How To Use Amiibo In Zelda: Breath Of The Wild

March 5, 2017

The Nintendo Switch is here and the most anticipated game of the last five years, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, is here as well. Nintendo have also released a range of new amiibo to tie in with the release of the game, as well as unlocking functionality for older Zelda amiibo to give you an advantage while playing. While Nintendo have revealed the sort of items that you can unlock when using your amiibo, they haven’t really talked about how to actually use them in game, so I’m here to give you a helping hand.

The first thing to take into consideration when picking up your Breath of the Wild amiibo, is that the item shown on the back is not a guaranteed unlock. The flavour text on the Archer Link amiibo isn’t lying when it says you may unlock a rare bow when using the amiibo. So don’t buy any of these amiibo expecting a guaranteed unlock of super-awesome weapons and items that you can use to destroy your opponents.

Upon first booting and playing Breath of the Wild, you actually can’t use your amiibo at all within the game. The reason for this is that the option to turn on their functionality is a part of the game’s main menu, which is skipped on first boot. So, after saving, quitting out of the game and going back to the main menu, you’ll need to select the ‘amiibo’ option. This unlocks the amiibo option on your Sheikah Slate for amiibo use in-game.

 

Once you’re back in the game, hold ‘up’ on the d-pad and scroll all the way to the right in your powers to find a new amiibo logo sitting there. Select it, hit ‘L’ to activate it, position the cursor where you want your new goodies to appear, hold your amiibo to the applicable NFC pad for the controller you’re using and watch as riches fall from the sky. And by riches, we mean a mound of fish, some raw drumsticks and a treasure chest.

 

That treasure chest is what may include that super special item on the back of your amiibos packaging, but it may also just include some special arrows or crafting materials instead. While this element of random chance may seem frustrating, you can reuse your amiibo in 24 hours and the actual weapons that you receive aren’t all they’re cracked up to be anyway. You might be expecting a rare bow that you can use forever, but instead you get a bow you may already have, with an increase in strength but still breaks as you use it. Whether or not that’s worthwhile is all up to you.