Quests

Tears of the Kingdom hands out quest rewards in a handful of currencies, and they are not worth the same. A Sage's Vow follows you into every fight for the rest of the game. A Great Fairy fountain, once unlocked, keeps taking your rupees and upgrading your armor forever. A Silver Rupee is spent by the next shop. So instead of sorting the 177 quests on our pages into the game's own journal headings of main, side adventure and side quest, this guide sorts them by what they hand you at the end and how long that thing lasts. Each quest name links to its walkthrough.

A Sage's Vow: the pay that fights beside you

The Regional Phenomena quest sends you to four corners of Hyrule, and each corner ends the same way: a temple, a boss, a Heart Container and a sage who stays with you. Our walkthroughs for Tulin of Rito Village, then Yunobo of Goron City, then Sidon of the Zora and finally Riju of Gerudo Town each run from the first conversation to the boss drop. The Zora chain is the long one: Sidon's quest branches into The Broken Slate, Restoring the Zora Armor, Clues to the Sky and Land of the Sky Fish, with the Sludge-Covered Statue as its opening errand. Riju's has the Tauro and the Electric Garb puzzle tucked inside it.

The fifth sage is found through Crisis at Hyrule Castle, the umbrella quest that opens with Captain Hoz on the gatehouse roof and closes back at the castle, and Secret of the Ring Ruins, which takes you through the Thunderhead Isles to Mineru. The quests that pay in abilities rather than sages sit at the very start: Find Princess Zelda and The Closed Door exist to hand you Ultrahand, Fuse, Ascend and Recall on the Great Sky Island, and Camera Work in the Depths pays with the camera. Impa and the Geoglyphs pays in memories, twelve Dragon's Tears, and it is also the slow road to the Master Sword. Hateno Village Research Lab pays nothing itself but is the door to every Purah Pad upgrade below.

A Purah Pad upgrade: four quests that change the map

A Mystery in the Depths is the richest single reward in the bucket: follow the statues, beat Master Kohga, and leave with the Autobuild ability and two Schema Stones. Robbie's three presentations all need it done first. Presenting: Sensor+ lets the pad track any compendium entry, not just shrines; Presenting: The Travel Medallion gives you a warp point you place yourself; Presenting: Hero's Path Mode draws 256 hours of your own footsteps on the map, and Robbie asks for 15 completed shrines before he hands it over. None of these wears off, which is why they rank above every rupee reward in the game.

A door that stays open

Sixteen quests pay by leaving something in Hyrule switched on. The four Stable Trotters quests are the clearest case: Serenade to a Great Fairy wakes Terra, then Serenade to Cotera, Serenade to Kaysa and Serenade to Mija open the other three fountains, and every fountain is an armor upgrade counter you can return to for the rest of the game. The Flute Player's Plan is the detour Kaysa's serenade needs, and pays a Big Hearty Truffle on the side.

Armor: nineteen quests that pay in something you can upgrade

Armor is the best of the object rewards because a Great Fairy can keep improving it. The four Divine Helms are the prize pieces, one per region and each hidden behind a treasure riddle: Secret Treasure Under the Great Fish for the Vah Ruta Divine Helm, The Hidden Treasure at Lizard Lakes for Vah Rudania's, Treasure of the Gerudo Desert for Vah Naboris's and Treasure of the Secret Springs for Vah Medoh's.

Weapons: twelve quests whose pay will eventually break

A weapon reward is real money at the time and scrap a few fights later, so every entry here should be read alongside the weapons guide, which ranks weapons by what it costs to get them back. Three of these quests are the only way to forge the legendary champion weapons: Soul of the Gorons for Fugo's Boulder Breaker at 38 attack, Pride of the Gerudo for Isha's Daybreaker Shield at 48 defense, and Glory of the Zora for Dento's Lightscale Trident. The Missing Owner comes first in Gerudo Town and pays the Diamond that Isha's recipe then asks for.

