Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has revamped weapon durability, and that's a good thing – here’s why

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Weapon durability. Type that into any gaming forum or social media site, and you’ll see people foaming at the mouth about it in one way or another. Some may be there to defend it, to the hilt, saying that it’s one of the best things that’s ever been added to games. Others will decry it, saying it does not respect the player’s time, that it’s unrealistic, and unnecessary. But I think, in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, this controversial little mechanic is going to get a whole new lease of life.

There are two very distinct types of people in this world: those that like weapon durability, and those that hate it. It’s the ‘marmite’ of game design choices, and it has formed the basis of endless discourse since time immemorial. Zelda: Breath of the Wild was not like other Zelda games; the title made some massive changes to the core RPG formula that innovated hugely on the series’ personality. Instead of an old man bestowing magical swords on you in some dusty old cave, you needed to forage for your weapons – arm yourself with a branch, if needs be, in order to survive.

But branches – and by extension, anything, apparently – break. Even the Master Sword, once you got your eager hands on it, broke after some use – albeit not permanently. Breath of the Wild became quite a controversial Zelda game to some, because the weapons would break – and break quickly. Even finding yourself some ludicrous, overpowered thing didn’t fill you with that much excitement, because you knew it’d just crumble to dust in about two encounters’ time.

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