In Episode 06 of my Ultra Modular Inventory and Interaction System for Unreal Engine 5.4, I move past consumables and start tackling handheld equipment. The goal is simple on paper: if you activate a hotbar slot that contains a handheld item, it equips—and if you press the same slot again, it should unequip. In practice, it gets surprisingly complicated once you account for real game rules and edge cases, so I walk through the diagram and thought process I’m using (heavily inspired by Valheim’s seamless “equip from hotbar” approach). I break handhelds into a separate category from armor-style equipment, then design a slot/blocking model that can handle one-handed, offhand shields, two-handed weapons, and special cases like torches. The key idea is: every handheld declares what slot it goes into and what other slots it blocks, and the equip algorithm resolves conflicts by unequipping what’s currently occupying blocked/required slots. I also introduce the idea of an equipment registry that can be accessed anywhere, so later systems (damage, traces, AI) don’t have to depend on a player-only “handheld manager” component. From there, I start building the foundation: gameplay tags, base blueprint classes (swords, greatswords, bows, shields, accessories), a handheld data asset, an enum for handheld slots, and item data wiring so handheld items can stay modular without bloating every item with irrelevant variables.