Tips and tricks for beginners for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Whether you’re a longtime Breath of the Wild veteran or you’re stepping into The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom as your first Zelda game, you’ll see a lot of new things in Nintendo’s latest sandbox extravaganza. Hopefully this list of some beginner tips and tricks can help you out a bit without spoiling the experience.

Tip #1: Use the new abilities to your advantage

This one seems super obvious, but it’s worth reminding everyone that you have some great skills this time around, and they can be used to great effect in combat and the open world. Ultrahand will probably be your go-to skill, because it’s how you make those supercars and amazing flying devices you’ve seen in the trailers, but the other skills you get shouldn’t be ignored either and have some great applications right away. Especially in the early game, when you’re going to be a lot weaker, they can really come in handy.

With Fuse, you can combine a weapon and pretty much any object you can grab with Ultrahand, meaning you can turn even a tree branch into a viable weapon by adding a rock to it. With Fuse, you can also make something that can break rocks to get valuable materials, or even a makeshift fan to knock back enemies and push ragged boats forward that you could assemble with Ultrahand. As a side note, don’t worry if you don’t make transformers with Zonai devices and Ultrahand right away, because many of the more important and cooler devices will be found later or through exploration, which is when you can get really creative.

Recall can knock things thrown at you back to their sender, and the usefulness of Ascend is really in its name. Now you don’t need mountains of stamina to climb a mountain, because you can shoot through it or recall a rock dropped from the air archipelagoes before you jump off and glide to your destination.

Tip No.2: Retrieve the glider as soon as possible

This brings us to tip #2. Unlike in the first game, Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t pass you the glider once you’re out of the tutorial area, and you have to complete a little bit of your first main mission before getting your hands on it. When you descend to Hyrule, it may feel like the open world is immediately calling your name, but I have to recommend that you grab the glider first, otherwise you won’t be able to register towers and you’re doomed to a death by falling if you slide from a great height.

Tip #3: Don’t bite off more than you can chew early

Speaking of the open world, if you do go exploring, try not to bite off more than you can chew right away. There are a lot of tough enemies pretty close to where you start, and rather than charging at them and the main mission head-on, it might be best to get a few hearts under your belt first. It doesn’t hurt to take your time with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It’s a game that wants you to drink it in instead of trying to bang your head against a wall as many times as it takes to take it down.

Tip No.4: Get to the battle training shrines as soon as possible

This one is more for the newcomers, but if you need a refresher course on some of the combat mechanics, like in Breath of the Wild, you can go to the combat training shrines. If you’re looking for basic training, head to the Kyonosis shrine near Hyrule Castle. For thrown weapons, you’ll want to go to Teniten Shrine, which can be found east of lake Kolomo. Archery training is in the air, as Taunhiy Shrine, located above Ludfos Bog. For sneak strikes, head north of the South Akkala Stable to Sinatanika Shrine. Even if you are at home in all this, you might as well go to these shrines for easy blessings.

Tip No.5: Take a horse and take it to some towers

Although there are a lot of traversal options in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, you still need a reliable steed by your side to get around. When you might not be able to take to the air or if you don’t have enough stamina to glide over long distances, a horse has your back. If you have a horse, you can also get to distant towers early on, which means you can get a better layout of the land and see what’s around you. Finally, in my last bit of horse advertising, getting a mount leads you to the stables, where you can find some additional interesting quests and meet some familiar faces.

Tip No. 6: Experiment with arrows

In the last tip of this introductory list of things to do early in the game, I have to recommend that you save as many materials as you can, mainly to test what they can do when attached to your arrows. Archery plays a big role in Tears of the Kingdom, and much of that has to do with what kind of arrows you use. Of course, there are the usual fire and bomb arrows that you can get by attaching certain flowers and fruits, but there are a lot of other effects to try out. While lining up Bokogoblins to test your latest experimental arrow, you may also want to turn off motion controls to aim. If, like me, you spend a lot of time playing in handheld mode, it can be annoying when you miss a shot because you moved your arms at the wrong time.

Apart from the above tips, obviously explore as much as you can, collect spicy and chilled food to survive in the harsher climates of Hyrule, and remember that your weapons will break. If you’ve mastered all that, I see no reason why your early hours shouldn’t be a blast in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.