The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom lets you build all kinds of wild contraptions thanks to Link’s new abilities like Ultrahand, Fuse, and Autobuild. While some folks are out here making weapons of mass destruction, Japanese players are flexing their creative muscles in other ways, and I’m so here for it.

Read More: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Players Are Building Tanks, Planes To Commit War Crimes

TotK gives you a whole new suite of skills to explore Hyrule Kingdom. Ascend and Recall are great powers that allow Link to slide through solid surfaces and rewind an object’s place in the world, but it’s the other three abilities—Ultrahand, Fuse, and Autobuild—that have captured the internet’s creativity as folks from TikTok to Reddit to Twitter have been sharing their wild constructions. You’ve likely seen some of this already, which includes bonkers builds such as flamethrowing dicks, long bridges, war tanks, and much more. Japanese players, though, are taking it a step further, building out some of the same creations alongside other fascinating and downright silly inventions.

The Legend of Zelda: Engineers of the Kingdom

If you browse the Japanese TotK hashtag on TikTok and Twitter, you’ll undoubtedly see some crazy build you never thought was possible. Take, for instance, ZAKUYA_BOTW, who on May 14 tweeted themselves riding some creepy-looking quad-pedaled robot.

Twitter user cross00841798 thought it’d be hilarious to cook up a boss Bokoblin using some fire and lasers as it was trapped in a green cage. Ouch.

Meanwhile, oimosandayo tweeted a creation on May 15 of a little army of killer, laser-shooting robots that absolutely rekt an outdoor Bokoblin camp.

Over on TikTok, user2761600317825 (yes, that’s their legit handle) built a huge fighter jet equipped with a large supply of rockets. They meant business.

While I’m not totally sure what shrine this is, TikToker ng_elite_force discovered a great way to finish the puzzle. Talk about simplifying the solution.

Then there’s i.anfu, who posted a TikTok on May 14 of themselves using a bomb-equipped armored tank to obliterate a Hinox without taking any damage.

There are so many mind-blowing creations I’ve seen while browsing my Twitter timeline and TikTok For You page. From paint rollers to laser-shooting gliders, here’s just a small smattering of some additional TotK builds for your perusal.

Although you probably need an engineering degree to put some of these creations together, there’s a handy website that gives you a step-by-step guide on TotK builds. So, if you were curious about how to make a satellite laser cannon or a skateboard, Zeldabuilds.gg totally has you covered.

Read More: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom’s Game Breaking Item Glitch Survives First Patch

Much like Breath of the Wild before it, Tears of the Kingdom has been a smashing success for Nintendo since it hit the Switch on May 12. The game sold 10 million copies in just three days and is one of the best-reviewed titles to date. In short, Nintendo has another certified banger on its hands.

 

Following Link’s descent from Great Sky Island, your time is really your own. There’s a main quest which you should definitely make some progress in (especially if you want the all-important paraglider early on), but stretching your legs a bit and exploring what secrets this gorgeous world has in store for you is well worth it. One place you’ll want to consider checking out is Kakariko Village.

“Find the Fifth Sage,” one of the main quests, will end up taking you to Kakariko Village eventually, but the trip is worth it early on as you’ll come across some shrines along the way. Plus, exploring this world is always a treat. I’ll mention a side quest or two you may want to pick up on your trip, but don’t worry, I won’t spoil how to complete them here.

How to get to Kakariko Village from Lookout Landing

As one of the first places you’ll find when touching down on the surface of Hyrule, Lookout Landing is where we’ll start. Make sure you’ve activated the tower there since this guide will call out a few places you’ll need the paraglider for. Also, grab a good amount of arrows before you go. I recommend at least 10.

Read More: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom’s Paraglider Is Easy To Miss, Here’s How To Get It

From Lookout Landing, head southeast. Stay on the road until you come to a three-way split; facing southeast, take the leftmost path. You’ll want the lake to be on your left as you proceed. You’re heading for Rebonae Bridge. There’s an opportunity to get into a brawl with some hostile Constructs and Bokoblins along the way if you’re in the mood for a skirmish.

