Bind was the new ability introduced in the latest trailer for Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, and immediately I sat up and thought “that looks very much like Ultrahand from Tears of the Kingdom”. It turns out they are similar, but not quite the same, so today I’m going to take a look at Bind, what we know so far, what it can do, plus compare the features to Ultrahand as we look forward to Zelda Echoes of Wisdom.

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Until recently we thought Zelda’s main ability in Echoes of Wisdom was her Echo copy ability, allowing her to create copies of objects and then use them to either solve puzzles, fight against enemies, or just have a lay down if she’s tired. Bind was a new relevation in the recent “Traversing Hyrule” walkthrough from Nintendo, and it allows Zelda to move large objects, dig items out of the ground, plus even fly high above the skies of Hyrule through revervse Bond.

Bind is very likely to be a game-changing feature when it comes to solving puzzles and traversing the environment. It’s also very visually similar to another recent ability added to the latest mainline Zelda game, Link’s Ultrahand.

Ultrahand arguably was the standout feature in Tears of the Kingdom, allowing Link to not only move objects but stick objects together, to allow Link to ultimate build structures or vehicles to help him traverse Hyrule. Ultrahand introduced a new level of creativity to Tears of the Kingdom, which build upon some of the great ideas introduced in Breath of the Wild, but then took things to another level. Ultrahand allowed players imaginations to run wild, and spawned a new era of Hyrule Engineering (check out the subreddit for some inspiring creations). Nintendo have now unveiled Bind in Echoes of Wisdom, and while it’s visually similar, the features related to the abilities are quite different.

Bind and Ultrahand similarities

Firstly, the visual design of these abilities appear similar. In Echoes of Wisdom Zelda uses her Tri-Rod to shoot out a green beam of energy that connects to objects or enemies. In Tears of the Kingdom, Link stretches out his arm and a green beam emits from his arm to help Link move and combine objects. We can see in the latest “Traversing Hyrule” trailer Zelda using Bind to move a huge boulder that is blocking her path, and she moves the object as she movesa round the screen. Zelda also uses Bind to retrive a chest stuck in the ground.

Bind appears to follow Zelda’s movements, for example you attach to an object using Bind, and then move Zelda, the object then moves at the same time. Meanwhile Ultrahand offers players a little more freedom, given you can move in a 3D space, and you can pick attach to a majority of objects you can reach with your Ultrahand beam. Moving objects appears to be the main similarity between the two powers, but we have some very exciting differences.

Bind’s unique features

Ultrahand can do things Bind cannot, however, Bind does offer some unqiue features. For example, Reverse Bond. Rather than moving objects when Zelda moves, Zelda moves when other objects move. For example, Zelda can attach herself to a platform to help her get over a gap, or Zelda can attach herself to a bird to help her fly. This is a great example of something that Bind and Reverse Bond can do that Ultrahand cannot.

Bind also allows Zelda to move enemies. In the trailer we can see Zelda bind an enemy, then move them over the edge of a cliff then “let go”, and the enemy presumably falls to their untimely end.

Bind’s impact on gameplay

Bind certainly looks like it’s going to impact Echoes of Wisdom’s gameplay in positive ways. When we first saw the first trailer for the game, Zelda’s echo ability looked good, but it’s much more passve when compared to Link in other top-down Zelda games. Rather than fighting yourself with a sword, you are getting an enemy to do it for you. Bind brings Zelda back into the action, directly interacting with elements in the game-world.

We briefly see a good example of this in the trailer. Zelda creates a hole in the ground with a Mole and then drops an enemy in the hole. The Reverse Bond has a lot of potential too, given you can attach to Spiders to climb or birds to fly, opening up a lot of possibilities to be very flexible when it comes to traversing the environment.

How does Bind work?

It’s very early, and we only have the trailer footage to go on, but we can gather quite a lot of details about how Bind is going to work. The icon for Bind looks like Tri, our new fairy companion for Zelda throughout her adventure. Bind appears to map to the X button, with echoes being summoned with the Y button. Tri appears to power Bind, given Tri moves towards objects when Zelda uses Bind. Echoes appear to come from the Tri-Rod, where as Tri helps Zelda with the Bind ability.

More abilities?

Therefore, it looks like Tri is key to Zelda using Bind as an ability. It’ll be intersting to see if Bind is the only use of Tri, perhaps Tri can enable other abilities. Until the recent “Traversing Hyrule” trailer we didn’t know about Bind, in theory Zelda could learn other abilities enabled by Tri. We haven’t yet seen items in the game like The Hook Shot or the Boomberang, and other abilities could replace these traditional items.

Link has a number of abilities in Tears of the Kingdom including Ultrahand, Ascend, Fuse, and Recall. I’d love to see Zelda get more abilities, either through Tri, or more fairies like Tri. For example instead of moving objects, you could turn items, lift them, shrink them or enlarge them. Simple mechanics like this could improve the puzzle solutions, plus open up new types of gameplay.

Let me know what you think in the comments.