Shield surfing evolves into shield skateboarding in Tears of the Kingdom 

Players are showing off their shield skateboarding skills in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The game allows you to Shield Surf, much like in the previous title, but Link’s new Fuse ability gives more variety in terms of what you can do with it. 

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an action-adventure game currently available for Nintendo Switch. It is the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In the new game, the land of Hyrule is suddenly struck by unusual natural disasters – castles rise into the air and mysterious ruins rain down from the sky. In a world with an expanded earth and sky, Link, possessing new powers in his right hand, confronts the catastrophes in Hyrule.    

While this title comes with many new features, much of the gameplay mechanics have been retained from the previous title, including shield surfing. In Breath of the Wild, Link was able to jump onto his shield and slide down sloped surfaces on it. Besides looking cool and being exhilarating, it can also be used to achieve considerable speeds. And in Tears of the Kingdom, shield surfing has evolved: The newly introduced Fuse ability lets you combine a shield and a wheeled cart to make a skateboard. 

What’s different when you attach wheels to a shield? First, you will be able to glide more smoothly against various surfaces, such as cobblestones, grass, snow fields, sand and other surfaces which offer more resistance. But the most exciting of all has to be skateboarding on the rail, an object which was also newly introduced in this title. 

Now that rails are in the game, you can even grind and perform rail tricks to your heart’s content with your shield. It also allows you to travel on downward-facing rails without going through the trouble of carrying and setting up a large cart. It can also be used in puzzle-solving, like the one shown in the following video. Please keep in mind that it contains spoilers for a certain shrine. 

It is interesting how you can approach puzzle solving not only using Ultrahand, but also by modifying your shield with Fuse. Players have developed techniques such as fusing a Bomb Flower or Bomb Barrel with their shields, which allows them to cause a big explosion in the area while jumping away unharmed. Surely a variety of new techniques using the Fuse ability will continue to be invented. 

By the way, the way to start shield surfing is by pressing ZL + A while jumping with the X button. It is not necessary to equip the shield in advance. The wheeled carts that can be used to make a skateboard can be found in abundance on the Great Sky Island tutorial area, so if you want to have a skateboard ready to go, you should be able to pick one up without much trouble. 

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available now for Nintendo Switch. 

Written by. Amber V based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-05-16 15:20 JST)