a companion, based on the amount of hearts you unlocked in the HD version (it’s tied to your amiibo save). Everything else is basically a chest dump with various items. Archer Link (one of the new toys) unlocked a bunch of fish (which can be used in cooking recipes) and a Knight’s Bow item. The 30th Anniversary Pixel Link unlocked a bundle of fire arrows. The Ocarina of Time Link dropped a bunch of meat from the sky and a Knight’s Claymore. Toon Zelda gave me a Luminous Stone, and Toon Link, a Sea-Breeze Boomerang.

Just like several other games on Wii U and 3DS, you can’t use the same amiibo twice in one day. Speaking of multi-day tests, they yielded roughly the same results, with different gems from Toon Zelda, and various elemental arrow types from the rest of the lot. Out of all of the extras, the ability to constantly rain down health-restoring food items daily is probably the biggest bonus. At the time of this writing we did not have access to the Breath of the Wild series Zelda, Link (Rider), Guardian, or Bokoblin amiibo. Based on official information from Nintendo, Rider link provides a saddle (for wild horses) and melee weapons, Zelda gives players a shield, the Bokoblin unlocks rare weapons, and the Guardian also provides weapons as well as crafting materials.

You can also use a non-Zelda amiibo to unlock random food/plant items, and based on my tests, the Smash amiibo also function similarly to the proper Zelda ones (including Sheik). Even the Monster Hunter Stories and BoxBoy figures (exclusive to Japan) will work in the western version. As for the game, our review will arrive shortly before launch.