There are two kinds of people in the world: those who understand that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s weapon degradation is a necessary part of a game built around experimentation, and those who like to complain. Still, look, some of you really can’t form any attachment to a good weapon because of having to keep a few spare swords, because nothing in that game lasts forever.
Here’s the problem: games are built around rules, and one of BotW’s rules is that weapons have health. Complaining about it is like complaining that a horse in chess cannot gallop to the other side of the board. Fortunately, if you’re on the wrong side of this argument, Kingdom Tears Working on making it irrelevant.
First, the FUSE feature revolutionizes the way the game fights and loots. As James says in the preview video above, your traditional weapons in Tears–rusty swords, spears, large clubs, etc.–are now designed to be platforms for whatever you stick to at the end. Sure, you can use the stick as a club and go around hitting people with it, but it’s more effective if you put something on the pointed end, like a horn, or a big spiked ball.
If you don’t have the guts and no horns, don’t worry because pretty much any loose object you can find in the world will do. The main thing to remember is that you shouldn’t be knocking people around with your big stick without putting something on the end. It’s a good feeling. As a result, the condition of the weapon is now far less important than what you attach to it.
The second thing is that fusing a weapon with an object basically creates a new composite weapon with a whole new amount of health. Using it only affects the enhanced condition: once it’s reduced to zero, the object is destroyed and you get a brand new version.
Breath of the Wild was a very impressive playground for the system at the time, and there’s been very little that has matched it in that regard since, but Tears of the Kingdom looks like the experimental spirit that puts the player in the driver’s seat Brought to the point of absurdity: the sheer number of choices available beggars faith. Regardless, the new gameplay loop focuses on building around MacGyvering thwackers with Lego blocks you mess around with, so there’s absolutely no room for misunderstanding this time around: this game isn’t about finding the best sword, it’s about improvisation. And drive silly rickety cars all over the map, like in wacky races.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is coming to Switch on May 12.
