Everything new shown in Tuesday’s Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom trailer

Nintendo’s debuted a few trailers for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in the lead-up to its May 12 release date, but it’s kept a lot of the game’s actual gameplay under wraps. But that’s now changed, as Nintendo has dropped a 10-minute video featuring an in-depth look into Tears of the Kingdom’s gameplay. Legend of Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma walked us through the 10 minutes of action, detailing everything from Link’s updated abilities to new monster types.

Aonuma, playing as Link, used the demonstration to focus heavily on Link’s new abilities, like weapon fusing and movement. Look, you can do just about anything in Tears of the Kingdom, judging from the new trailer. There’s so much to break down; the cool thing about these abilities is that they’re applicable in so many different situations... traversal, fighting, and crafting.

Of course, Nintendo’s Tears of the Kingdom showcase is pretty short. Nintendo usually spills the details of its gameplay in more lengthy broadcasts, like it did with Splatoon 3 and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. There’s plenty to analyze in Tears of the Kingdom’s 10 minutes — but there’s certainly also plenty that Nintendo’s decided to keep secret.

But for now, here are all the new details we’ve spotted in Tuesday’s new Tears of the Kingdom trailer.

Recall

Link has a new ability called Recall, which can rewind object movement. You highlight the object, then click a button to rewind its movement; in the gameplay demonstration, Aonuma uses a rock that’s fallen from the sky island to travel upward into the sky. That’s the one way the ability was used in the gameplay trailer, but there must be many more ways this can be used — maybe in combat?

Weapon fusing

Weapon fusing is one of the more exciting abilities that we’ll get to play around with. Aonuma used the ability first to fuse a stick to a rock to make a hammer-like weapon, before turning a long stick and a pitchfork into a long-range spear. But things get more interesting when Aonuma demonstrates how items work when fused to weapons: When using Link’s bow, you can attach items to arrows, like Keese eyeballs and Chuchu jelly. White Chuchu jelly combined with an arrow will freeze an enemy, while fusing an arrow with a Keese eyeball creates a homing arrow that locks onto an enemy to make aiming easier.

On the defensive side, Aonuma showed off using a Puffshroom fused to a shield to envelop the enemy in smoke when struck.

Ultrahand

Ultrahand is essentially the crafting, non-combat version of weapon fusion. Link can make things — anything — using items from around Hyrule. Do you remember those cars and planes from an earlier Tears of the Kingdom trailer? Those don’t necessarily exist in the world; they’re fused vehicles created using Ultrahand.

Aonuma demonstrated the ability by fusing logs together to make a raft. He found two fans and added them as a propulsion element, but another demonstration showed a sail attached to the raft. This is one of the areas where player creativity will be so important; it looks like these fused-together vehicles can get really complex.

Ascend

Link’s Ascend ability lets him ascend through a ceiling to get to the floor above. He can’t move through walls, but he can get through ceilings. If you’re stuck in a cave, you can use the ability to get to the surface of the hill above. Aonuma also described using Ascend to break out of a cage.

New enemies

Constructs are a new enemy type shown in Tuesday’s trailer. They appeared pretty basic when first introduced, but later on in the trailer, Aonuma revealed that these enemies — and likely others — can also used fused weapons. The Construct in the trailer had fused what looked like a stick to a plank, creating a fan that swept Link away from the battle.

Weapon degradation

Ah, weapon degradation. It’s back, as confirmed in the trailer. Link’s stick from the air islands broke pretty quickly in the demonstration, before he fused it to a rock. The stick seemed to break quicker than normal, but we weren’t shown enough to really get a feel for the intricacies just yet. It may just be that fusion makes weapons more durable.

Coordinates

Look closely to the minimap and you’ll see there are coordinates listed on the map — a true improvement in navigation in Hyrule.