Before reaching the bridge, you’ll come across poor Addison, stuck there holding a damn sign featuring his beloved boss, President Hudson. Help the guy out by using Ultrahand to grab something from the nearby stack of wood to support the sign. He’ll give you a Red Rupee for it, as well as some Veggie Rice Balls. Continue onto the bridge when you’re done.

On the bridge you’ll run into Gladis who’ll chat your ear off about Bubbulfrogs and Bubbul Gems. He’ll clue you in on where to get the Mystic Robe: an item you can trade Bubbul Gems for all the way east at Woodland Stable. There’s also a cave visible to the left of the bridge with some Horriblins inside. True to their names, these guys can hit hard and are tricky to deal with if you’re not used to ‘em, but the cave has some decent loot, so it might be worth the trip.

Cross Rebonae Bridge and keep to your right on the fork in the road. At the first bend, if you go straight ahead, you’ll find Wetland Stable. But before you do, look to your left and you’ll spot some rocks falling from a Sky Island. Do yourself a favor and hop on one and hit it with Recall to send yourself up to a small island. That’ll take you up to the Central Hyrule Sky Archipelago. This is a great vantage point to see where we’re going next.

From up here you’ll want to take note of two things: looking southeast, you should see Sahasra Slope Skyview Tower tower on your right, and a giant wheel to the left (that last one is a little rough to see with the game’s draw distance). That wheel (which is actually called a Ring Ruin) is where you want to be heading to find the town, however, you really ought to activate the tower first. As you might expect, it won’t be as straightforward as just walking in and hopping on a platform.

Before you hit the tower though, you might want to hit up the Tukarok and Morok Shrines. Tukarok is just behind the Wetland Stable, which is a short walk south of Rebonae Bridge (when the road makes a bend, keep going straight off the road, you can’t miss it).

You can then walk over and climb up to the Morok Shrine afterwards (if you do, speak with an NPC along the way to grab the “Impa and the Geoglyphs” quest), but you can also use a combination of your paraglider from the Sky Archipelago and some Zonai Wings to make the trip easier.

Read More: This Tears of the Kingdom Paraglider Trick Basically Lets You Fly Forever

Note: Walking over to Morok Shrine is complicated by a pretty steep climb (you’ll likely need two Stamina Vessels to make it up the tree root) and on two occasions I’ve encountered Gloom Hands underneath this Shrine location, so you’ve been warned.

How to activate Sahasra Slope Skyview Tower and fight the Battle Talus

Once you reach the tower, you can have a chat with Billson in front of the tower door. He’ll tell you the door’s stuck. That’s unfortunate, but not impossible. He’ll also mention being hungry and thinking about mushrooms from the cave below, your clue to poke around at the base of the hill, though, weirdly, you can’t help poor Billson with his hunger or his mushroom craving.

You will need to hop down to the base of the hill and enter the cave there to progress, but there’s also a pretty robust foe wandering around on the surface nearby that you may want to deal with: a Battle Talus with three bokoblins riding on it. You can ignore them if you want, but it’s a pretty fun fight if you’re careful.

I recommend taking out the bokoblins first with arrows, or at least knocking them off the Talus. A small, annoying quirk I’ve noted about this fight is that holding ZL seems to favor targeting the Talus’ weak point rather than the bokoblins.

When you’ve dealt with the bokoblins, cycle through jumping off of higher ground onto the Battle Talus from left and right sides of the slope leading to the tower (the Talus can start walking up one side if you jump from the same spot each time which will wreck this strategy, so keep switching sides).

When on top of the Talus, strike the dark rock to damage its health. It’ll eventually toss you once you’ve done enough damage, so I recommend three or four strikes with a high-power weapon before leaping off, using your paraglider to get a good distance (one strike from this thing can easily kill you).

