Quests

Breath of the Wild counts 76 side quests on top of its main story, and it is remarkably bad at telling you which ones are worth your evening. The journal presents a cucco round-up and the liberation of a Divine Beast in the same typeface. So rather than sort them by where they start or who gives them, we have sorted them by what is still there the next morning.

That turns out to separate them cleanly. At the top are quests that leave a permanent fixture on your map, which is the best return in the game because it compounds. At the bottom are quests that pay once and are over. Both kinds are worth doing. Only one kind is worth doing early.

What each kind of quest leaves behind

Shrine quests are the best paid work in Hyrule

A shrine quest is a puzzle that happens outdoors, and its reward is that a shrine rises out of the ground where there was not one before. That is worth more than whatever is in the chest inside, because a shrine entrance is a permanent warp point, so every one you uncover shortens every journey you will ever make afterwards. Our shrines guide treats these from the other direction, as shrines that begin a long way from their own front door.

• Trial of Thunder puts four coloured orbs into four matching altars on Thundra Plateau and raises Toh Yahsa Shrine, which also happens to hold a piece of the Rubber armor set.
• Two Rings is one of Kass's accordion riddles out on West Hyrule Plains: line up two rock rings and put an arrow through both to reveal Sheem Dagoze.
• Spring of Courage is a navigation problem rather than a puzzle, and Shae Katha is the reward for getting there.
• A Fragmented Monument has you photographing pieces of a monument for Garini until Kah Yah appears, which is the game at its most archaeological.
• Secret of the Snowy Peaks is our favourite of them, because the solution is a shadow: you cast a snowball's shadow onto a pedestal at the right hour of the day.

Two quests leave a building open behind them

Robbie built the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab out of an old lighthouse in the far northeast, and it is shut until you carry a blue flame across a region famous for rain and for the things that live in it. Get the furnace lit and Cherry, Robbie's robotic assistant, will build ancient weapons for you out of Guardian parts from then on. That is a permanent supply line for the best gear against anything Ganon has corrupted, which is why we would light that furnace long before we needed it.

The Lost Woods is the other one. Getting through the fog by torchlight is a one-off exercise, and what it opens is the Korok Forest, which is where Hestu ends up living, where Walton sets his riddles, and where the Master Sword is waiting for anyone with thirteen hearts. Our weapons guide covers what that sword costs.

The regional walkthroughs, which are the actual story

Four regions, four Divine Beasts, four Champion powers, and each one you finish takes roughly an eighth of Calamity Ganon's health off before you ever meet him. These are the quests we would do first for reasons that have nothing to do with the plot.

It starts on the Great Plateau, where four shrines and four Spirit Orbs buy you the Paraglider and the right to leave. Dueling Peaks is the corridor out, taking you through to Kakariko and Hateno to get the slate repaired. After that the game opens: Zora's Domain wants shock arrows off Ploymus Mountain and hands over the Zora armor, Rito Village is an aerial archery test with Teba before you knock the cannons off Vah Medoh, and Gerudo Town is the most packed of the four, with a whole town's worth of business before the Divine Beast even starts.

Hyrule Castle ends it, and it is worth walking rather than sprinting: the library, the passages and the guard chambers are stuffed with royal gear, and the Hylian Shield is down in the prison basement. The Champions' Ballad is the DLC epilogue to all of it, with its own EX shrines and Divine Beast trials.

Quests that pay in clothes

Armor is permanent, so a quest that ends in a set is a quest whose reward is still working a hundred hours later. The catch is that most of these sets answer one specific problem, so the value is real but narrow.

The Gerudo Secret Club is the gateway to two of them, and our armor guide has the full bill. Dark Link comes out of A Shady Customer and then a very long stretch of monster hunting, since Kilton wants paying in Mon. The Eighth Heroine is unusually generous, since photographing a statue for Bozai out in the Gerudo Highlands earns both the Snow Boots and the Sand Boots, and the desert needs both. Lynel Safari asks the most of you, because the Red-maned Lynel is a genuine fight and the greaves are the fee for winning it.

The three DLC treasure hunts sit here too, and they are all the same shape: find a journal, read a rumour, dig. EX Treasure: Phantasma is the one worth doing for the stats, EX Treasure: Fairy Clothes scatters three pieces across Hyrule Field, and EX Treasure: Twilight Relic starts at the Outpost Ruins and ends with Midna's helmet on your head.

The memories pay nothing until the very last minute

Captured Memories is the largest quest in the game that gives you no mechanical advantage whatsoever, and we mean that as a recommendation rather than a warning. Twelve photographed locations, then Impa points you at the final memory, and what you get is the Champion's Tunic and a different last scene. If you intend to see the true ending, this is the quest that decides it, and it has to be finished before you go up the castle stairs.

Paid once, in cash

The bottom of the ladder is where the game keeps its jokes and its scenery, and it is the part we would leave for a quiet evening. Leviathan Bones sends you to photograph three enormous skeletons out in Eldin, Gerudo and Hebra for 300 rupees, which works out as a sightseeing tour with expenses. Zora Stone Monuments asks for ten inscriptions read for Jihato and pays a Diamond, and it is genuinely the best writing in the game if you actually read them. Riddles of Hyrule also pays a Diamond, for five riddles set by Walton, who sits up in the branches of the Great Deku Tree.

Flown the Coop is the purest example of the category: Cado has lost ten cuccos around Kakariko Village, has already found three himself, and would like you to chase the other seven. Nothing about your save is different afterwards. Two more belong in this tier for a different reason, because what they leave behind is knowledge rather than an item: our dragon locations guide tells you where and when Naydra, Farosh and Dinraal appear so you can farm their parts on a schedule, and Lord of the Mountain is about being in the right place on Satori Mountain with enough stealth to approach Satori itself.

If you only have one evening

Our best side quests roundup makes the case for which of the 76 repay the time soonest. Beyond that, the shrine quests scattered through this section are the ones we would always take first, for the simple reason that each one hands you a Spirit Orb and a warp point at the same time. The wiki hub has the wider running order, and our list of the best things to do is for anyone who has finished the story and wants Hyrule to keep going.