After years of anticipation, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is right around the corner. The follow-up to the massively popular Breath of the Wild has become one of Nintendo's most anticipated sequels in its history, and fans were recently treated to a gameplay showcase that featured The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's newest mechanics. Some of the new movement mechanics shown in previous trailers were presented, but one of the standout features introduced in the new showcase is the fuse ability. It already looks to shake up combat in a big way, and it could address one key complaint with BotW.
Breath of the Wild was thought to be nearly a perfect game, but there were a handful of issues that dragged down the experience for some players. One consistent gripe has been the abundance of monster loot that is collected throughout the game, and what little there is to do with it. Especially in the event of a blood moon, many players end up with hundreds of pieces of monster loot and limited options for how to use it. Tears of the Kingdom's new fuse ability, however, solves both problems by giving players more to do with monster loot and more reasons to collect it as a result.
The Potential of Tears of the Kingdom's Fuse Mechanic
In Tears of the Kingdom's newest gameplay showcase, one of the most eye-catching game mechanics was the fuse ability. This allows players to take seemingly any weapon and combine it with almost any object in the world, opening up countless combat opportunities and answering complaints about Breath of the Wild's weapon durability. The trailer didn't give away too many of the possibilities, but it did turn a stick into a hammer by fusing it with a rock, and it showed how specialty arrows can be created on the fly by combining a normal arrow with elemental ChuChu jelly.
It was this combination of monster parts with weapons that seemed to open up the greatest possibilities, especially as the trailer showed how a Keese eyeball can be used to make arrows home in on targets. This combination alone could completely alter how certain combat scenarios in TotK play out compared to BotW. Considering how many monster parts were in BotW, and how many more could be in TotK, players will likely have unprecedented room for experimentation. Many players beat Breath of the Wild in creative ways, and TotK looks to be pushing the envelope even further.
Tears of the Kingdom's Fuse System Makes Monster Loot Less Of A Burden
Given the massive size of Breath of the Wild's Hyrule map, monster encounters were often few and far between. For players who sunk enough time in the game, however, there would come a point where they have far too many monster parts than they know what to do with. With blood moons respawning defeated monsters as well, monster encounters would eventually become a burden on many players' inventory. Tears of the Kingdom's fuse ability makes monster encounters much less burdensome, as not only are monster parts more useful, they could be so useful that players actually need to seek them out.
Nintendo is making some considerable gameplay changes with Tears of the Kingdom, iterating on the Breath of the Wild formula in a way that seems meaningful and engaging. Tears of the Kingdom's fuse ability could revolutionize open-world RPGs, and how the game fully executes the mechanic could help it feel distinct from its predecessor. Surely fans only got a taste of what fusing weapons and materials can do in the newest trailer, so they'll just have to wait until they get their hands on the game to see what can be done with monster loot and more.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom releases on May 12, 2023, on the Switch.