The latest in the Next Legend of Zelda

We’re now approaching the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Nintendo is sharing everything we need to know about the upcoming game. Here’s the latest The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom news including Sky Island, new features, mechanics and OLED switch.

New gameplay features and mechanics

We’re just a few months away from the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and series producer Eiji Aonuma announced at the start of the direct that the game went gold; This means that development is complete and the game is now ready for release. But aside from that, Aonuma has also shared gameplay footage to give us a glimpse of what new things we can expect from the game when it comes out.

At first glance, one might think that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is exactly the same game as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Finally, the game retains much of the basic game mechanics of its predecessors. It’s great for those who loved Breath of the Wild and just want a new game that comes close to that experience. Thankfully, any doubts that Tears of the Kingdom will offer players anything new should now be dispelled. As shown in the latest Zelda Direct, there are many new gameplay mechanics and elements for players to discover in the game. Here are just a few of the new gameplay elements Link will have access to in-game:

• Recall – A Sheikah technology that allows Link to repeat an object’s movement; In the Direct, Link uses this to ride up a boulder. The same boulder had just fallen from the sky.
• Fuse – Link can now interact with more things around him in the game world. He can use the Fuse ability to fuse random objects he can find together. In the Direct, Link used the ability to fuse an otherwise useless stick into a rock, turning it into a makeshift weapon. Fused weapons take on the properties of any fused object, like a Keese eyeball that turns arrows into homing arrows. This is definitely going to be something we’ll be experimenting with a lot!
• Ultrahand – In the previous game, Link could use Magnesis to move large objects – but that was limited to metals only. With Ultrahand, Link can now interact with a wider range of objects and materials, and as shown in Direct, these objects could stick together to create makeshift objects like rafts.
• Ascend – This awesome new ability lets Link attach to any ceiling and walk through it! This will make a lot of exploration a lot easier, and would make climbing steep mountains a lot easier – assuming there’s a cave underneath. This makes it literally impossible for Link to get stuck or locked up.
• The Sky Isles – There are a variety of landscapes for Link to explore across Hyrule – the Sky Isles floating in the sky. Link can explore these islands of sky, but the player will have to be creative and rack their brains to figure out how to get to them. The player can also simply dive back to the surface at any time and safely glide down with or without a paraglider.

New Enemies

We also saw new enemy types in the Direct. Here are just some of the new enemy types Link saw in direct combat:

• Construct – An enemy made out of the same ancient Sheikah technology as the Guardians in the previous game. They hover slightly in the air and have two arms, with one arm usually wielding a weapon; sometimes even merged ones! The Constructs also have the same tracking eye as the Guardians, which alerts them when they spot Link. It appears that the Constructs are roaming the Sky Isles.
• An Unidentified Flying Creature – Towards the end of the Direct, there is a yellow-winged creature with a forked tail and a snout that splits in two directions. It also appears to be lifting an unidentified object.

Tears of the kingdom OLED switch

The new Tears of the Kingdom OLED Switch model is one of the most exciting announcements made during the recent gameplay demonstration of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The new console version has a white finish with gold patterns on the dock and a pair of off-white Joy-Cons with green and white patterns. This OLED switch will come out April 28, 2023a few weeks before the release date of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.