7 things you may not have noticed in the Tears of the Kingdom gameplay trailer

Yesterday Nintendo debuted the first proper look at gameplay in Tears of the Kingdom, where series producer Eiji Aonuma spent about ten minutes exploring a Sky Island and showed off the new abilities that Link will wield. Every fan who watched got an in-depth look at how combat will change with the Fuse ability, and any keen eyed viewer surely caught the fleeting Zonai mention when Link collected a dropped item after defeating a new type of enemy called a Construct. But there are details even less obvious than that, those that are hidden away in the background, and those that most fans likely missed during their first watch. These are seven of the most interesting that we’ve identified so far after scrutinizing the video.

1. More Constructs than meet the eye

Link encountered several Constructs while exploring the Sky Island (and he even got knocked clear off the Sky Island by one), but we actually saw Constructs much earlier in the video. Around the one minute mark, multiple of the Zonai automatons can be spotted in the distance as Link rides a horse through an area near the Dueling Peaks, assumedly the Blatchery Plain. Clearly, the robotic soldiers won’t be limited strictly to the Sky Islands, but will be found all over the surface of Hyrule, as well. Not all of them appear to be threatening, either. Once Link crosses the river on the Sky Island, he passes by a docile figure that’s identified as a “Ranger Construct”. This same kind of Construct later appears in one of the caves where Aonuma demonstrated the Ascend ability.

2. Sky Islands that reach to the very heavens

It’s no secret whatsoever that the Sky Islands will be hanging high above the surface of Hyrule, and yet, the extent to their elevation may be even greater than we first imagined. While using the Recall ability to reverse the path of a falling block, Link is able to lift himself up to one of the Sky Islands. But the Sky Island that he eventually touches down on isn’t the same one that the falling block came from. It fell from somewhere much higher. When Link first turns around after landing, that Sky Island still isn’t in sight. In fact, it’s not in sight even when the camera is facing up as Link is lifted along with the block. That particular Sky Island must be way up there. Not only will the Sky Islands be at varying elevations, some may be so high up that they’re darn near surpassing the stratosphere of Hyrule.

3. Quick Switch for food

The Sheikah Slate’s Runes that we used all throughout Breath of the Wild seem to be gone in Tears of the Kingdom, replaced by the abilities from Link’s new arm. Those abilities are mapped to the L button, which means that the Quick Switch option on the Up direction of the D-Pad needed to be filled by something else. It appears that food and other collectible materials have been chosen to occupy that slot on our controllers. At one point in the video it is seemingly used to select what items to Fuse to arrows, but it’s also possible that we’ll be able to toggle through meals that we’ve cooked thanks to the Quick Switch. If so, that could make healing and adding buffs to Link much smoother in the middle of battle rather than having to pause and cycle through the menus.

4. Ultrahand directional control

Some of Link’s new abilities revolve around the same concept or function as some of the Sheikah Slate Runes, albeit with their own unique alterations and upgrades. Ultrahand appears to control similarly to how Magnesis did, but with at least one big improvement. For a brief moment in the video, we see that Link can manipulate the direction of the object that he’s holding through Ultrahand, being able to turn and twist it to his liking. Anyone who played Breath of the Wild surely remembers an instance or two where they had to tediously maneuver an object into position while using Magnesis. Ultrahand seems to make this process much easier and much more efficient.

5. Checking caves off the list

It’s hard to imagine that many fans were paying attention to the map when they first watched the video, certainly not when Aonuma was demonstrating all of the jaw-droppingly creative new abilities. But if you look very closely at the HUD map during different points of the video (specifically, about ten minutes in), you will find that some caves are check marked. We can only assume that they receive that identification either once Link steps foot in them, obtains whatever items are hidden in them, or completes whatever obstacle is found there.

We can also only assume that the one little Sky Island shown in the video isn’t the lone spot where there are caves to be check marked. This suggests that there are going to be numerous caves, grottos, and other subterranean locations in Tears of the Kingdom, enough to be something of a collectible all their own. Perhaps they will fill the role that the Ancient Shrines played in Breath of the Wild, housing all manner of valuable loot and offering challenges for us to overcome.

6. No forest in sight

Nintendo and Aonuma have repeatedly assured us that the Hyrule we explored in Breath of the Wild will undergo many changes to feel different in Tears of the Kingdom. One such change appears to be with the Great Hyrule Forest, where the Koroks live — notably, that it’s not there. Look as hard as you want, but there’s no sign of that verdant woodland where it last stood in Breath of the Wild. Nor is there any sign of the Great Deku Tree. We’re hoping that the forest simply got lifted from the surface of Hyrule to sit alongside the Sky Islands, or something of that nature, rather than it being completely razed to the ground. One way or another, it’s not where it used to be, and we can’t tell where it went.

Amusingly, a Korok is seen very early in the video near the Dueling Peaks. The little fella is walking down the road carrying a hilariously oversized backpack, and has a speech bubble where they say – “I need to reach my friend!”. Maybe they’re on their way to wherever Korok Forest now resides?

7. Pools of Malice on the surface of Hyrule

Once the figure we still affectionately refer to only as “Zombiedorf” reawakens, Malice quickly becomes a big problem for Hyrule in Tears of the Kingdom. Massive tendrils are seen writhing from beneath Hyrule Castle, and the evil essence billows out of Death Mountain like plumes of smoke. But Malice seems to come in smaller quantities, as well. Toward the end of the video while Link is sky diving back down to earth, there are two [comparatively] small spots on the surface where pools of Malice lurk. They look peculiarly like spots where Ancient Shrines would have once stood. We already know that Sheikah Tech largely seems to be absent from the overworld in Tears of the Kingdom, so perhaps some of the shrines have been subsumed by Malice.