I'll be honest: when the original teaser released back in 2019 revealed that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would be receiving a sequel I was excited but not too excited. On the one hand, it was the promise of a new Zelda title. As a longtime fan of the series, this is always welcome news as even the most "meh"-inducing Zelda games are far more inspired and tightly designed than the majority of AAA releases. However, I found myself continuing to think that making a sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would be an impossible task. Creating a direct sequel to one of the most influential and inventive titles that the game industry has ever seen? Mkay Nintendo. You do you, I guess. Now, however, I've gone from pessimistic to completely sold. Thanks to the recent gameplay presentation with Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma we have the strongest idea yet of what this sequel will play like, and its existence finally feels justified.
Abilities, exciting and new
Mr. Aonuma's presentation begins with him directing the audience's attention to the enormous hunks of rock floating throughout the sky above Hyrule. These "Sky Islands" (which totally should have been called "Skylands") are ludicrously out of reach to the gravity-susceptible-protagonist Link. However! A piece of the Skylands falls to the earth, and Aonuma clambers zaps it with one of Link's newest abilities: Recall. Clambering aboard the rock for a free ride, the previously castoff chunk of skyland hurls backward through time as the rest of the world stands still. When it reaches the apex of its original descent, Aonuma leaps off to glide onto the nearest skyland. Okay, Aonuma and company. That was pretty rad. I'm listening, so what's next?
Aonuma skitters about the skyland for a moment before beating a new, robotic enemy called a Construct to death with a stick, and we learn that weapon durability has returned. Unlike the rest of the human race, I didn't detest the fact that weapons came with short lives in Breath of the Wild. Yet, my mind was starting to sink back into the feeling that this new entry really would just be Breath of the Wild 2.0. That is, at least, until the next ability was shown. With the most carefully designed and legible UI in the world, Aonuma drew his feeble stick, and stuck an enormous boulder onto the end of it. It took no time at all! And BOOM! He had a stronger, more durable, makeshift hammer. Then he did this combination wizardry again, but melded a longer stick with a pitchfork to create a delightfully and absurdly long weapon for long-distance poking. This ability to combine weapons with various objects and other weapons is called Fuse, and it's what immediately turned Tears of the Kingdom into one of my most anticipated titles.
Imagine the possibilities! Perhaps you can combine a boomerang with a claymore to create an enormous flying weapon with the ability to cut down swathes of foes with a single throw. One of your more preferable weapons starting to break down? Stick an entire log onto it and now it's good to go with a pleasant, oaky scent! The limits of this ability aren't known yet, of course, but as Aonuma showed even arrows can be fused with the enormous assortment of ingredients that one can find in order to create any number of unique tools. I mean the man stuck a dadgum monster eye on his arrow in order to help it seek out targets! Combat will take on a whole new meaning because of this. The incredible room left open for the player to experiment with their imagination will make almost every combat encounter completely unique to the player. Not to mention how accessible fully-customizable combat will be for players of all ages and abilities.
The idea of just how personalized one's experience with the game will be was an exciting revelation, and it only got better as Aonuma showed the ability known as Ultrahand. With what seemed like one of the most easy-to-use construction systems I've ever seen, Aonuma created a speedboat out of some logs and ancient technology-powered fans. He lifted it up, slapped it in a river, and zipped right across. As one of the game's trailers has shown, players will be able to experiment and create unique vehicles to maneuver through the world, and that's plenty exciting. But what if you can also use Ultrahand to create makeshift ladders and bridges? It seems like the ultimate tool for creative traversal.
Finally, Aonuma reminded the world of Nintendo's ability to think several steps ahead of everyone else. After the release of Breath of the Wild, there was no shortage of games attempting to implement the stamina-fueled climbing mechanic that defined so much of the Zelda game's traversal. While you can still climb just about any surface in Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo wants to know why you'd even consider it. Ascend allows Link to rocket upward in any area with a ceiling and pop out topside. Useful for buildings, yes, but it even works within caves located at the base of large cliffs. That's right! So long as you find a cave, you'll be able to rocket to the top of mountains. This even makes caves more exciting on their own. Not only would a player think, "Ooo! A cave! I wonder what's inside," now they'll think, "I wonder what's inside and what's on top!"
On top of the world
All of these new abilities seemingly come together to do what I previously thought was impossible. In my mind, the greatest parts of Breath of the Wild were speedily traversing the open world and feeling like each corner had a meaningful reward for one's curiosity. How can a sequel possibly hope to capture the same feeling of genuine discovery? Those four new abilities is how. Traversal can be even speedier and is fueled even more by player creativity, and the Fuse mechanic alone would have made Breath of the Wild take on a whole new level of replayability.
Thankfully, however, the expansive assortment of skylands in Tears of the Kingdom look primed to offer plenty of new puzzles, baddies, and mysteries. How will you get from one skyland to another? Build a blimp? Build a rocket to propel yourself upward and hope you have enough stamina to glide across an enormous gap? Or explore the skyland you're on as thoroughly as possible before using Ascend to pop out of its highest peak and taking a plunge? All of these theories for traversing the skylands are merely scratching the surface of the game, however, as there is also an entire surface to explore that hopefully does enough to feel just as fresh. My biggest hope right now is that the game will have more enemy variety and definitely more boss variety than its predecessor, but even as I type this possible gripe I'm imagining what other objects I could fuse with a stick in order to bludgeon these enemies.
Thanks to that one little gameplay presentation, my mind has been set abuzz with the possible adventures I'll be able to embark upon, and Nintendo's Zelda team has once again shown just how truly creative they are.