We’re 43 days from the time of writing until the long-awaited release of Nintendo’s forthcoming The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and at long last, our Japanese overlords have seen fit to show us some gameplay.

In a 13-minute presentation Tuesday hosted by series producer Eiji Aonuma on the company’s YouTube channel, we got our first official look at some of the new enemies and abilities that will be at Link’s disposal when the game releases on May 12.

At first, and unsurprisingly, the game has a very similar vibe to Breath of the Wild right out the gate. That’s to be expected with both titles sharing a game engine. However it doesn’t take long for Aomuma to get into what everyone came to see.

Link is going to have several new abilities accessible to him from the beginning of the game, similar to the Sheikah slate runes from BOTW. The first of these shown off was Recall, which Link can use to reverse the flow of time for certain objects. In the example from the video, Aonuma used the ability on a falling rock that he used to climb up into one of the video’s other highlighted features, being the sky islands. These islands will likely hold some sort of significance for the story.

Once up in the sky, we meet one of the new game enemies, the Zonai constructs, with little further explanation to what symbolism they hold. But this was the perfect time for the introduction to the next new ability, and arguably the most intriguing: Fuse.

With Fuse, Link can take objects that are in Link’s inventory or in the environment to create new weapons. In the preview, Aonuma takes a tree branch and a nearby boulder and combines it into a makeshift hammer, increasing its overall stats and durability, or even making a larger weapon.

Later, he used the keese eyeballs (for normal people, keese are the bats of the Zelda Universe) to create homing arrows for his bows. At another point, he combined a mushroom with his shield to create a smoke bomb to create a diversion.

According to Aonuma, this ability will be limited only by the imagination of the player.

The next ability covered was Ultrahand, which Link will be able to use to combine objects found in the world to create your own vehicles to travel across the land, water and air. Aonuma demonstrated this by using some nearby trees and fans to create a raft to traverse a river.

Lastly, we saw the Ascend ability, which will let Link move (with some limitations) through solid surfaces into the floor of the room above. In the video, Link was able to go into a cave and travel through the ceiling, up to the cliff above.

Despite the short run time, the exhibition of these new abilities really sold me on the potential of what’s to come on May 12 when Tears of the Kingdom finally makes it to store shelves.

Ready to rumble

WWE WrestleMania 39 is set to take place this weekend in Los Angeles, and there are only two matches that really have me excited to tune in this weekend: The Usos vs. Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens for the tag titles, and Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns for the WWE Universal Championship.

Aside from the fact that this could be the first time ever that a tag-team championship match could potentially main-event a WrestleMaina card, I am really looking forward to Cody “finishing the story” to finally become WWE Champion, and it’s not just because after the horrible pectoral injury that sidelined him for the entire back half of 2022.

No, it’s because after so much time carrying the company on his back as the top champion and being the forefront of WWE for 2.5 years, Roman Reigns needs a break, and he’s more than earned it.

There was a time not that long ago when wrestling fans wished for nothing more than for WWE to stop trying to ram Reigns down our throats as a babyface hero — and it was bad. As cringe as all get-up. ‘Sufferin’ succotash’ was a line that will stick in the craw of many people for a long time.

But these last several years with Reigns as Tribal Chief of The Bloodline have been phenomenal, easily one of the best storylines going in wrestling. And having Sami Zayn joining the fray last year and leading into the Royal Rumble, the revitalizing of Kevin and Sami, it’s all been awesome, and honestly one of the few reasons I’ve tuned into WWE these last couple of months.

And now, after all the hype and buildup, it’s only fitting that Cody Rhodes ends the weekend with his arm and the gold held high, while our Tribal Chief rides off into the sunset for a well-earned rest.

Dan Isenberg is a copy

editor who writes regularly on gaming, tech, fantasy, science fiction and other nerd culture topics for the Mirror. He can be reached at disenberg@altoonamirror.com or on Twitter @TheseDanTweets.