The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom impresses in new gameplay reveal

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is coming out in May and while we know the core premise of the sequel involves traversing parts of Hyrule floating in the sky, we didn't know much about gameplay-specific upgrades. Today, Nintendo revealed ten minutes of new gameplay footage, showcasing new mechanics for Link to deepen combat, exploration and puzzle solving. 

The gameplay demo is presented by Zelda producer, Eiji Aonuma. The footage includes everything from how to reach the sky islands to crafting new weapons and even building your own boat.

Link has a suite of new abilities to play with. Fuse can be used to fuse items together, allowing you to forge new weapons to use in combat. You can also use a new ability called Ultrahand to craft new items, like boats to traverse rivers. A new ability called Ascend allows you to pass through almost any ceiling, so in exploration, you could enter a mountain with a cave and then ascend to whatever is above you on top of the mountain.

When you are on a floating island, you can return to the surface of Hyrule at any time, all you have to do is jump off the edge and glide back down. You'll spend quite some time falling through the air, giving you ample opportunity to look out for new landmarks to visit.

At this point, development on Tears of the Kingdom is complete and the team is awaiting launch. The game will officially release for Nintendo Switch on the 12th of May.

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KitGuru Says: I wasn't particularly excited about Tears of the Kingdom but seeing some of these new mechanics at play has caught my interest. Some of the parts of Breath of the Wild that I found tedious could be greatly improved with abilities like Ascend and Fuse. Beyond that, Ultrahand opens up new doors for players to get creative. 

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