Tears of the Kingdom gameplay video shows off the sky islands and a bunch of new mechanics

pcinvasion.com:

The promised gameplay demonstration for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom just aired today, and it proved quite impressive in many ways. Not only did it finally give us a closer look into the explorable sky islands, but it also showed off plenty of intriguing new mechanics that push Breath of the Wild’s focus on experimentation to a whole new level.

Narrated and played by series producer Eiji Aonuma, the video begins with Link in the Dueling Peaks area of Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule map. Although eagle-eyed viewers will notice some alterations in the world compared to Breath of the Wild, it will remain largely familiar to fans of that game. Soon enough, a rock mysteriously falls from the sky islands above, and Aonuma goes to investigate it. Upon arrival, he utilizes a new mechanic called Recall, which rewinds the rock’s movement so that it falls up instead of down. Aonuma takes advantage of this to ride the rock all the way up to the sky islands.

As Aonuma explores one of the sky islands, he picks up a tree branch and encounters a new robotic enemy type known as a Construct. He brings out the tree branch to fight it, but of course, it breaks after only a couple of swings. Aonuma then steals the tree branch wielded by the Construct and dispatches it, but he then notes that players will need more than just tree branches to proceed.

This is where Fuse, easily the coolest new mechanic shown in the video, comes into play. This allows players to attach various items and objects in the world to their weapons to produce a whole host of interesting effects. Aonuma introduces this mechanic by fusing a lone bolder in the environment with a tree branch to give it some extra attack power and durability. Players can also