A duplication glitch already has Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's economy in shambles

Zelda Tears of the Kingdom
(Image credit: Nintendo)

A new Zelda Tears of the Kingdom dupe glitch for items and money has been uncovered by The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom players.

The duplication glitch looks to have been first discovered earlier this week when YouTuber Linkus uploaded the video just below. The glitch is surprisingly simple, as the YouTuber explains, as all you need to do is be anywhere in the open overworld of Hyrule, and have two Zelda Tears of the Kingdom bows in your inventory.

From here, you need to have one of these two bows equipped and at the ready by pressing ZR, and then hold up on the d-pad, which will bring up an array of items. You then need to Fuse the item with the bow and immediately drop the Fused bow and item combination on the ground.

Now equip your second bow, and then rapidly unpause and pause Tears of the Kingdquicklyion. This is the only tricky part of the duplication glitch, Linkus explains, as it's pretty hard to get the timing down perfect on unpausing and then pausing the game immediately.

The next step is to drop the second bow that was previously equipped and then pick up both dropped bows from the ground. Check your inventory, and you should find that you have one more of the item that you Fused to the first bow, making this duplication glitch pretty easy work.

Now just sell the duplication of the items you created, and bam: you're in the money. Tears of the Kingdom players have already racked up thousands of extra Rupees by using this method, since shopkeepers don't limit how many items you can flog to them.

It'll be intriguing to see just how quickly Nintendo steps in to stamp out this glitch. The Hylian economy is surely in absolute shambles right now, as the glitch means players can get their hands on elite-level gear like heat and cold-resistant clothing without really saving up for it at all.

Check out our guide to the best Zelda Tears of the Kingdom armor if you're wondering where to get some seriously tough gear for Link's adventures. 

Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.