Zelda Tears of the Kingdom vehicles have been a prominent part of the promotional material, with cars, boats and flying machines to be built. Yes, vehicles are created, not found, as the promotional material shows Link using the Ultrahand ability to craft vehicles himself, piecing them together from pieces to form various constructed forms of travel. We'll explain more about how that works below, as well as some of the best Zelda Tears of the Kingdom vehicles we've seen so far.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom vehicles explained
Vehicles in The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom appear to be wholly constructed from parts, with the Ultrahand ability used to move and glue them together. However, rather than building towards a specific or fixed design, it looks like players can construct any arrangement of pieces and parts to make a vehicle that appeals to them, in a process that feels very improvised, rather than fixed. Once constructed, these vehicles can be controlled in rudimentary ways, usually by interacting with certain key aspects - fans, sails and so on.
It's worth keeping in mind that this isn't the same thing as the Fuse ability, which is about enhancing and merging weapons for greater results in combat. For more info on that, check out our page on Zelda Tears of the Kingdom fusions and the fuse ability.
How to make vehicles in Zelda Tears of the Kingdom
As shown in the gameplay trailer, vehicles in Tears of the Kingdom are assembled by using Ultrahand, one of the new Zelda Tears of the Kingdom abilities. Ultrahand allows you to move objects through the air and glue them together, and this is how you make vehicles - attaching objects and parts with Ultrahand into a single vehicle that can carry you through the air, water, or across land. Some vehicles can even handle both at once, such as when we see a boat take off into the air when four turbines are activated.
Here are some info for building vehicles, based on what we've seen so far:
- You need to find a way of making sure your vehicle moves. Look for fans, sails, wheels or similar, depending on what you want. Different parts will move the vehicle through different spaces and in different ways.
- You can rearrange pieces if you need to. There's no penalty to using Ultrahand and you can detach pieces as much as you want, so keep mixing and rearranging bits until you get it right.
- Useful parts appear to be around when you need them. The gameplay trailer showed that when Link reaches a big lake, there's no boat - but there are the parts to make a boat scattered around.
All vehicles in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
We've seen a variety of vehicles in the promotional material so far, and while there's probably so many combinations of parts that the full number is nearly impossible to count, we have seen several trends in patterns in the vehicles displayed.
Cars
Cars, or land vehicles generally, have probably had the least amount about them shown of all the vehicles, though considering it's been confirmed that rideable horses will be back in Tears of the Kingdom, they might also be the least necessary kind of vehicle around. The one land vehicle we've seen, shown above, had headlights, two types of wheel, what looks like a dedicated steering mechanism, and what looks like some sort of battery or power source in the back. Certainly more complex than the simple logs and sticks that we've seen some vehicles made from.
Boats
Boats have had a lot more revealed about them, and so far we've seen two significant variations - those powered by sails, and those powered by the new fan turbines. Obviously the former are dependent on the wind, but the fans can be turned on by hitting them with a weapon, which temporarily makes them turn and push the vehicle they're attached to. Of course, that doesn't just mean boats…
Air vehicles
Air vehicles are arguably the most exciting, and more necessary than before considering all the floating islands across Hyrule. We've seen hot air balloons that lift Link across the sky, as well as platforms powered by the turbines mentioned above, having them fire downwards to temporarily lift the vehicle into the air.
Is the Motorcycle "Master Cycle Zero" in Tears of the Kingdom?
Before this game there was only one proper vehicle in this era of Hyrule (not including the simple rafts and giant Divine Beasts): the Master Cycle Zero motorcycle, which was added in DLC and used parts from Guardians as fuel.
Unfortunately, there's no reason to think that the Master Cycle Zero will be back - there's been no mention of it in promotional material and it might arguably render many vehicles the players could make unnecessary. We'll update this page if more information comes out - but right now it looks like the bike has been put back in the shed.
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