A sequel might be on the horizon, but there’s still a lot of play left The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Half a decade after its release, gamers are still finding new ways to wide open Nintendo’s open-world RPG. Just this week, glitch hunters uncovered perhaps the most groundbreaking exploit yet: it’s now possible to rewrite weapon modifiers.
published in 2017, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is arguably the crown jewel of the Nintendo Switch. Unlike many similar games, including the two predecessors Legend of Zelda entries plus BotW‘s own open-world contemporaries, the game gives you a toolkit and a playground and lets you let off steam – with very few caveats.
This has created a very collaborative community whose members have spent the past five years hunting glitches, developing exploits, and generally pushing the game to its limits, all building on each other’s collective knowledge. (The largest common information base is a massive code decompilation project led by the zelda reverse engineering Leoelitinowhich has led to a wealth of other discoveries.) Over the years, players have learned how to “infinitely jump”. They have opened “impossible” chests. they also have Figured out how to slide across the map.
The particular error depends on another method being called Inventory slot transfer (IS). Discovered last month by BotW glitch-hunter zxrobin, IST allows you to move items between saved files – meaning you can start a new run with some of the best weapons in the game, for example. Weapon Modifier Transfer (WMT) takes this a step further, allowing you to apply stunning stat bonuses to weapons across save files without modifying or hacking the game. However, you have to collect a heck of a lot of cooking utensils. Here’s a quick rundown courtesy of BotW glitch hunter El Duende 5:
“This will probably be the most groundbreaking mistake of all time,” said one commenter on YouTube.
“They’re probably not wrong,” said El Duende kotaku via Discord.
Some of the results to date have confirmed this claim. have players Created broadswords that transform into hurricanes:
When upgraded, Link’s trusty Master Sword is virtually unstoppable, even do short-time work of high level enemies in Hyrule Castle:
But El Duende says the arc of light is probably the most unstoppable weapon to upgrade as it has infinite ammo and is not affected by it BotW‘s infamous weapon durability feature.
El Duende says that a full tutorial for WMT is not yet available as the BotW The community has yet to resolve some issues and gain a full understanding of the bug. But the basic steps are to force the IST exploit to apply Link’s concoction effects to weapons in your key item slots.
“What happens with IST is that if you load a different file, you can cause the game not to delete a number of items from your inventory,” he said.
First, make sure you have 60 meals (the max under normal conditions), two essential items, and have voided any empty inventory slots between your Meals menu and the specific item you want to upgrade. When you load your next save file, the meal’s effects will be applied to the item that is in the last key item slot.
Players, popular among them zelda speed runner Satougashi, are in the process of compiling weapon recipes. One Endura Carrot plus four Gourmet Raw Meats grant a bonus to a shield’s durability. (Add this to the Hylian Shield to increase its rating above 1160.) A powerful Thistle and four Gourmet Raw Meats can give your bows a spread effect; Here’s a player using it to eliminate two devastatingly powerful Guardian enemies with a single shot:
It’s a new technique that players are still trying to fully understand, but it could very well be the ultimate in broad canon BotW glitches.
“There’s not much left to want,” said El Duende, noting the wide range of discoveries that have been made in the game over the past five years. It’s hard to fathom what else could be out there.
An untitled sequel to breath of the wild is on the way, originally planned for this year but now planned for next year After a delay in March. Nintendo is keeping the game’s official name under wraps; apparently, The subtitle is a kind of spoiler. Whatever it is ultimately called BotW 2 doesn’t have to be much more than “more BotW‘ to garner widespread critical acclaim and sell 80 bazillion copies, but it remains to be seen what impact its release might have on the world’s most devoted members BotW community.
“I’m a bit concerned that Nintendo is looking at all this and they’re exacerbating things so much that the game is less fun,” El Duende said. “But I also think no matter what happens we will find other things like we did the first game. It’s only a matter of time.”