Friday, January 27, 2017

Breath of the Wild: Possible Sheikah Slate Runes


Easily one of the coolest additions in Breath of the Wild is the Sheikah Slate with its Rune abilities. They let you tamper with the environment and play with physics in various ways. It feels fresh for the franchise and it certainly looks cool. And so far we know of six different Runes that are available:

  • Remote Bomb (Round)
  • Remote Bomb (Cube)
  • Magnesis
  • Stasis
  • Cryonis
  • amiibo

We also know that there will be at least one more Rune, but there might be even more. These Runes will also get upgrades, where you can make some educated guesses already. For example the Remote Bombs could get a larger blast radius, the Stasis ability could last longer and the Cryonis Rune could let you create multiple pillars without the need of water surfaces (I think we've even saw the last one in the latest trailer already). Magnesis could infuse the objects with magnetic energy, so that they connect with other metallic objects around.

Well, I also put some thoughts into what other Runes there could be in the game and I wanted my share my current results. To be fair, they are not highly original, it's mostly things from other (Zelda) games, that fit into the picture:

Remote Bomb (Bug)
This is simply another variant of the Remote Bomb, where the bomb will crawl along floors and walls like the Bombchus did in the Nintendo 64 Zelda games. The only difference is that they can be remotely activated, so you don't have to perfectly time the detonation.

Pyrosis
This keeps increasing the core temperature of certain elements in the environment. You can melt ice into water or turn water into steam for some updraft. Also, in deserts you can use it to turn sand into glass blocks, kind of as a replacement for the Sand Rod ability from previous games. And of course you can use it to set stuff on fire anywhere.

Gravitas
This creates a field, where inside you can make larger jumps to reach higher gaps without the need of climbing. You can also let stuff temporarily float inside it, e.g. by putting it there with Magnesis. Additionally, all projectiles and enemies will be pushed and slowed down significantly inside this field, so it's a lot easier to dodge and fight them. Essentially it increases gravity for hostile things and decreases the gravity for everything else including yourself. (This is inspired by both the Gravity Arrow field from Trine 2 and the Stasis Field from Unreal Tournament 3.)


I also thought about having a portal ability, but Nintendo already ripped off the test chambers from Portal, so having an actual Portal Rune might be a little too much. It could work differently, though, e.g. being some fancy version of Farore's Wind.

Any ideas or wishes? Share them in the comments, I would love to hear them!

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