Back in mid-May it was revealed that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s Ascend ability – which allows Link to leap into solid surfaces just over his head and emerge upon the ground or platform above – actually began life as a developer debug code. The shortcut was initially designed for escaping through cave roofs without needing to backtrack all the way out of underground locations. Essentially, it was a cheat code.
“When I was exploring the caves, I would get to the destination where I was trying to get to, and once I checked it out, I would just use the debug code to get to the top,” explained game director Hidemaro Fujibayashi to Polygon. “And I thought, ‘Well, maybe this is something that can be usable in the game.’
According to Fujibayashi, it was at this time that even veteran Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma conceded that it was “a pain to go back” the way Link had come when exploring underground. Thus, Link’s Ascend skill was born; a behind-the-scenes workaround ratified into an official in-game ability. It was an effective solution to something even the developers themselves were finding tedious.
“And to be blunt and honest, cheating can be fun. So that’s why we decided to drop it in there,” admitted Fujibayashi.
With that, I agree wholeheartedly. Cheating in video games is fun. And no, I’m not talking about cheating in online shooters and such to give yourself an unfair advantage over your opponents. Realistically, if I ever start reflecting on my thoughts on esports-oriented combat, consider it a coded message to you all that I’ve been kidnapped. Rather, I’m talking about cheating in single-player games – the codes and cracks that gave us countless hours of additional fun over multiple generations of some of the greatest games ever made.
The story of Tears of the Kingdom’s Ascend ability and its shift from a developer hack to an official feature is a cute one, but it is worth noting vast swathes of the cheats you may remember (assuming you’re old enough to do so) were born under similar circumstances. That is, they were codes placed within games on purpose to help with development and streamline playtesting. God mode, infinite ammo, level unlocks – you name it. In the final dash to the finish line, sometimes developers forgot to take codes like this out. In other cases, sometimes they deliberately left them in, lest spelunking deep into the code to delete them at the last minute broke the otherwise tried-and-tested game in some other, unforeseen way. Video games are nothing if not teetering monoliths held together by glue and good intentions.
As a kid, I remember gathering and exchanging cheats like currency. I remember having notepages of specific cheats stuffed into most of my game cases. I used to buy entire magazines dedicated to cheats. Hell, when I joined the media industry 20 years ago it became part of my job to assemble those magazines. But then cheats fell out of favour. Games generally became so complex that creating goofy cheats needed to be the work of a team rather than an individual on impulse, which made them costly. On top of this, Achievements and Trophies arrived, and these trendy but largely meaningless measuring systems became the new priority. Do all these tasks and we’ll give you a digital cookie was in; press this sequence of buttons and you’ll make Lara Croft explode was out. Even basic cheats were sacrificed at the altar of Achievement and Trophy “integrity”, and there was little room for invincible gamers and their bottomless bags of ammo in this new climate.
As a result, cheats are a near-extinct novelty in video games today. There are a handful of studios that still value the fun they bring to games, but they are few and far between. For the most part, the only code publishers want you to plug into your games today is the CVV on the back of your credit card.
Now, a belated confession: I’m not really into high fantasy or games like The Legend of Zelda. Realistically, I’m much more of a cars, cowboys, and killin’ Nazis type of gamer. A meathead, mainly. However, I do have a soft spot for physics puzzles, delicately-weaved systems, and surprising, emergent gameplay, which Tears of the Kingdom is seemingly brimming with – so playing it has been an engaging introduction to the world of The Legend of Zelda, despite my overall disinterest in the genre.
However, a second confession: I’m cheating like crazy. I’m cheating like an East German Olympian. I’m cheating like that lady who rode the subway to win the Boston Marathon. I’m cheating like Tiger Woods.
Okay, maybe not quite like Tiger Woods.
But man, you name the glitch and I’ve used it. The weapon duplication glitch? You’d better believe it. The day I discovered the weapon duplication glitch existed, I discovered my first Hylian Shield. Two minutes later, I had four of them.
The item duplication glitch? Yep, absolutely. First the one where you attach it to an arrow then drop the whole bow, then the even better one where you can spawn an additional five items at a time while gliding or pausing while leaping onto your shield. I’m carrying enough salmon to sink a small ship, I’ve laundered more diamonds through that weird guy with the triangular Muppet nose than I can count, and I’ve got so many bombflowers stuffed into my backpack I don’t do combat anymore. I do war crimes.
The unbreakable Master Sword from the prologue? Yep. Got one. Obviously, I’m aware the weapon durability system was a point of much contention on Breath of the Wild (and I’m an eon late to the party here) but, yes, I hate it. The weapons I collect ultimately feel meaningless when they will break without notice. It’s hard to be excited about finding a new one when I know it’ll soon be in a thousand pieces if I start using it. On the advice of my son I flew to the suspended castle to obtain what he insisted were several powerful swords and bows. They all broke within a few encounters. Gathering them had been a total waste of time and, to be honest, the idea of needing to put up with this system exhausted me, and the Fuse system wasn’t salvaging it. I was rapidly losing momentum in a game that I only really have a professional interest in as it is.
The unbreakable Master Sword glitch (which is a combination of item duplication and some kind of save game witchcraft) is a peculiarly specific, multi-step process. I can’t even begin to understand why it works. What I do know is that it absolutely rescued my playthrough of Tears of the Kingdom. Now I can just focus on exploration and prodding the simulation to see what hits back, without being irritated from micromanaging an arsenal that appears to consist of weapons made from corn chips and PVA glue.