Summary
The Ultrahand ability caused a lot of problems for the development team ofThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, according to one team member at GDC 2024. Through several tweaks and adjustments in development, the team at Nintendo was able to make Ultrahand one of the most useful abilities ofThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomcontinues to be a very popular title in the Nintendo community, nearly one year after the game’s May 2023 launch. The dedicatedZelda: Tears of the Kingdomplayer base often share their creations online and look for useful new tricks, which can sometimes defy the game’s physics and lead to some memorable clips. Some players have even createdsubmersible vehicles inZelda: Tears of the Kingdomto traverse great distances in a short amount of time.
Reported byTheGamerat a GDC 2024 panel,Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomphysics programmer Takehiro Takayama explained that the Ultrahand ability caused a lot of problems, as the development team worked on creating the game’s world and features. Takayama knew that development would become “very, very difficult,” since the ability was going to break a lot of game elements. Being able to freely usethe Ultrahand ability inZelda: Tears of the Kingdommeant that “daily chaos” would ensue and the game’s physics engine would require more work to mitigate glitches and other technical issues. Moreover, Takayama would often get reports from fellow development team members about objects flying or breaking in the game.
Ultrahand Caused Problems During the Development of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
According to Takayama, gates were another issue during early phases ofZelda: Tears of the Kingdom’sdevelopment. Originally, gates were meant to be objects that weren’t affected by in-game physics, but the inclusion of the Ultrahand ability meant that Nintendo needed to recreate gates as physics-driven objects. Since Ultrahand can help players move objects over and under certain obstacles in the game, re-developing gates ensured that player freedom was an integral part of the gameplay experience once more.
Despite the development problems, Takayama was pleased with how Ultrahand turned out inZelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Players are able to combine objects and create contraptions that Takayama couldn’t have envisioned during the game’s development. At the GDC 2024 panel, Takayama demonstrated a player’s Korok carousel, making it clear that the team is aware of the ways thatplayers have tortured Koroks inZelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the sequel to the beloved open-world adventure, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This installment once again sees Link and Zelda battling to protect Hyrule from falling to Ganondorf. This new adventure takes place in the same land of Hyrule as Breath of the Wild but sees something called the Upheaval, which allows link to travel to Sky Islands, as well as deep into the Depths beneath Hyrule. Players can use special abilities to fuse together weapons, and build items to help them progress through the release.
