The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has several glitches that allow players to Duplicate items, materials, weapons, swords, and shields – at least until Nintendo inevitably fixes the bug. Exploiting this bug can earn players infinite rupees, effectively destroying the game’s economy and taking away much of the fun of playing through Tears of the Kingdom as its creators intended.
But if you are desperate for materials or money Tears of the Kingdom, the duplication errors are easy and seemingly relatively safe to fix. All you need is a bow, arrows – or a paraglider – and some patience, and hope Nintendo doesn’t eventually punish you for taking advantage of it.
How to duplicate materials in Tears of the Kingdom
1. You must have a bow, a melee weapon, and a shield.
2. Tap the ZR button to make Link switch to his bow, but don’t aim or insert an arrow.
3. Press the D-Pad up to merge the material you want to duplicate on an arrow.
4. Press the plus button to pause, go to the bows and arrows tab and unequip your equipped bow.
5. While the pause menu is still open, equip another bow.
6. Press the plus button twice (very quickly) to close and reopen the pause menu.
7. You should see the melted material on the bow and arrow you equipped.
8. Drop the currently equipped bow and exit the pause menu.
9. Both arches (each with fused materials) should be on the floor.
This error can be useful when duplicating rare or expensive materials such as diamonds, which can sell for 500 rupees each.
The same error when duplicating is explained in the video below, which also details how weapons, shields, and bows are duplicated. (This is a slightly more involved process as the game has to be saved and reloaded every time you want to duplicate something.)
How to duplicate weapons and shields in Tears of the Kingdom
1. Open the pause menu with the plus button.
2. Equip the weapon, shield or bow you want to duplicate.
3. Open the system menu and create a manual save.
4. On the inventory screen, drop the item you want to duplicate.
5. Select and equip another item of the same type (if duplicating a melee weapon, select a different melee weapon).
6. Press the plus button twice (very quickly) to close and reopen the pause menu.
7. Drop the equipped weapon.
8. Go to the system menu and reload the manual save.
9. The duplicated weapon should be on the ground.
As with the bow and arrow material duplication glitch, timing the pause menu to close and reopen is the hardest part. Players looking to duplicate melee weapons, shields, and bows may want to practice their timing using the material duplication bug before attempting the method that exploits saves.
How to fix the new “rapid” duplication error in Tears of the Kingdom
A new duplication bug went undetected over the weekend of May 20-21 – useful if the above bug has been fixed or you’re having trouble getting it to work. Even better, this bug works on any inventory item (but not weapons or other gear).
Thanks to USBdongle6727 on reddit for the method you can watch in the video above. Although this dupe glitch is technically faster and easier, it has its own limitations, which we explain below.
For one, there is a limit to how many items can be placed in a single location. If more than 20 specimens are too close together on the floor, the items will start to disappear. That means there’s a limit to the number of duplications you can do at once, and you have to be a l ittle careful.
Also, you have to be careful with the items you drop because they could break if you drop them from a certain height, or their legs could run away because then they wouldn’t be able to collect them anymore when you touch down. The obvious contender for duplication, diamonds, has none of these problems, which is a relief.
- This bug takes advantage of the way the game handles your inventory. So you need to prepare a little. First, you’ll need at least one (preferably multiple) items with fewer than four in your inventory. This is just one element to trigger the exploit – you will get it back, but it will not be duplicated. The key is being able to empty an inventory slot.
- Next you need the item you want to duplicate in the last slot of your inventory. The quickest way to move an item to the last slot is to drop it all away and then pick them up – the last item you picked up (that wasn’t already in your inventory) goes in the last slot.
- Climb onto a nearby ledge (or roof or tree) and jump down. Deploy your paraglider.
- blow + to open your inventory.
- Select one or more items to empty an inventory pool and hold It. This item will not be duplicated but will be returned to you.
- Select the item in your last inventory slot – the item you want to duplicate. You can keep as many of these as you like.
- blow + to leave your inventory and then immediately – strike as fast as you can + once again. In the final slot, you should still see the same number of items in your inventory as when you started.
- Repeat this process a few times while hovering down, but no more than three or four times – see our note on item despawning above.
- When you land, pick up your duplicate items and repeat the process above.
You’ll have to be a little creative to keep the item you want to duplicate in the last slot of your inventory, but this is a quick way to duplicate any item in game.
If any of the above issues get resolved – or you prefer a more legitimate money-making opportunity The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Read Polygon’s guide to what items and materials to sell to earn rupees.
Update (May 21): We’ve added a new duplication method as a section at the bottom of this page.
