Tears of the Kingdom’s Duplication Glitches Were Harming Nobody, So Why Remove Them?

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.

Cheaters always prosper.

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.

That is one big pile of cheats.

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.

Smelled like... victory.

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.

Not found? Well, let's agree to disagree.

In strict terms, sure, these aren't cheats. Not in a traditional sense. They’re glitches and exploits. But spiritually speaking, they’re essentially cheats. Clone a few fairies and for all intents and purposes you’re invincible. A few seconds worth of jumping about? There's your unlimited items. You’ve broken the game! You’re playing it wrong! Hey, I’m enjoying it more this way than I was initially, and the net effect of what I do in my playthrough of Tears of the Kingdom upon anybody else is nought. That's the beginning and end of the debate. I’m entirely indifferent to what purists think about the way I engage with a single-player game. I’m a huge fan of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2. I do not care that there would be folks out there who beat each of them with the help of the cheats Rockstar overtly baked in. In fact, the thought never crossed my mind until I composed this paragraph.

Unfortunately now, as of the most recent update, Tears of the Kingdom's most dependable glitches are gone. Nintendo has nuked them. New methods are emerging, but none appear quite as useful or as lucrative as the ones that have been disabled. With auto updates off and our Switch in flight mode, it hasn't been a problem here in my household. I’m still cheating like a three-armed poker player, and so is my Zelda-obsessed youngest son. In fact, I think the glitches we’ve been teaching each other have re-energised him even more than me.

Honestly, we're having a blast.

My question, though, is why take them out at all?

When Hidemaro Fujibayashi found schlepping back out of caves dull and boring, he cheated and magically teleported to the surface above. When I found the weapon degradation system so frustrating it was literally thwarting my enjoyment of the rest of the game, I followed some directions to solve that problem. I’m ultimately not really seeing the difference. Sure, one was enshrined as an official technique and the other is a game-bending exploit, but they’re both solutions to a tedious problem.

Presumably there's a desire to protect the purity of the experience as the developers intended it but, on the other hand, where's the harm? Tears of the Kingdom is not an online game. There's no multiplayer component. Players who use glitches aren't doing so to give themselves an advantage over other players. They’re doing it to have fun. Realistically, is there really much of a difference between duplicating a few resources in Zelda and toggling on creative mode in Minecraft? If Nintendo is worried about the long term appeal of Tears of the Kingdom being compromised by people cheating and ploughing through the game quicker than usual, looking at Minecraft I see roughly 250 million reasons that may not be true.

If Nintendo wants to be Nintendorks and clamp down on the way people are having fun in its game, so be it; we’re not entitled to a say on how developers want their games to be played. But no matter how you spin it, enjoyment is subjective – and removing things that make games enjoyable is antithetical to what games are all about. Let's just not pretend duplicating a few items to mess around with, rather than getting bogged down for hours grinding, is really any different from clipping through a roof to save you a walk.

Luke is Senior Editor and part of the IGN reviews team. GTA: San Andreas had the greatest cheat codes ever. You can tell him that's right on Twitter @MrLukeReilly.