Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Fuse ability was originally more ambitious

Fuse was was of the new mechanics introduced in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but it turns out that Nintendo originally had grander plans for the feature. Details about its development were shared during the CEDEC 2024 presentation that took place a little while back.

According to director Hidemaro Fujibayashi, one of the original ideas for Fuse in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom let players combine multiple objects. The team also considered an option for the pattern in which the result of sticking the two things together would change into something else. Additionally, while Nintendo thought about having the ability to select the orientation of the fused materials, it was cut as sword orientations in this game were not a feature, making the angle meaningless.

A few interesting examples were shown off during the presentation based on the above information. For example, by carrying a shield with swords attached to both sides, you would have been able to cut the grass around your feet and the surrounding area just by walking. Another idea involved attaching a Boss Bokoblin blowhorn to your weapon, and shaking it to make a sound to control the Bokoblins. Also shown was attaching Zonai Device wings and carrying it on your back to be able to fly.

The final game only lets players combine two objects and settled on the “Fuse” name since it was very easy to understand. Nintendo ended up scrapping “Attaching two or more”, “Free placement”, and “Making each name unique”. By doing so, it made the number of fuse options more manageable.

Credit to Famitsu for the original report and ZeldaLoreYT for passing along the details.