The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD trailer highlights quality of life improvements

Nintendo has released a new “quality of life” trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD to show off all of the improvements we can expect from the upcoming Switch remaster.

Half of the trailer focuses on an “improvement” (depending on your point of view) that we already knew about: the addition of button-only controls. If you don’t want to swing your Joy-Con around like it’s a sword, you won’t have to in Skyward Sword HD. For players who dislike motion controls or can’t use them, the trailer shows off how specific actions like sword directionality and firing a bow and arrow will work with buttons-only controls.

But that’s not the only improvements that Nintendo has made to Skyward Sword. For one, the HD version will have an enhanced frame rate for smoother gameplay. The trailer didn’t specify what the target frame rate is, but it looked like it could be 60 FPS.

Nintendo has also streamlined item information, so you will no longer have to read an item’s description and see it in your inventory every time you pick it up. Find the item once, read the description, and you’re good to go, even after you save, quit, and come back. Likewise, cutscenes are also skippable, so if you played the game already and just want to get into the action, you can do that.

Last but certainly not least, Fi’s help is now “optional,” so if you don’t want your talking sword to interject, you can just ignore her.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is launching for Nintendo Switch on July 16th.