Game devs praise viral Zelda Tears of the Kingdom puzzle: "No physics engine I ever worked with could do this easily"

Developers and players have been praising a puzzle in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom that's so impressive it's on par with the ropes physics in The Last of Us Part 2.

Warning, the below contains the solution to the Marakuguc Shrine, so if you'd rather figure it out for yourself, look away now.

Venture into the Marakuguc Shrine in Tears of the Kingdom, and you'll be tasked with navigating your way across a fiery pit. Luckily for Link, the means for doing so are right by his feet. The solution is simple enough and involves sticking a nearby set of panels to a wheeled object and hitting the wheels to send it spinning across the fire-filled pool pulling the panels with it, thus creating a nice safe bridge in the process. While the puzzle might not be groundbreaking, the highly realistic way the panels move across the ground and extend into the air is nothing short of incredible. 

Game developer William Armstrong recently posted a clip of the puzzle on Twitter and shared his appreciation for the technical wizardry on display.

"Doing a dynamic rope bridge under constant tension interacting with an independent moving physics actor and the player and having it work and not glitch out is impressive," Armstrong said. "No physics engine I ever worked with could do this easily." 

Also showing the puzzle some love was Twitter user @TheAndyCortez who wrote, "This is the 2023 version of the Last of Us Part 2 rope physics."

Still, a fair few players completed the shrine without witnessing this spectacular bit of programming by crossing the boiling pool in other ways. In the comments, one fan admits to being "confused" as to how to use the bridge and got creative with another of Link's abilities instead. "I ended up using Ultrahand to move the car over to the other side and bringing it back and then using Recall on the car," they said. Another player responded with, "Omg. I just put the two lots of wheels in the lava and jumped."

While it's a shame that they missed out on how impressive doing it the 'right' way looks, the freedom to find your own solutions to puzzles, however unconventional they may be, is what makes Tears of the Kingdom so glorious. 

Tears of the Kingdom is the fastest-selling Zelda game in history, selling a whopping 10 million copies in just three days. The game got its first big patch last week, which fixes a bug preventing some players from progressing in a main quest. Meanwhile, the duplication glitch that's been causing chaos for the game's economy is still alive and well. 

In need of a trusty steed for getting around Hyrule? Check out our Zelda Tears of the Kingdom best horses guide.