The best quality-of-life features in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

By James On May 17, 2023

although The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a sequel in the same world as Breath of the Wild, Link’s adventures feel significantly different this time around. He has plenty of new areas to explore, new weapons and items to collect, and even a new set of powers that allow him to build machines to help him navigate Hyrule.

Beyond the hype of all the biggest changes, Tears of the Kingdom brings a handful of less obvious but still important changes in the form of quality of life solutions. From better menu functions to being able to cook anywhere, here are five amazing quality-of-life changes introduced in Tears of the Kingdom.

You can trade items from a chest

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

When Link opens a chest, the item screen gives you the option to immediately exchange the loot in the chest with an item in your inventory if your inventory is full. In Breath of the Wild, you would have to close the chest, drop an item, and then open the chest again if you want the item inside. It’s a small change, but I appreciated it because my inventory is generally full and it saves the hassle of opening the chest again.

You can sort materials by how often you use them

An image of the pop-up menu for items you can associate with an arrow. On the left, the player can sort in the menu by which item is used the most.

During your travels in Hyrule, you collect a large collection of items, even early in your journey. In Breath of the Wild, you can collect about 220 types of items and weapons alone. It’s safe to say that you’ll be faced with a lot of options between different items Tears of the Kingdom.

While sifting through dozens of items could make it nearly impossible to find the right item to instantly fuse or throw with a weapon, the developers have given us a shortcut. While in the item pop-up screen, you can sort the list one of three ways: how often you use an item, the attack power of the Fuse, or by type. My personal favorite is sorting by most used. That way, frequently used items, such as brightly blooming seeds, don’t get lost in the shuffle.

You can drop weapons from the quick change weapon screen

An image of a pop-up screen in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom that allows you to switch which weapon you are equipped with. Under the item there is an option to drop the selected weapon.

Many of the combat situations in Tears of the Kingdom require quick thinking. The developers have given players an easy way to drop unwanted weapons while running around. You can now drop weapons, bows and shields directly from the quick loadout menu that allows you to switch weapons. That way, if you want to ditch a weak or degraded weapon, you can do so and scoop up a stronger weapon on the battlefield.

We now have recipes for dishes

An image showing a selection of recipes in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. One recipe shows a recipe for a meat and mushroom skewer that calls for meat and two Hylian mushrooms.

Tears of the Kingdom now has recipes so you don’t have to look up a list of ingredients online to prepare a specific elixir or meal. To unlock a recipe, you only need to cook a dish once. After doing that you can go to the materials inventory, select an ingredient and choose “select for recipe” to see what you need to make a dish.

Portable cooking pots

An image of an item screen with the Zonai Portable Pot. It is used for cooking and can be used to cook a meal during the adventure.

Of all the marvels of Zonai technology, perhaps the best is the portable pot. You can cook with it anywhere and you don’t even have to light a fire. Each portable pot can only be used once, but they are easy to get. (I got a lot of them after using a Device Dispenser, the name for the Zonai gachapon machine, on the starting island.) It’s a huge quality of life improvement that allows you to whip up a few meals to get you through a rough patch. period to help. fight on the run.