11 New Things That Have Us Hyped

Screenshot: Nintendo

We are now a couple of weeks away from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s release, Nintendo’s long-awaited follow-up to its seminal adventure, Breath of the Wild. While the Japanese company has showcased its final trailer for Link’s upcoming romp, it’s certainly not done marketing the Switch exclusive. Perhaps you’ve seen some of the new TV trailers for Tears of the Kingdom?

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On Wednesday, Nintendo ramped up its hype machine a bit more with a long series of previews which granted publications around two hours of game time.

Here are some of the highlights, in list form.

The first thing you should know is that TotK sounds challenging, just like its predecessor. According to Metro, preview players were apparently given extra health to experience the starting area in the sky, but still found themselves struggling. It probably didn’t help that, as The Verge notes, they started off with weak weapons and a Master Sword that was in poor shape.
At the same time, previews highlighted that Tears of the Kingdom has a great sense of physical comedy. Yes, the game allows you to fuse weapons and shields together with a variety of materials, and you can make ungodly vehicles that will send Ganon running on sight. But it sounds as if this is Fuck Around and Find Out: The Game. IGN described the experience as having a kind of Looney Tunes quality, like when you see Wile E. Coyote goof his way into the grave. You’ll probably take some chances with builds and platforming that will fail miserably. But don’t you kind of want to see what happens anyway?

Fusing in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Experimentation is the name of the game, and previews cited a variety of combos you’ll see TotK launches next month. The Guardian, much like nearly everyone else, glued a rocket to a minecart. Some people tried rockets on shields, bombs on shields, flamethrower rockets, and rocket spears that flew toward their enemies. My favorite tale was probably Polygon seeing that giant spike ball that’s been present in pre-release screenshots, often showing off Link’s time-bending recall ability, but instead choosing to fuse it to a spear. I’m not even sure how Link can hold that monstrosity up!

Many previews, such as this one from, oh, Axios, noted that fusing revealed some cumbersome controls despite leading to some satisfying results at the end. Fortunately, though, Tears of the Kingdom lets you save blueprints so you only have to do it once before summoning it again. Assuming, of course, you have the right materials.
Is all of this sounding exhausting or intimidating? I’ve definitely heard from some that they’re not really looking forward to all this fusing nonsense, and that they simply want a Zelda game (whatever that means.) But The Guardian states that you can in fact ignore all of what I just described and play the game normally, as you would any other Zelda title. You just won’t see some of the possibilities that Nintendo tucked away within the game, and that’s fine: Maybe you just want to kill (or kiss) Ganon.

One exciting element hinted at in various previews is the scope of the game. Nobody could see the entirety of Tears of the Kingdom, but CNET notes that looking at the distance from up in the sky made the world seem almost “infinite” and “dizzying.” Similarly, VG24/7 claimed that the preview gave them a daunting feeling of “vastness and almost endless exploration.” You’ll get around this vast open space through the use of a medallion that you can place down and teleport to later on.
Now that you’re feeling hopeful, it’s time to bring you down to earth with some bits about weapon breakage. We already knew it was back, and The Verge says that weapons still seem very brittle in Tears of the Kingdom. However, fusing offsets Zelda’s degradation mechanics a bit. Even mashing together something as simple as a mushroom to your shield could make it “immensely” more durable.
Another sobering thing worth noting: while every preview seems to have a different experience with this, it seems that for some, Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t provide a steady performance. The second video in The Verge’s write-up shows some pretty significant pop-in and stutter when Link is soaring through the air, something that you’ll probably be doing a lot of. As we wrote earlier today, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s performance sounds mixed.

Still, there are other things to be excited about: like new mechanics and items! Nintendo Life says that we can expect a new material called Muddlebuds, which can confuse enemies and put them in a frenzy, and something called Dazzlefruit, which will blind them. Other previews clarified that the new materials used for crafting were Zonai artifacts which you can grab from Zelda’s new gacha-like mechanic. These materials can be used once during crafting. Everything seems to be designed to force you into making decisions about when and where to use things. For example, while you can build cars and planes, they are all powered by Zonai batteries which can run out after a few minutes.

The Telegraph says that Nintendo wouldn’t confirm if batteries would be something you can upgrade, but that much like Guardians dropped parts, Zonai enemies will also provide materials. Not all Zonai “Rangers” are immediately hostile, though. Who are the Zonai and what do they want?!
And finally, one of the things that struck me the most out of previews I scoured today came out of Nintendo Life. While we don’t yet know if this game will have dungeons or shrines, it seems that the overworld itself is much more satisfying to explore. Things that would have normally been puzzles tucked away in a shrine are now just lying about, waiting to be found—which in turn makes the world feel more alive.

So, what are you excited about so far? What’s got you concerned?