Summary
- The Fuse ability in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom can combine objects for puzzles and combat.
- Early in development, Fuse could merge multiple objects, like two swords on a shield acting as a lawnmower.
- Nintendo scrapped the more complex Fusion system ideas to streamline gameplay.
The developers behind The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom recently revealed how the Fuse ability came to be, as well as how it was a very powerful tool in early playtests. 2023's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is one of Nintendo's most critically acclaimed entries in the franchise, building upon what was in Breath of the Wild and giving players a myriad of tools to work with in-game. Link's new Fuse ability was one of the most widely praised aspects about the game.
Tears of the Kingdom's Fuse ability can be used in a wide variety of ways, being able to combine various objects together. These fusion items can be used to solve various puzzles like the key items of previous games, or can be used to create various offensive or defensive items in combat. Players are encouraged to utilize just about everything around them in order to create their own fun way around various problems. While the Fuse ability was already quite versatile, the developers revealed their initial goals when creating it, along with how much more powerful it was in early development.
Zelda: Ocarina of Time Mod Adds Tears of the Kingdom’s Fuse Ability to the Game
Tears of The Kingdom made many new things possible for the Zelda series, and one modder is putting that notion into practice in Ocarina of Time.
As reported by Famitsu, Nintendo was present at the Computer Entertainment Development Conference in Japan. Tears of the Kingdom director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and engineer Kenichi Hirose gave attendees a behind-the-scenes look at how Fuse worked early in development. At first, Fuse could be used to combine more than two different objects at once, with one example demonstrated being how Link's shield could be merged with two swords. By having one sword on each side of the shield, it would work as a lawnmower, cutting the grass surrounding the protagonist as he traverses the world, and as a defensive weapon while strapped to Link's back.
Players Could Have Fused Multiple Objects Together In Tears of the Kingdom
Another example the devs showed off was a Boss Bokoblin Horn being attached to a weapon, allowing them to use the sound of their weapon to control any nearby Bokoblins, or attaching the Zonai wings to Link himself to make him fly. Nintendo also toyed with the idea of being able to choose the orientation of items during fusion. Evidently, the final Fusion system in Tears of the Kingdom is a lot simpler and easier to understand without needing to experiment with several different item combinations.
Fans of Tears of the Kingdom wrote how they understood why the ambitious system was cut down, making it simpler for players to understand while playing and also cutting down any extraneous development time. While the system isn't as detailed as it could have been, players are still making their own ambitious creations in Tears of the Kingdom, such as a mechanical cat and an airplane that can put out fires.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 95 /100 Critics Rec: 97%
- Released
- May 12, 2023
- ESRB
- Rated E for Everyone 10+ for Fantasy Violence and Mild Suggestive Themes
- Developer(s)
- Nintendo
- Publisher(s)
- Nintendo
- Engine
- Havok
- Cross-Platform Play
- N/A
- Cross Save
- N/A
WHERE TO PLAY
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the sequel to the beloved open-world adventure, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This installment once again sees Link and Zelda battling to protect Hyrule from falling to Ganondorf. This new adventure takes place in the same land of Hyrule as Breath of the Wild but sees something called the Upheaval, which allows link to travel to Sky Islands, as well as deep into the Depths beneath Hyrule. Players can use special abilities to fuse together weapons, and build items to help them progress through the release.
- Franchise
- The Legend of Zelda
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2
- Genre(s)
- Adventure, Action, Open-World
- How Long To Beat
- 59 Hours
