The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is out tomorrow, but its accompanying Zelda & Loftwing amiibo will be missing for most players. Nintendo confirmed today that the toy, which unlocks fast-travel in the game, is facing a number of shipping delays that will keep it out of most people’s hands until August.
“The Zelda & Loftwing amiibo figure is currently impacted by unforeseen shipping delays,” a spokesperson for Nintendo told IGN. “As a result, only a small portion of the Zelda & Loftwing will be available on its scheduled July 16 launch date. Additional shipments are delayed until August. We will ship additional amiibo to retailers as soon as they arrive.”
The company didn’t say what the cause of the delays was, but it apparently won’t affect supplies of other amiibo figures.
There’s been a ton of controversy around the Zelda & Loftwing amiibo in particular because of the special features it unlocks for players in the Skyward Sword HD remaster. Instead of having to arduously backtrack, as in the Wii version, touching the Zelda & Loftwing amiibo to the Switch teleports players back and forth between the sky and land (Loftwing is a giant blue bird). It even works inside dungeons, letting players return to the Bazaar in Skyloft to replenish supplies whenever they need.
It’s a big quality-of-life improvement, something Skyward Sword HD has a lot of, but for some reason this particular one was locked behind the $25 collectible. Now it seems like many players willing to pay extra to unlock it will have to wait a while anyway. Maybe out of the goodness of their hearts, Nintendo’s developers will just go ahead and add proper fast travel in a future update.
DISCUSSION
Why do you guys keep misreporting this? It was pointed out when this was announced that you can always fast travel with bird statues. The amiibo just makes it instant, which is nice but not game-breaking. And from a review I read yesterday:
There’s no need to over-dramatize this and mislead people. This is Zelda, not Dark Souls. Even on Hero Mode.