Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s duplication glitch is ruining Hyrule’s economy

A glitch that lets you duplicate items in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has people earning a whole lot of rupees, which can’t be good for the economy.

We’ve all had this thought at one point or another when it comes to fixing the economy: “why can’t they just print more money?” I’m not going to pretend I know exactly why it doesn’t work, but essentially, print more money, inflation happens, money becomes worth less and less. So the recent duplication glitch found by Tears of the Kingdom players can only spell the end of Hyrule’s economy as we know it. Essentially, the glitch lets you duplicate any material or weapon, and with certain items being worth a pretty penny, it becomes very easy to quickly rack up the rupees.

YouTuber Linkus7 provided a more in depth explanation as to how you can pull off the glitch (thanks GamesRadar), which isn’t too complicated overall, though does require some speedy button presses. First of all, you can pull off the glitch literally anywhere in the game, you just need two bows, and whatever material you want to duplicate. The next step is get your bow ready, and Fuse the material to your arrow. After that, pause and go into your bow menu, and choose to drop the bow you have equipped – but don’t unpause yet. You next need to select your other bow, and after this comes the trickiest part.

Once you’ve equipped the second bow, you need to pause and unpause as quickly as you can. Then, just drop the second bow you have equipped, and you should have duplicated the item that you originally tried to Fuse. It’s a bit of a tight window to get the timing right on the pausing and unpausing, I haven’t managed to pull it off myself, but I’d rather be known as the saviour of Hyrule rather than the economy ruiner. Maybe it’d just be better to try a few different cool things you can Fuse instead.