The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s innovations seem to have few limits

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom seems to put few restrictions on the innovations made with Link’s Ultrahand ability. Find some boulders in Hyrule? Slap them together, grab some wheels, a steering mechanism and glue some arms and you’ve got… something!

Nintendo presented its finale Tears of the Kingdom trailer ahead of the game’s May 12 launch, and the nearly four-minute trailer showed a lot more detail about what Ultrahand and weapon fusion can do. In previous trailers, Link piloted a car, a hot air balloon, a drone and several boats – all made with Ultrahand. You won’t find any of these just rusting away in Hyrule, but you will find the parts.

Until Tears of the Kingdom is released, we won’t know exactly what the limits of Ultrahand and weapon fusion are, but judging by the trailers there seem to be very few. Find the parts and you can build whatever your heart desires, including a block of stone with wheels. For now, we can analyze and learn from what we saw in the trailer.

Horse-drawn wagon

Link can seemingly provide taxi service to the people of Hyrule by driving them around in a horse-drawn wagon. You can clearly see the connection points in how the car is put together – they turn green. It’s such a simple vehicle that we’ve seen in many video games, but it has big implications for Tears of the Kingdom. There have always been people in Hyrule, ordinary people who live in the villages. But the new trailer not only shows Link bouncing them around, but also fighting alongside him.

Spaceship

Image: Nintendo

Link holds on to a rocket or missile in this short clip of the novel Tears of the Kingdom trailer. It is clearly powered again by the green light and pushes the hero of Hyrule straight into the air as a Bokoblins watches in amazement. It looks like a really useful tool for quickly reaching higher platforms like the ones shown here.

Janky block tank

Image: Nintendo

Link, my man… what is this? This vehicle is a kind of stone thing with wheels and at least one swinging arm. Link the controls from above, completely unprotected, as he comes face-to-face with several bokoblins, who have built their fortress atop one of the game’s unmoved stone Talus monsters. Look, not every Ultrahand invention is going to be top notch, but you can’t deny that Link is a true innovator.

Shield sword

Image: Nintendo

Link’s mighty sword has an upgrade: it’s also a partial shield. It looks like the Master Sword has been fused with a shield to create a shield sword – hopefully a weapon that has some serious durability. It’s just one of many weapon combinations possible with the new fusion ability. Some of the others we’ve seen in previous trailers include an arrow and an eyeball to make a target arrow, a stick and a rock to make a hammer, and a shield and a puffshroom to make a . to make a smoke bomb.

Glider

Image: Nintendo

There are no obvious green connection points on this flat, eagle-like glider, but it seems likely it’s one of the vehicles Link can craft in the game. It appears to be a ride-on glider that is a more advanced version of Link’s cloth one, a nice way to travel around Hyrule’s air islands or descend to the ground.

Tractor-like car

Image: Nintendo

From an early trailer, Link has a sick car with different wheels – it looks a bit like a flatbed tractor. The car seems like an interesting way to get around the flat areas of Hyrule without any issues, but maybe not something you want to take over rocks or hills.

Rafts and boats

Image: Nintendo

Nintendo has shown off several boats and rafts that Link can use to traverse the rivers and lakes of Hyrule. Most of them have used fans to power them, but the one above also has a sail that will definitely come in handy for windy areas.

Hot air balloon

Image: Nintendo

Again in an earlier trailer, we saw Link take off in a hot air balloon and other flying devices. The one above uses the fan’s mechanical item to make a hot air balloon. Smart! It’s probably not the fastest way to get around, but you can’t deny the beauty of it all.

hovercraft

Image: Nintendo

The design of Link’s hovercraft places four powerful fans on the edge of a platform, with Link at the helm steering the vehicle through the clouds. Now this it looks like it’ll be fun navigating Hyrule, blasting between air islands as you go.