Nintendo recently showed off gameplay for Tears of the Kingdom, which included Link’s new abilities. One of the most exciting abilities is Fuse, which will allow Link to fuse items together, to create interesting combinations of items. Today I want to take a closer look at Fuse, what it is, how it might work, what we can fuse together, plus look at what you want to fuse together too. I also want to take a look at the impact this could have on breakable weapons, plus look at the potential for fusion armor too.

Before we get into it today let me know what items you want to fuse together in the Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom?

The recent gameplay showcase for Tears of the Kingdom was exciting for many reasons. We can rewind an object’s movement with Recall, we can build all kinds of structures and vehicles with Ultrahand, plus travel through solid matter with Ascend. However, the most exciting new ability coming with Tears of the Kingdom is Fuse… which allows Link to combine two items, to create interesting new versions of these tools and weapons.

Let’s have a look back at the gameplay demo to see how Fuse might work in the game. First of all, Link picks up a tree branch on one of the Sky Islands and stands next to a boulder. We likely have to press a button to start the Fuse process, and then you can see the energy joining Link and the boulder, with a couple of options. You have the choice to Fuse the boulder to either Link’s stick or Old Wooden Shield. We can see the result of the boulder fused to the stick, it looks like a makeshift hammer. We can also see later in the trailer what it would look like if Link Fused the boulder to the shield. We see another example of Fuse, Link using a long stick and fusing that to a Farmer’s Pitchfork, making a very long weapon with extended range, allowing Link to keep enemies at a distance.

We’ve seen Link fuse weapons and items like Sticks, Pitchforks, sheilds and rocks. There is another type of Fuse, this time with arrows, allowing Link to fuse arrows with different monster parts, left behind when Link kills monsters out there in Hyrule. Back in Breath of the Wild, while you can make exilirs and medicines with these Monster Parts, they were largely underused, and this is a creative way for Link to use those parts. Link fuses a leak to an arrow, then changes his mind, and fuses some Ice Chu Chu jelly to an arrow, creating an ice arrow. Link can also fuse a Keese Eyeball to an arrow to creating homing arrows.

Towards the end of the Fuse section, Aonuma gets a little more creative with the fuse options including fusing a puff mushroom to his shield, which when attacked, it explodes into a spore cloud, cloaking Link from the enemy, allowing Link to sneak up on the enemy and kill them nice and easily. Link then briefly fuses a rock to his sheild, which I assume then makes the sheild more durable.

What stands out is how simple this is going to be. You either stand next to an item, press fuse and then select what you want to fuse the item you are standing near too. Or when you are drawing a bow, you can open up your materials menu and fuse a material to an arrow.

The impact Fuse is going to have on gameplay is mind boggling at this point. One of the great things about the Tears of the Kingdom gameplay demo was Aonuma inviting us to imagine what we can do in the full game. If Link is able to fuse sticks and stones, mushrooms and shields, elements to arrows to create more deadly arrow, then what else are we going to be able to fuse?

Fusing melee weapons like swords is going to be fun, or a long stick and a sword, creating more range like we saw with the pitchfork. Fusing together a dagger and a boomerang is going to be a deadly combination. I’d like to see Link fuse together elements and swords, so we could create fire blades, or ice blades, or even electric blades.

A major impact Fuse is going to have is weapon durability and stats. We saw in the gameplay demo Link use a stick on the Zonai Contructs, and the stick had regular durability, it broke after a few hits. When Link fuses together a rock and a stick, you can see the attack stats have gone up with the +2 highlighted. Link then uses this new fused rock and stick combo to kill two constructs, which says to me there has been an increase in durability. Breakable weapons in Breath of the Wild is a very divisive topic, you either love it or hate it.

I’ve seen people in the comments of videos say the aren’t going to buy Tears of the Kingdom if Nintendo decide to bring back breakable weapons. I am hoping fuse is a partial soltuion to that. Personally, I like breakable weapons, as this promotes exploration and doesn’t allow us to get too attached to a single weapon. By fusing items or ingredients to our weapons, we could increase the durability and hold onto them a little longer, but ultimately they still will break.

The new fuse ability has massive potential with arrows in Tears of the Kingdom. In Breath of the Wild we could purchase different arrow types; fire, ice, elecricity and bombs. Looking at the gameplay trailer footage, I think we’re going to remove the need to buy different arrow types, and we’ll fuse monster parts with arrows to create new and interesting arrows. We’ve seen the homing arrows already, when combined with a Keese Eye, that’s instantly very cool, and one of the big wow moments of the gameplay demo.

It’ll be interesting to see exactly what we can fuse onto arrows. We saw the Ice Chu Chu Jelly to create Ice Arrows, and I am assuming you can do this with all Chu Chu Jelly types, so fire, electric and ice arrows are going to be nice and easy. Bomb arrows were one of the best weapons in Breath of the Wild, but so far we haven’t see bombs as part of Link’s arsenal. Bombs were very easy to come by in Breath of the Wild, as we could simply use the Sheikah Slate to create bombs at will, albeit behind a countdown timer. We’ve seen Link’s new abilities include Fuse, Ascend, Ultrahand and Recall… but we haven’t seen any bomb abilities, so perhaps bombs are going to come back into Tears of the Kingdom as an item we collect rather than craft, or we use another item to create explosive arrows. That’s one of the many details we’re going to have to wait until 12th May to find out.

One thing I’d like to understand are the limitations behind fuse. Can we fuse more than 2 items together? From the gameplay demo we saw many examples of two items being fused, but can we do more? Is Fuse about combining two items, and then Ultrahand is about sticking more items together? Can we Fuse armor?

Before we finish, I put a call out before this video to see what you wanted to fuse in the game, and we got some very good suggestions.

LM234 – I wonder if the fallen stars from BOTW would have any special powers when fused? I definitely think we will be able to fuse the Weapons from the tops of enemies heads too!

Fallen Stars are definitely interesting, I imagine they would explode when hit, so maybe we can fuse them to a long stick or pole and then throw them for explosive effects. I think you are 100% right when it comes to the weapon parts on enemies heads, we’re going to be farming enemies for weapon parts, plus the ingredients to creating interesting new combinations. Thank you LM234!

Sonx – I’m curious to see how a shield and a long stick would fuse together

I like this, we’re going to keeping our enemies at arms length with that one.

Victor C – How about arrow and flower (any) to summon flowerblight? On a more ‘serious’ note, maybe shield and the chuchu jelly, so maybe when you defend you can also freeze or burn the enemies? Perhaps long stick and meat too, maybe that is a way to atract bokoblins Xd. Meat and shield I have no idea what it could do though. For the arrows, maybe apples or octorok bañloons sound interesting.

There’s a few good ideas in there Victor. I like the idea of the Chu Chu jelly to a shield, maybe you create elemental shields which are strong to certain attacks. A long stick with meat sounds fun, you could stand over a Bokoblin camp and draw them out into a trap.

The legend Of Mario – Tree trunk arrows.

Very good, although not sure they would fly very easily.

Meme Boi – Stick or any other one handed weapon weapon with a bomb barrel that you can throw.

I like this!

Fuse has the potential to change the game in a realy positive way. Let me know in the comments what you think of Fuse and share your fusion ideas with us.