The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Hands-on Preview – A new sky awaits

These Constructs are powered by something called Zonai Charge, which is also used to power the many Zonai Devices that appear within the world of Tears of the Kingdom. These are effectively machine parts that perform a function when struck by Link. Fans blow air, Rockets launch into the sky, and Flame Emitters… emit flames. Most actions consume Zonai Charge from Link’s battery meter, which is shown alongside his existing hearts and stamina levels and can be augmented by placing Battery devices nearby.

You’ll find some Zonai Devices scattered across the skies of Hyrule, but you can also generate them from the aptly named Zonai Device Dispensers that look like giant gumball machines. Inputting up to five ingredients will cause random amounts of little capsules containing an assortment of single-use Zonai Devices to tumble out, which you can store in Link’s inventory for later. It’s literally a gachapon machine, which for Zelda fans may evoke traumatic memories of The Minish Cap’s Mysterious Shells side quest, but the system appears to be pretty generous and thankfully doesn’t use real-world currency.

More complex Zonai Devices such as the Steering Stick and Wings can be taken advantage of using the most exciting of Link’s new abilities, Ultrahand. These abilities can be activated anywhere like Breath of the Wild’s rune powers, though they are instead mapped to the L button – holding it shows an ability-selection wheel, while a quick tap activates the selected power. The Ultrahand ability allows you to grab nearby objects (in a similar fashion to the Magnesis rune) and fuse them together with a sort of magic glue to make all sorts of contraptions.

The physics of each composite object determines how your final creation will behave: wood floats, metal sinks, and Zonai Devices cause chaos. If you’ve clumsily slapped together a vehicle without considering how its weight is balanced, you’re in for a delightfully wonky ride. Sticking Fans or Rockets to a makeshift raft will let you fly through the air, with a Steering Stick giving you some control over your glide – there are even special launch ramps in the sky that let you do this without draining Zonai Charge. There’s also a way to streamline the building process which you unlock later in the game, but I didn’t get much time with it during the preview.

In this spirit, Link’s second chaotic power comes in the form of the Fuse ability. Like Ultrahand, this is focused on sticking things together. However, Fuse allows items to be attached directly to Link’s weapons, shields, and arrows rather than to objects in the environment. Standing near a fusible item while the ability is activated shows a button prompt to affix the item to Link’s equipped weapon or shield. This enhances the offensive or defensive power of the equipment, increases its durability (yes, weapons still break), and can have additional effects depending on what you’ve fused. Fusing items with physical or elemental properties adds that property to your equipment, and there are some items (usually dropped by bosses) that increase your attack power greatly when fused.

The other abilities Link has access to in Tears of the Kingdom include Recall and Ascend. While I used these less than the Ultrahand and Fuse abilities in my time with the game, they provide vital quality-of-life utility as well as unique enhancements to puzzles and combat. Recall allows Link to rewind time for a selected object, making it repeat its last movements in reverse. A timer will appear onscreen showing the duration of the rewind, which you can stop at any time. During the preview, I used this to send a spiky ball back at a horde of Bokoblins, but not for much else. I can see the kinds of puzzles this will potentially be used for in the full game, and I’m looking forward to experimenting with it further.

On the other hand, I experienced directly the massive impact the Ascend ability can have on exploration. No longer is Link bound to rue rainy weather during his lengthy mountain climbs, since Ascend allows him to warp through flat surfaces directly above him. I had initially assumed this meant platforms and cave ceilings, and viewed it as a bit of a glorified fast travel. This is until I used it to melt through an entire sky island, scout the surroundings above, and emerge ready to fight the nearby Zonai Constructs I had spotted. Losing altitude is no longer a sacrifice, which completely changes how you view Hyrule: its valleys will now be just as desirable to explore as its peaks. Ascend also has combat utility, allowing you to escape from sticky situations for a breather or even warp through (!!) certain bosses and attack their weak points. Of Link’s new abilities, I entered the preview least interested in Ascend, and left a total convert.

The second part of the demo was a little more free-form. Part of it took place on the ground in Hyrule Field, where I was tasked with infiltrating the Bokoblin-infested Skyview Tower. Much like in Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom’s combat requires creative use of resources in order to excel. I died a lot here messing around with new mechanics, testing out each ability to see how effective it could be. Link controls almost identically in this game, though his expanded arsenal makes each battle feel a little more like a puzzle.

I tried a few different ways to storm Skyview Tower. One idea involved combining a Flame Emitter with a Balloon and some discarded wood to create a hot air balloon and sniping enemies from mid-air, while another more reckless approach was in fusing an explosive barrel to Link’s shield and parrying (which killed everything, including me). Enemies themselves carry fused weapons and drop items that provide greater attack power when fused with, such as sharp horns or spiked maces. While this area featured Bokoblins and Moblins exclusively, some of them wore armour that protected them from physical attacks or were extremely large “boss” types, which provided some variety (and required careful fusing to construct weapons that would actually do damage).

After successfully reaching Skyview Tower I began the next part of the demo, which took place in an archipelago of sky islands. Another series of traversal puzzles took me island-hopping and tested my knowledge of the mechanics. One memorable puzzle required Link to empty two ponds via lifting sluice gates. These gates can be raised using Ultrahand, but are heavy and will automatically close if not propped open. My solution was to scour the surrounding island for wooden logs, fashion them into a misshapen A-frame, and fuse them to the gates while raised to hold them in place – this was apparently one of many potential solutions, with each different approach described sounding like some of the more creative ways people solved Breath of the Wild’s shrine puzzles. It does feel as though Tears of the Kingdom is taking a leaf out of Skyward Sword’s book in that traversing its world often is the puzzle, though with a sense of freedom that the 2011 title could never have hoped to achieve.

My time with Tears of the Kingdom ended on a puzzle that featured a similar device to the dreaded “apparatus” from Breath of the Wild, though thankfully there were no forced motion controls in sight. You could use the device to access a nearby island with a gem on it, which you needed to transport safely to a different island. While I played it safe and slowly moved the gem across, I watched a player spend a good five minutes constructing a wonderfully creative Ultrahand contraption starring Rockets. This turned out to be a decent showcase for the Recall ability that the player used liberally on their makeshift device whenever their aim was a little off.