With The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s release drawing ever closer, fans of The Legend of Zelda may be eager for the item most tragically absent from Breath of the Wild to make a surprise return: the hookshot. Ever since its introduction in A Link to the Past, the hookshot has been a recurring asset in Link’s arsenal. In its debut game, the hookshot allowed Link to grapple onto objects and move over pits and hazards. Bringing the item to the third dimension, Ocarina of Time expanded its purpose to grant Link significant verticality, letting him zip to high places using designated anchor points.
Some classic Zelda items return or see equivalents in Breath of the Wild, but the hookshot is not present in any form. What makes this omission especially striking is the unprecedented mobility that Link's new tools already afford him. In Breath of the Wild, Link's pro climbing abilities go unchallenged, and there are few obstacles that he is not able to surmount. Link can climb nearly every surface in the game, and in the game’s first area, Link receives the paraglider, allowing him to take to the sky and cover vast stretches of land in no time at all. With the game so rarely restricting how players can explore the world, fears that the hookshot would feel out of place seem unfounded, and a developer interview confirms that this is indeed not the reason for the item’s absence from Breath of the Wild.
Speaking with IGN, director Hidemaro Fujibayashi reveals that Breath of the Wild almost had double hookshots early in development, and his team even playtested it extensively. As he explains, the double hookshots allowed players to “kind of go anywhere, like Spider-Man.” The concept ended up being quite popular among the developers, many of whom regularly begged for its inclusion, but as Fujibayashi elaborates, it was ultimately not implemented because it “kind of completely breaks the climbing mechanic.” He adds that by including the hookshot, Zelda would be “just going back to what we did before, and [Breath of the Wild] is all about doing new things.”
The Hookshot Could Take Link Across Hyrule's Skies In Tears Of The Kingdom
Breath of the Wild's sometimes annoying climbing is an essential part of the experience, so it makes sense that Nintendo sought to avoid trivializing the mechanic with other items. The game achieves its atmosphere through a careful balance of freedom and limitation. Players can go just about anywhere on the map, but they must do so by interfacing with the world; if Link wants to get to the top of a mountain, he’ll have to climb it instead of just grappling to the top. The breathtaking cliffs and landmarks that amazed players on their first trek through the game may not have carried nearly the same impact if they could have been zipped through in an instant.
This all may be true of Breath of the Wild, but in Tears of the Kingdom, Link finds the skies to be his new territory - and as its trailers reveal, much of the game will be taking place far above Hyrule. Giving Link the tools to barrel through the clouds, latching onto and zooming between floating rocks and rubble like a Hylian Spider-Man, would be a thrilling take on traversal for the next Zelda’s new world. And should Nintendo once again fear that it would dismantle the game’s exploration systems, the double hookshot could be bestowed upon players near the end of Link’s journey, expediting the pace of the late game.
Breath of the Wild may have been all about doing new things, but BOTW's sequel is the series’ perfect chance to bring back what worked best. The hookshot has captivated players for decades, and with the extra time taken to evaluate its role in the open world, its inclusion in Tears of the Kingdom is a strong possibility. Until then, Zelda fans can imagine the Breath of the Wild that could have been - with a hookshot-armed Spider-Link soaring throughout the fields of Hyrule.
Source: IGN