The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom takes the incredible open-world sandbox of its predecessor and expands upon it in nearly every way. Not only does the direct sequel to Breath of the Wild introduce two brand new biomes that take Link in opposite vertical directions from the surface of Hyrule, it does so while introducing so many new systems and mechanics that its honestly miraculous that the team at Nintendo EAD were able to get them all to fit in a single game. Tears of the Kingdom is both a triumph as a Zelda game and a testament to the ingenuity of Eiji Aonuma and his team, and perhaps no single mechanic from the game illustrates how much of a massive leap forward it represents for the franchise more than Ultrahand.
Not content to rest on the laurels of the success of Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom introduces a brand new suite of abilities for Link that completely recontextualize how players can interact with what’s otherwise a familiar open-world setting. Alongside Ultrahand players now have the incredibly useful Fuse and Ascend abilities, which are so powerful as to allow breaking the game if only Tears‘ developers hadn’t anticipated almost every potential scenario for sequence breaking (and almost encourage it in some areas). That said, neither Fuse or Ascend can compare to the sheer freedom and creativity that players have in Tears of the Kingdom thanks to the Ultrahand ability.
What is Ultrahand?
Link obtains the Ultrahand ability early on in Tears of the Kingdom after awakening on the Great Sky Isles. Having accidentially reawakened Ganon and getting separated from Princess Zelda, Link regains consciousness in a strange airborne archipelago and soon notices that his arm is replaced with a strange Zonai-looking appendage. After completing the Ukouh Shrine and “The Ability to Create” story quest, Link earns the Ultrahand ability. His mysterious new appendage begins to emit a strange glow, and Link can now use the powerful limb to manipulate the world around him.
At its base level, Ultrahand allows Link to lift, rotate, and attach objects in the environment, but the potential utility of the ability is practically limitless. In application, Link can use the Ultrahand ability to craft vehicles, create weapons of war, construct contraptions to launch himself into unreachable areas, or even build makeshift bridges connecting areas of the map. The only ceiling on what Ultrahand can do is the player’s own imagination, and a quick search through YouTube or TikTok shows that millions of players have been using Ultrahand in ways that the developers likely never anticipated.
Getting and Using Ultrahand in Tears of the Kingdom
Once Link has the Ultrahand ability, Tears of the Kingdom gives the player the straightforward task of reaching the Temple of Time and puts no constriaints on how Link is able to get there. Experimenting with Ultrahand at this point will give players an understanding of its basic mechanics. Once the player selects the ability, Link will begin to examine the world around him in search of objects that can be manipulated using Ultrahand. Link can pretty much pick up and use almost anything in the open world that isn’t a permanent structure, and all these objects will glow orange with Ultrhand selected. Once Link picks up the object using Ultrahand, the glow changes to a faint green color.
Link can rotate these objects either vertically or horizontally, and can even “glue” them to one another to create complext machines and vehicles. Attaching objects to one another is only semi-permanent, as Link can either manipulate his new creations or separate them piece-by-piece. Experimenting with Ultrahand is half the fun of the ability, trying out new combinations of everyday objects and Zonai parts to see what kinds of objects Link can create. Using Zonai parts like fans, rockets, steering columns, or wings can give Link the means to craft his own vehicles for use in the open world, and Tears of the Kingdom does a great job of making sure that players are never far from a cache of parts to use in creating something with Ultrahand.
How Ultrahand Transforms The Legend of Zelda
One of the first challenges players will have after acquiring Ultrahand is figuring out just how Link is supposed to reach the seemingly unreachable Temple of Time. As an example of how Tears of the Kingdom gives players the tools necessary to accomplish the task and then places no limits on how they go about it, Link can use Ultrahand to fly a glider, create platforms to ride the rail systems linking the archipelago, or simply pull large blocks toward himself to create a makeshift bridge he can jump and glide across to reach the Temple. Fittingly, the sky is the limit.
Ultrahand transforms Tears of the Kingdom from being simply a sequel to Breath of the Wild to being one of the most revolutionary changes to the Zelda formula since its transition into an open-world title. Eiji Aonuma is already on record saying that fans should expect the Zelda series to continue its new open-world format following the success of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, and it’s almost impossible to imagine the series moving forward without continuing to implement some sort of crafting and building mechanic similar to Ultrahand.
For a generation of younger Zelda fans whose earliest Zelda games were on the Wii and also grew up playing Minecraft, Tears of the Kingdom and Ultrahand represent an ingenious blending of the Zelda gameplay formula with the freedom of expression and creativity synonymous with Mojang’s now-legendary open-world sandbox. It’s a winning formula, and it’s also one that Nintendo will undoubtedly continue to evolve in the next mainline Legend of Zelda game.
The image featured at the top of this post is ©Zelda gameplay screenshot.