Zelda Tears Of The Kingdom

Tears of the Kingdom is one map three times over: the sky islands, the surface of Hyrule and the Depths beneath it, stacked so exactly that all 120 Lightroots below sit directly under the 120 surface shrines above, each root carrying its shrine's name spelled backwards. The useful consequence is that every layer pays in a different currency, and almost nothing you earn on one is spent there. The sky pays in Sage's Wills and old maps. The surface pays in Lights of Blessing, Korok Seeds and rupees. The Depths pay in Poes, Zonaite and the crystallized charges that grow your battery. This hub is organised as that ledger, and every guide on our Tears of the Kingdom wiki is linked from the layer it belongs to.

The sky: where the permanent upgrades are kept

The islands hold the things you can only earn once. All 20 Sage's Wills are up here, four per upgrade and five sages to spend them on, which our items guide sorts alongside every other collectible by the counter that takes it. The 31 Old Maps are up here too, each pointing at a chest directly below in the dark. The armor guide ranks sets by how many stops they cost to finish, and three of them, Archaic, Glide and Zonaite, are entirely sky work. Of the 152 shrines, 32 are on islands with nothing beneath them, and the shrines and temples guide is built on that split, pairing each surface shrine with the Lightroot under it and listing the sky ones by archipelago. The Great Sky Island shrines are the four you cannot skip, one per ability.

Two of the four temples are up here, Wind and Water, and the King Gleeoks that drop a Sage's Will are mostly sky fights; the bosses guide ranks every boss by how many of it Hyrule holds, from one Ganondorf to 49 Hinoxes. Getting up there at all is the job of the 15 Skyview Towers, which the towers roundup maps and the locations guide sorts by what is broken about each one when you arrive.

The surface: where the daily economy runs

The surface is where the game's renewable money lives. Its 120 shrines each pay a Light of Blessing, and the twelve regional shrine roundups walk them on foot: Akkala, Eldin, Faron, Gerudo, Great Hyrule Forest, Hebra, Hyrule Field, Hyrule Ridge, Lanayru, Necluda and Tabantha Frontier, with the all-shrines map tying them together. More than 900 Korok Seeds are scattered across the surface and the sky for Hestu. Addison holds up 81 Hudson signs for 20 rupees apiece. And the quests guide ranks every quest on our pages by what it pays and whether the pay lasts, from a Sage's Vow at the top to a Purple Rupee at the bottom.

The places that spend it are surface places. The villages and towns roundup covers the settlements with shops and quests, the stables roundup the roadside inns where horses are registered, and the 58 wells the holes worth dropping into for a side quest. The best merchants page picks who to sell to, the nine Gacha Gumball dispensers turn Zonai Charges into devices, and the amiibo unlocks page lists what each figure drops daily. The NPCs guide sorts the people you are looking for by how much they move, from four dragons on fixed circuits to a captain on a roof.

Fighting on the surface has its own set of roundups. The weapons guide orders every weapon by the price of holding it again after it breaks, from the Master Sword's ten minutes to the Hylian Shield's never, and the best swords, best spears, early weapons, early shields and early armor lists pick from it. Best Fuse combinations and best cooking recipes cover the two crafts, combat tips and exploration tips the habits, and the Blood Moon page explains the reset that refills camps and weapons. The mechanics guide sits behind all of this, sorting every system by what it runs on: the arm, the battery, Lights, rupees, a meal, a sage, a horse or the clock.

A few surface pages are curiosities rather than currency. Ancient Hyrulean text on the twelve sky tablets is read for you by Wortsworth in Kakariko. Majora's Mask is a single find rather than a set, and the Grizzlemaw-Bear Fabric is a paraglider skin from a very large bear. The secrets and Easter eggs page collects the rest, including the game's tribute to Satoru Iwata.

The Depths: where the surface's unfinished business is paid

The Depths have no Goddess Statues and no shops; they have Bargainer Statues, which take Poes and sell back legendary weapons at 100 to 160 and the Trousers of Twilight at 400, and they have Zonaite. Zonaite becomes Crystallized Charges, and 100 of those at a Crystal Refinery buy one energy cell, 4,500 for the full 45. Pristine weapons appear on the pillars down here once the decayed version above has broken in your hands, and Autobuild is unlocked here after the first Master Kohga fight. The 120 Lightroots are the Depths' map, and because each sits under a shrine, clearing the surface is also mapping the dark. The Fire Temple is the only temple down here, the Frox, Obsidian Frox and Master Kohga are its native bosses, and the Miner's set and the Tunic of Time are its armor. Every chasm that gets you down is listed in the locations guide as the one kind of place with nothing wrong with it.

Where to start

Finish the four Great Sky Island shrines, then read the shrines guide's first section on Lightroots before you drop into your first chasm, so that every shrine you clear afterwards is also a warp point below. Spend early Lights on stamina rather than hearts, because the Master Sword and every sky glide are priced in stamina. Take the Regional Phenomena in whatever order the quests guide's pay table persuades you, and keep the weapons guide open when something good breaks, because on this map the answer is usually a statue, an octopus or a full moon.