Once you’re done with this enemy (or should you choose to ignore the Talus for now), head into the caves at the base of the tower’s hill. There are two entrances on either side. At first you might not think there’s not much in here. You’ll need to fuse a rock to a weapon and start whacking the dark orange rocks (or use some other method to clear them out). You’ll want to keep going until you’re literally underneath the tower marker on the map. After that, use Ascend to travel up into the tower to spot the problem: two pieces of wood are keeping the door shut. Move those with Ultrahand or just grab them and slide the door open, surprising Billson and granting you access to the tower.

Finding Kakariko Village from the Sahasra tower

Launch yourself from the tower and let Link do his scan thing. Once you’re in freefall, you’ll want to pull back a bit to start falling toward the west, right where Kakariko Village is. You’ll spot a large red pit—that’s the direction you want to head (the Village is between the tower and that pit). Keep an eye out for Makasura Shine just overlooking Kakariko Village. When you’re ready, hop down there and start talking to some folks to pick up some quests.

Quests here include “A Trip Through History,” which will have you checking out the Ring Ruins for interesting historical insight; speak with Bugut to get started on that one. There’s also “Out of the Inn,” which will task you with finding where the local inn’s owner has run off to (you won’t be able to stay at this inn until you complete this quest); go try renting a room to chat with a certain individual about the owner’s whereabouts to log that one in your Purum Pad. You can also speak with Lasli near a fire on the east side of the village to get started on the “Gloom-borne Illness” side quest, while chatting with Trissa at the General Store will start one called “Codger’s Quarrel.”

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Enjoying Nintendo’s new open world game? Make sure to check out the tips we wish we knew before playing, some advice on side quests you shouldn’t miss, the duplication glitch shattering the game’s economy, and all the latest on Hyrule’s Korok murder crisis. Unless you’re still stuck in the tutorial area, or missing the paraglider you should pick up the game’s best shield ASAP.

Nowadays it’s not uncommon to hear of entire GameStop stores quitting en masse as working conditions at the video game retailer continue to deteriorate. It’s rarer to hear of employees resigning the day the biggest game of the year launches. But that’s apparently what happened at a store in Michigan the day The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom came out.

“Unfortunately due to poor working conditions, the staff of the Brighton GameStop have decided to resign, effective immediately,” a note reportedly posted outside the store read. “Management overworks, under pays, and under-appreciates its frontline workers, sets unrealistic expectations and constantly threatens termination for any employee that cannot exceed them.”

A photo of the note was posted on Facebook by a customer named Chris Cannaert and subsequently reported on by local media after a tweet by gaming deals account Nintendeal went viral. Cannaert told Kotaku he was visiting the store on May 12, the day Tears of the Kingdom launched, to hunt for some collectibles. “I got there right before they opened and saw the sign,” he said. “While I was there, five people l stopped by to pick up the pre-order of Zelda.”

GameStop did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tears of the Kingdom’s launch was a huge day for the ailing retailer turned meme stock phenomenon. There were lines around the block at some places, and several current employees told Kotaku they were inundated with in-store purchases and online orders. “I will say this is the biggest launch for a game that I’ve seen in years; not even recent Pokémon games have been this huge for us,” one current employee said. Some stores had hundreds of copies and still had to turn customers away who didn’t pre-order the game.

Many stores held midnight launches, and Cannaert said he heard from other customers that the Brighton location was one of them, with diehard fans able to get their copies of the game the night before release. It’s not clear if the staff was planning to quit the next day ahead of time, or the midnight launch was something that put them over the edge. A new employee at the Brighton location declined to comment about the situation, but told Kotaku that the store eventually re-opened on Tears of the Kingdom launch day within three hours of the resignations.

Despite its meme stock continuing to defy all logic and its first profitable quarter in years, GameStop employees have continued to report high turnover, lack of meaningful pay raises, and more intense pressure than ever to hit unrealistic sales metrics. As a result, even some longtime staff have gotten too fed up to continue working there, and occasionally entire stores have been forced to temporarily shut down amid the staffing shortages.

“To all of our loyal guests, we are terribly sorry for this inconvenience,” the Brighton store’s note read. “We appreciate every one of you and your continued business, but I literally cannot pay my rent.”

Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller has provided more insight into why developer Blizzard decided to can a long-promised PvE mode that has been in development since 2019. In a newly released blog, Keller says the discussion going around about “how we’re canceling PvE outright…isn’t accurate” before getting into details about the game’s origins, development process, and future.

Read More: Overwatch 2 Multiplayer Isn’t Good Enough To Justify Gutting Its Long-Promised PvE

Back in 2019, then-director Jeff Kaplan stepped onto the BlizzCon stage and promised an extensive Overwatch 2 PvE experience with skill trees and customizable hero abilities, offered as a buyable add-on to the original game. It would have a shared multiplayer universe with the OG title, that way players who didn’t want to shell out extra for the PvE sequel wouldn’t get left in the dust. Over time, it became clear that we weren’t getting what was promised, as Kaplan left Blizzard, Keller took over, and Overwatch 2 became a standalone sequel that would replace Overwatch 1 entirely.

Overwatch 2 game director on PvE

But on May 16, Blizzard confirmed that the expansive PvE mode would never happen and that the company was instead focusing on shoring up its PvP mode. Keller’s blog makes it clear that Story Missions (“fast-paced, co-op gameplay” that are “leaps and bounds above what we’ve built for PvE previously”) are still happening, and he’ll have more details “in the coming weeks.” But the Hero Missions (“an in-development game mode that allowed players to upgrade individual heroes through talent trees, providing a deeply replayable version of PvE in Overwatch 2”) make up the mode Blizzard is “no longer moving forward with.”

Keller continues:

“The Overwatch team was founded in the wake of a canceled game at Blizzard called Project Titan. That game had many facets, but at its heart, it was an FPS MMO. The Overwatch team, especially at its inception, considered itself an MMO development team. As we transitioned away from that original concept and started creating Overwatch, we included plans to one day return to that scope. We had a crawl, walk, run plan. Overwatch was the crawl, a dedicated version of PvE was the walk, and an MMO was the run. It was built into the DNA of the team early on, and some of us considered that final game a true realization of the original vision of Project Titan.”

After Overwatch launched, however, Keller alleges the team wasn’t “as focused as we should have been on a game that was a runaway hit” and instead tried to continue to build off of a “years old” Project Titan ideology: “Things rarely go as planned in game development. We struggled to find our footing with the Hero Mission experience early on. Scope grew. We were trying to do too many things at once and we lost focus. The team built some really great things, including hero talents, new enemy units and early versions of missions, but we were never able to bring together all of the elements needed to ship a polished, cohesive experience.”

According to Keller, the team kept trying to employ the “crawl, walk, run” plan, but the “audacious” and “gargantuan” PvE mode was “continuously pulling resources away from the live game.” He confirms that there were years of dev work and “emotional investment” put into the Hero Missions mode, and the team “tried to find ways to make all of our ambitions fit together in a plan that we believed in.”

“We couldn’t.”

Keller also attempts to clear up why the team waited so long into 2023 (which was when this mode was promised) before announcing they weren’t going forward with it. “Lastly, people have wondered why this announcement came at this time. After Overwatch 2 had launched, we started refining our plans for future seasons.” The team realized they couldn’t keep pulling focus towards the promised PvE mode “as plans grew,” so they decided to abandon Hero MIssions altogether. “The decision was the start of a long process, not the final piece of it,” Keller writes. Instead of Hero Missions, the team is focusing its efforts on the live service game—which is, ostensibly, Overwatch’s bread and butter.

“This has been hard for us, but as the director on this project, I have to do my best to make decisions that put the game and the community first, even when those decisions are disappointing. In this case, I had trouble pivoting away from a vision that just wasn’t working. And for that I would like to apologize to our players and to our team. I’m sorry.”

He ends the blog post with some flowery language about Overwatch being born from the ashes of Project Titan and how “something beautiful” came from it. “This is another moment of change. And the future of Overwatch will be born out of it.”

I’m not sure I’m as hopeful as Keller is about the future of Overwatch 2, but I’m always happy to be proven wrong.