We have our first extended look at How to play The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom this week, and while it’s largely focused on Link’s new merge capabilities, one returning feature made the internet explode as soon as it was confirmed: Weapon Durability. But while everyone is debating whether Breath of the Wild’s breakable weapon is any good (spoiler: it is, and we’ll talk more about why on that). NVC’s latest episode), I’m much more worried about the future of another possible return system — because let’s face it, Link’s cooking skills need honing.
While not explicitly shown in the gameplay video, all signs of cooking are back – Link has a stockpile full of ingredients (some of which he’s interested in tethering to his weapons). himself rather than grilling) and that characteristic wide cooking pot can be seen over a campfire in a cave that was briefly visited. There’s evidence that the food system could have been expanded as well, as the cooking pot icon in the UI now appears to be taking up “up” on the d-pad the same way you quickly select weapons and shields mine.
It’s great to see that, because I have a serious love-hate relationship with Breath of the Wild Recipes. It’s a surprisingly deep system full of fun experiments and some incredibly powerful summoner spells if you know what to throw in the pot. It also got me really interested in all the little things that I was sucking into my pocket after exploring Hyrule, with items I had ignored so early on suddenly being worth rupees after I realize what they can be used for.
However, the way you actually interact with your cooking options in Breath of the Wild doesn’t reach its full potential unfortunately. It’s obviously crazy that the only way to cook is to slowly navigate your cluttered inventory, individually placing up to five items in Link’s arms, closing them, and then dropping them into the cooking pot – and Hylia forbid you to add the wrong item or miss the pot and have to start over. You can at least ignore most of of the cooking cutscene plays each time, but making more than a few meals at once is a slow and laborious process.
It’s confusing to me that there’s no way in the game to keep track of what combinations you’ve tried and what the results are, especially given how many component options you have. I really love that you can find posters at different stables with meals for you to try, but it’s weird that your options are basically memorizing them right away or Write them down on craft paper if you want the recipe to last long – and while you can take pictures, albums aren’t exactly designed for easy browsing.
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On top of that, while I enjoy experimenting with different ingredient combinations to find interesting results, the system ends up being pretty crackable. While the idea of mixing and matching up to five items is tempting, the truth of the matter is that you only need to use one item when it comes to your health and healing options. Once you’ve raised your stats enough, placing any item that boosts your max health or stamina into the pot (e.g. Hearty Durian or Endura Carrot) will result in a meal bring you a small a little extra boost while also completely refilling your natural max. That eliminated many of the “best” late-game cooking options for me, which could have made the process of roasting a single bunch of carrots more tedious.
As I see it, Tears of the Kingdom has the opportunity to solve a lot of kinks in a system that in the end I really like. Let me sit by the campfire, open the cooking menu and select individual ingredients to quickly find results when combining them. Better yet, save the meals I’ve made in my recipe book and let me quickly cook them again (or in multiples) if I have the ingredients on hand. The problem of how the food balances after dozens of hours is a harder one to deal with and I won’t pretend I know how, but even just improving the way you interact with the cooking station is enough. something I would take over weapon repair any day.
We haven’t seen much of Tears of the Kingdom yet, but this week’s gameplay makes me extremely optimistic. I imagine there are some big surprises still waiting in the wings, but the reality is the fusion and super hand The abilities that seem to have empowered the way players experiment with (and even exploit) Breath of the Wild give me hope that Nintendo can do the same with cooking. Because if we’ll be able to tie a piece of meat to a sword and beat the bokoblin to death with it, the least we can do is make it medium rare.
