Zelda Expert Breaks Down Tears Of The Kingdom Combat Changes And Customization

We finally got our first in-depth look at The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom gameplay with the latest Nintendo presentation, and there were a ton of new details to pick apart. The extended 10-minute deep dive covered lots of new details, especially surrounding combat and traversal.

We saw the first confirmation that weapon degradation is returning, along with a new Fuse system that will let you craft your own weapons and shields from other objects. Examples included building an extra-long pitchfork, placing a rock on the end of a sword, and even packing a smokey surprise onto a shield. Not only that, but the Fuse system can also be used to custom-build vehicles, like the ones we saw teased in an earlier trailer, which were custom-built by a player rather than being discovered in the game. In this demonstration, the vehicles included a raft and a flying contraption to reach the Sky Islands. And as an added feature to move around the world, Link can now transport through ceilings to stand on top of buildings or cave structures.

As a combat expert in Breath of the Wild, our own Max Blumenthal focused specifically on Link's new battling abilities, in both tangible information and theorizing on possibilities you may have missed. Below, you can check out his in-depth analysis of what the presentation revealed. If you enjoy in-depth breakdowns like this, be sure to check out the video version as well.

The combat showcase starts around when Link approaches this tree branch, lighter in color to match these lighter-colored trees in these sky biomes. Link is approached by a new enemy called a Soldier Construct, which is also wielding an identical tree branch. It goes on the offensive and attacks Link but gets staggered immediately. This is already decent information because it can show some early damage numbers in this part of the game without telling us directly.

Without going too in-depth on how blocking types are calculated, all enemies have a base attack, and the weapon attack is stacked on top of that. If an enemy's total attack is equal to or lower than your shield's defense stat, the attack will bounce off. If the enemy's attack is higher than your shield, it will continue attacking without stagger. These critical strikes can also disarm enemies, so Link then quickly steals the enemy's branch.

This part will likely be many players' favorite addition, the Fuse ability. From the looks of it, this ability auto-targets close materials, and gives you the option to fuse it with your weapon or your shield. This seems to reset, or more likely just add additional durability to the weapon you currently have, which is likely a welcome change for players who complained about weapon durability in Breath of the Wild. This also changes the way the weapon's damage totals are calculated.

Link fuses a Wooden Spear (2 attack) with a Pitchforks (4 attack) to make a 6-attack power, super-long spear. At this point you're starting to think about the possibilities you could make with multiple weapons and materials getting stuck together, along with many, many questions. What if two low durability weapons are fused together? Does it reset the total durability of the weapon and make it usable again? We haven't actually seen a fused weapon break yet so it could be that only one part of a fused weapon will break. Can the handle portion separately break? Can you unfuse weapons back apart? Does fusing onto an already fused weapon replace the modification or add onto it? There appeared to be an option to fuse onto an already fused weapon, but Aonuma passed that up. Can you fuse with magical wands? What happens if you attach a burnable stick onto a Flameblade? Or a metal weapon onto a Thunderblade? Can we Fuse ingredients onto weapons as well as shields? Can we Fuse ingredients onto already Fused weapons? How do all of these work with Boomerangs? Does it affect the boomerang's ability to fly or its attacking width? While this mechanic has huge possibilities, it leaves us with many questions.

Let's talk about the bow-and-arrow gameplay. One thing that sticks out immediately to me is the quick menu system. In Breath of the Wild, the D-pad normally shows shields, runes, and weapons, and when you draw a bow, the D-pad quick menu shifts it to arrows, runes, and bows. In Tears of the Kingdom, it's now shields, materials, and weapons, and when aiming with a bow, only the bow quick menu is affected. This means that either elemental arrows are out of the picture entirely, and are replaced with attachable chuchu jellies, or elemental arrows are still an option but are instead considered a material you can get later on.

The quick menu pulled up here only shows a few materials, but we can still learn quite a bit. The Soldier Construct's Horn we picked up earlier is attachable, and now the Amber material has taken a new shape as an arrowhead. It's safe to say that all the gems in the game are like this now, and I'm guessing Diamond-tipped arrowheads may pack a punch. My personal theory is that these gems will do as much additional damage as they sell for rupees. Then it can be a gamble on your wallet versus your damage, which could be an interesting mechanic. Or it could be that gems will function as elemental arrowheads, since that was the initial plan for Breath of the Wild.

Link switches over to the Korok Frond, which is likely not to be confused with a Korok Leaf weapon, because this item is considered a health material. Then he switches back over to a White Chuchu Jelly to simulate an ice arrow. This combo packs a punch, instantly taking out the Construct. Directly attaching these effects to arrows opens up a whole new layer of combat that was much harder to access before.

We also get a second look at the Keese Eyeball attachment from the previous trailer, which automatically homes in on enemies. This is definitely most useful when performing non-bullet-time combat, when it's difficult to aim quickly in real time. It's still difficult to know how this mechanic works, if it prioritizes wildlife or enemies first, or whatever comes into its range first. But I'm sure many players struggling with the bow and arrow will enjoy this attachment, and it gives Keese much higher value to hunt down and farm.

I want to briefly touch upon Ultrahand. At first glance, this is a crafting ability, and not designed for combat. But those who've played Breath of the Wild long enough know that this kind of ability can come in clutch to drop objects onto enemies. The fact that this is not tied to only magnetic objects anymore opens up a lot of opportunities to use more of the environment as an environmental weapon, especially when paired together with the motion control option.

While we saw the basics of combat here, they haven't shown their hand in any trailers of more advanced techniques with any slowdown abilities, such as parrying, flurry rushes, or bullet time, but something tells me they have something up their sleeve, especially with bullet time. We'll see soon enough.

Hopefully you enjoyed this breakdown of what we've seen in the latest gameplay trailer. When Tears Of The Kingdom launches, we'll have a host of video guides and a new series of things you didn't know, so stick around on GameSpot. And be sure to watch the video breakdown for even more detail on all the combat nuances we saw in the latest look at Tears of the Kingdom.