It’s time for Meat Arrow
Nintendo has shared more gameplay today of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, showcasing Link’s new abilities in a new and changing Hyrule. Among all the new features, there were a few that seemed to open up a wealth of creative options for future adventurers of Hyrule.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was already a font for player ingenuity. Alongside all the Stasis hijinks players could get up to, there were also items like the Octo Balloons which could let players create flying contraptions. With Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo seems to be leaning even further into that.
Fuse, in essence, allows Link to pair any two items together. Today’s gameplay spotlight started off simple, attaching a rock to a stick to make a club. Easy, right? Well, it escalates from there.
The demo, hosted by Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma, goes further and further. Soon, there are even more creations. Leaf Arrow. Long Pitchfork. Smoke-bomb Shield. If Link can see it, he can put on his best Shou Tucker impersonation and fuse it. There was meat in that sliding menu of options, and I need to know what sound Meat Arrow makes when it hits an enemy.
Alongside Fuse is Ultrahand, a different but somewhat similar abilities. This allows Link to kinetically move items around but also attach them, creating new structures. Where Fuse seems to center on weapon fusing, Ultrahand is about large-scale combinations, as seen in today’s trailer. Cars, balloons, boats, and more all look to be very real with Link’s new powers in Tears of the Kingdom.
Mix and match
It already feels like there’s a host of possibilities for these skills. By the time Aonuma was making an airboat out of lumber and discarded fans, my mind was already humming with potential. Attach an explosive keg to a javelin and throw it, or put wheels on a metal door and skate it down a hill. It feels like someone, within the first six months of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom being out, will make a fully operational Gundam, or at least Guntank.
Social media clearly noticed the potential too, as fans already started joking about the slapdash weapon potential:
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023) pic.twitter.com/H25YZ3sltD
— festive hotcyder 🎄🍺 (@HotCyder) March 28, 2023
I’m curious about whether Fused weapons could be attached to Ultrahand creations, making for a comical war machine. I’m even more curious about how persistent these creations will be, and if you could build something permanent. But really, this has been what’s roped me fully into Tears of the Kingdom.
Breath of the Wild highlighted player expression and creativity, encouraging them to create interesting solutions to problems. Nintendo looks to be pushing that further with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, developing a Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts-style system for whatever wild creations we could imagine.
Floating death blimp? Catapult? Shield with a pokey stick on it? All seems possible with Tears of the Kingdom, and it’s those possibilities that have me very eager to see what’s awaiting for Link and pals on May 12.
