Nintendo patents Link's Tears of the Kingdom abilities, and the loading screen

Nintendo has patented Link's Ultrahand and Fuse abilities from Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

The company has recently made a number of its registered patents public, including 31 related to the latest Zelda game, Automaton reports.

Many of those patents relate to Link's main suite of abilities, but there are some more general and unusual patents too - including the game's loading screen, for instance.

When using fast travel, a loading screen shows a map of the player's current location before transitioning into a map of the destination. This, apparently, was enough for Nintendo to patent.

Another patent is for Link's physics when standing on a moving object, so he moves in the same direction and at the same speed without further input needed.

(Essentially, objects move by physics and Link moves by player input, but when standing on a moving object Link is automatically given the same movement properties so they align.)

There's even a patent for a mechanic that prevents Link from grabbing an object with Ultrahand that he's also standing on top of, which seems pretty obvious.

While it's understandable Nintendo would patent the game's most unique elements, the number and details of these patents seem a tad excessive.

Automaton cites a 2022 report by Patent Result, ranking Japanese companies by the number of patents considered grounds for rejection by a competitor. Nintendo ranked fifth with 180 patents, though was outranked by Konami (343), Bandai Namco (325), Sony (236), and Sega (206).

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sales have now passed 18m units worldwide - over half the sales of its predecessor Breath of the Wild.