The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom
Today Nintendo ran a video walkthrough to showcase a few minutes of TLoZ: Tears of the Kingdom, coming in May this year on Switch. And while I was hoping for a delay to be announced (joking!), they did run through the main new mechanics of this instalment of the series. And my word, did they go for it.
The primary mechanic they showed off in the open world is how you can "fuze" things together. The first demo here was a rock being fuzed to a stick to create a better weapon. This then expands out to proper crafting using anything loose in the environment. Like a boat from some logs, fans and a cloth sail.
This is an amazing, very Zelda-esque mechanic. It opens the Breath of the Wild world & gameplay up to a way better interaction with the world, environmental elements and enemies. Building more interactions onto the same system is a great idea. BOTW had you picking things up but for, in essence, no reward. But if every single thing you can pick up can be put to use, then I'm very, very sold.
The other very cool mechanic shown off here was the ability to "ascend." Which is a new feature that allows Link to ascend through any ceiling, even in cave systems within mountains. Which saves the energy reserve problem that I had in BOTW, for sure.
On the whole, the game looks and feels like Breath of the Wild, which is 6 years old now. On the one hand, this is good because BOTW was one of the highlights of the Zelda series. On the other, this is going to look and perform like a 6 year old game. Nintendo have to feel limited right now. But no doubt, while this will perform adequately on the Switch, it'll perform better on the slight remaster they absolutely sell as a launch title on their next console, which has to be soon.
No sign of shrines, dungeons or exploration here. They're holding those cards tight to their chests. But overall, this was a great showcase of what to expect. We have another few weeks in the press cycle for this one, so expect more. But right now, I'm very excited for this one.