So far, we’ve got two trailers of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Both had small snippets of gameplay. Today, ten minutes of gameplay was showcased as Series Producer Eiji Aonuma introduced the new abilities Link will utilize in Tears of the Kingdom.
Four abilities were shown off in the presentation: Recall, Fuse, Ultrahand, and Ascend.
Recall lets you rewind an object’s movement. In the gameplay, Aonuma recalls a rock that fell from the sky to reach the new sky island locations above Hyrule. Fuse allows players to fuse objects together. This includes objects, weapons, and materials. Link created a makeshift weapon by fusing a boulder and a tree branch. Link can also combine two weapons together such as a long stick and a pitchfork to create something with even longer reach. You can use objects and materials even with a shield and a bow and arrow. The examples Aonuma showed were a puff mushroom on a shield and using a keese eyeball with an arrow. When the enemy hits the mushroom, it disperses a smoke cloud that Link can use to get behind an enemy and perform a sneak attack. The eyeball helps the arrow hone in on an enemy. If an enemy is near and you’re not aiming at it, the arrow will be steered toward it with the eyeball.
The Ultrahand ability allows Link to attach objects together to create vehicles. You can detach objects as well to edit how you want the vehicle can be constructed. Some objects generate wind that you can attach to vehicles. The example provided in the gameplay presentation was a makeshift raft that Link used to sail across a river. Other examples of vehicles you can create include cars and flying machines. The last ability shown off was Ascend. Simply put, if you are in a room with a ceiling, you can traverse through it and reach the roof. This applies to mountain structures too. If there is a cave with a ceiling and you use the Ascend ability, Link will travel all the way through to the top, without having to climb. Aonuma did mention that there were certain restrictions to this though.
Aonuma revealed that development on Tears of the Kingdom has been completed. Nintendo also revealed a Tears of the Kingdom Edition Nintendo Switch OLED Model that launches on April 28. There is also a Tears of the Kingdom themed Pro Controller and Carrying Case that will launch alongside the game on May 12.