Nintendo recently filed 32 patents, with almost all of them related to the recent Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo often patents technology for games and apps, and the company seems to be on a spree right now due to the success of its latest Zelda.
Tears of the Kingdom perfectly combined its predecessor’s exploration with building mechanics, taking the world by storm back in May. The new mechanics allowed gamers to make awesome creations in Tears of the Kingdom, which made the game go viral online with countless videos of player creations. Because of that, Nintendo is keen on protecting its tech.
From July 10 to August 4, Nintendo filed patents for 32 technologies, with all but one being directly related to Tears of the Kingdom. While patents are pretty common in the gaming world, it’s uncommon to see many of them in a short timeframe so soon after a game’s launch, especially when they concern very small aspects of the experience that may go fully unnoticed by most gamers.
Unsurprisingly, Zelda: TotK abilities such as Fuse and Ultrahand appear among the patents. However, even minor, specific abilities such as Riju’s remote lightning attack is part of the patents, too, something that most gamers wouldn't have guessed could be unique technology. Other examples include calculations for speed while Link moves on top of dynamic objects like vehicles, which are not as straightforward as they may sound. Nintendo even went as far as patenting the loading screen sequence in the game. Unfortunately, none of the recent filings seem to point out content in future entries of the series, only mechanics that were already used in Tears of the Kingdom.
Tears of the Kingdom is selling extremely well, even when considering the success of the first game, which is the best-sold title in the franchise ever. Tears of the Kingdom recently surpassed 18.5 million sales, selling more than half of what Breath of the Wild did in six years in less than three months.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available now for Nintendo Switch.
Source: Automaton