Unveiling Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's Revolutionary Combustion Engine

In the world of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, one player went above and beyond the game's building mechanics by successfully creating a functioning combustion engine. Excited by this engineering feat, they took to social media to share their accomplishment. This impressive display of creativity comes shortly after another fan of Tears of the Kingdom amazed the community with their intricate three-floor house design.

Unlike other games, Tears of the Kingdom embraces a sandbox design philosophy that allows players to decide how much they want to engage with its building mechanics. While the game only requires players to create simple contraptions to overcome challenges, those who delve deeper into the Ultrahand ability will discover its vast potential for both practical uses and playful experimentation.

This newly developed combustion engine is a remarkable creation, comparable to the Tears of the Kingdom King Gleeok mechs and other impressive machinery that have recently captivated the fandom. Constructed by Reddit user jtrofe, the engine utilizes two Zonai Canons to propel a moving piston by firing into its stationary cylinder, which is mounted on a Zonai Spring. The resulting motion is then transferred to a makeshift crankshaft, as shown in a brief video demonstration shared by the author on June 22.

While many Tears of the Kingdom fans expressed their astonishment at this engineering feat, some were hesitant to classify it as an external combustion engine, arguing that it functions more as a kinetic force converter. However, not everyone shared this hesitation. Reddit user senorali suggested that the cylinders of real combustion engines could indeed be considered compact canons.

The impact of this creation on the game's building meta is questionable, considering the current design already requires a significant number of components just to make the crankshaft turn. This limitation hinders its practicality as Tears of the Kingdom restricts players to 21 parts per structure, causing the build to fall apart. Although this restriction was likely implemented for performance reasons, it severely limits the complexity that players can achieve, which is not much greater than the complexity of this improvised combustion engine.

However, the building meta in the new Zelda game continues to develop steadily. A recent milestone was reached a few weeks ago when a resourceful Tears of the Kingdom player transformed an enemy into a rain sensor, demonstrating that Zonai devices can be powered without single-use batteries or Link's energy cell reserves.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available on Nintendo Switch.