As the launch date for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom draws ever closer, new gameplay footage has emerged, showing off the new mechanics and potentially, a new ability that hasn't been revealed yet.
With Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom set to launch worldwide on Nintendo Switch as soon as Friday, April 12, most of the footage we've seen so far has been limited to just a few short trailers. There were lots of cool details to be found in the final teaser trailer that was shown off a few weeks ago, which we reacted to live on the Mirror Gaming YouTube channel. But now a fresh round of newly released gameplay footage has offered more peeks at what's to come.
Following a press and content creator preview event, longer gameplay videos have emerged online, showing off as much as 22 minutes of broken up gameplay segments. And these videos have revealed more information about how the new mechanics work, as well as hints of an as-of-yet unseen hidden ability.
Said hidden ability can be glimpsed at roughly the 6:35 mark in Youtuber Zeltik’s hands-on video, where Link’s ability wheel pops up and the various options can be seen. You have the likes of Ultrahand and Fuse, both of which let Link to engineer makeshift weapons and bigger constructs using certain materials, of course, while Recall and Ascend assist Link in moving upwards. All the abilities mentioned are assigned a symbol, and one not previously mentioned up until now is the green compass on the left (located between Recall and Ascend).
Nothing has yet been confirmed, but it'd be wise to assume that the green compass ability – whatever it ends up being called – will provide Link with some better sense of direction. Unfortunately, none of the gameplay footage released thus far shows Link actually accessing this ability, so we wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo has this kept under strict embargo until launch. This would be a totally new ability like the others that wasn't present in Zelda: Breath of the Wild, in which players could drop pins on points of interest and follow it on their minimap.
A familiar returning ability that does make an appearance in the new gameplay, however, relates to amiibo. Located just under the Recall ability is the familiar amiibo logo, indicating that players will once again be able to scan in one of the various plastic Nintendo figures to receive in-game bonuses and rewards.
It worked before by simply having you tap an amiibo on the Nintendo Switch console's left analogue stick, at which point lots of useful goodies dropped from the sky. Scanning figures specific to the The Legend of Zelda series was particularly special because it granted Link with alternate outfits.
All the energy
Up until now various trailers have shown a battery icon at the bottom of the screen whenever one of Link's new abilities are used. Turns out this sort of power is needed whenever Link wants to use the various Zoni technology littered about, which can be easily identified by the glowing green energy they imbue. Should you want to construct a flying craft using Ultrahand, for instance, it'll likely be propelled by Zoni energy, and as such will deplete over time. The more batteries Link has strapped to his belt, the longer you can use it for. This appears to work extremely similarly to climbing and gliding worked before, only now instead of stamina depleting it's batteries.
Speaking of Ultrahand in particular, IGN's preview seems to have let slip that any constructs and vehicles made using this ability aren't necessarily one-and-done. You will in fact be able to save any Ultrahand designs you create, meaning you won't have to start off from scratch whenever you come across a similar scenario.
This is immensely refreshing to hear as it means you won't have to gather up specific resources and painstakingly recreate a useful design from before. Instead, you can just bank it and keep it loaded for whenever you need it. It's still unclear whether this goes for the weapons you create using the Fuse ability though.
There's still one more space (between Ultrahand and Ascend) in Link's ability wheel that is kept free, indicating that there's at least one more left to play with. The details of which Nintendo is keeping guarded closely to its chest. This being the final round of previews, and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom now being mere weeks out from release, it's unlikely this final ability will be detailed before then. Guess we'll just have to experience it as a surprise first-hand for ourselves when jumping in on Friday, May 12.