Fabrics, horse gear and Pony Points

Six quests pay in paraglider fabric, and none of them is free to use: Kochi's Dye Shop in Hateno Village charges 20 or 30 rupees to fit each one. Home on Arrange pays the Hudson Construction Fabric, Photographing a Chuchu the Chuchu Fabric, Rattled Ralera the Lurelin Village Fabric, The Blue Stone the Zora Fabric, The Secret Room the Korok Fabric, and Bring Peace to Hebra adds the Monster-Control Crew cloth to its Silver Rupee.

Pony Points are stable credit, and the stable picture quests are the cheapest way to earn them: Foothill, New Serenne, Tabantha Bridge, Woodland and Highland each pay one point and a dish for one photograph, and the Highland one lets you keep the horse you photographed. Piaffe, Packed Away pays one point, An Uninvited Guest two, and The Gathering Pirates two plus an Endura Carrot. Zelda's Golden Horse pays the Royal Bridle and Saddle, A Monstrous Collection the Monster Bridle and Saddle along with a Diamond and your own display stage in Tarrey Town, Spotting Spot three rewards from Lester, and The Horse Guard's Request starts at 50 rupees for taming a Stalhorse and keeps paying for each horse Toffa asks to see. Master the Vehicle Prototype ends with a Sleepover Ticket for a free stable bed on top of its Silver Rupee.

Charges, materials and meals: pay you use up

Thirty-four quests pay in something that leaves your inventory the first time you use it. The Zonai Charge quests are the ones worth doing early, because a Large Zonai Charge powers a whole vehicle trip or fuses into a big-damage arrow: Meat for Meat and The Abandoned Laborer each pay one, and The Ancient City Gorondia chain pays a regular and a large one.

Rupees: the 50, 100, 300 ladder

Forty-three quests pay in rupees, and the amounts fall into a strict ladder. Purple is 50, Silver is 100, Gold is 300, and only one quest on our pages breaks it: Cash In on Ripened Flint pays 1,000 if Gomo turns up a Ripened Flint among the flint you hand him. The rupee farming guide puts quest income in context against selling gems and dishes.

Penn is his own pay scale. The Lucky Clover Gazette's twelve stable stories under Potential Princess Sightings pay a Purple Rupee for each of the first six filed and a Silver for each of the last six, so the same job is worth 50 or 100 depending on when you do it, and our individual pages record the range as 50 to 100 or 70 to 100. The twelve are An Eerie Voice, The Blocked Well, The All-Clucking Cucco, For Our Princess!, Gourmets Gone Missing, Missing Farming Tools, Princess Zelda Kidnapped!, The Beast and the Princess, White Goats Gone Missing, Serenade to a Great Fairy, Zelda's Golden Horse and The Beckoning Woman. Nine of them filed earns the Froggy Trunks from Traysi, which is the only piece of armor in the game paid out by a newspaper.

Quests that pay a shrine

Six pages here are shrine quests, where the reward is a shrine door opening and the Light of Blessing behind it: Dyeing to Find It for Kurakat, None Shall Pass for Sakunbomar, Rock for Sale for Jochi-ihiga, Keys Born of Water, The High Spring and the Light Rings and Maca's Special Place. True Treasure pays a pair of Opals and access to Yomizuk Shrine, and Legend of the Great Sky Island ends at the Steward Construct once three bonfires burn. The eighteen green-crystal shrine quests live in our items section, and the shrines guide shows which shrine each one opens.

Quests that pay nothing, and pages that are not quests

One-Hit Wonder is a tutorial on breaking ore deposits and Parcy pays nothing but the ore you mine. The Treasure Hunters let you keep the three Bomb Flowers you fetched and nothing else. The Blocked Cave pays Mazli's gratitude and the cave itself, Legacy of the Rito opens only after Tulin's quest, Messages from an Ancient Era has you read Wortsworth's tablets across the sky, and The Mother Goddess Statue sends you to the three springs before the statue will speak.

Three pages filed under quests are reference pages rather than walkthroughs, and they are linked here so nothing in this section is orphaned: Lynel Locations maps every Lynel on the surface, Deep Fireflies maps the fireflies west of the Floating Coliseum, and Fire-Breath Lizalfos Tails is a farming guide for an upgrade material. The Lynel boss page is the better read for the fights themselves.

Frequently asked questions

Which quest should I do first for the biggest reward?

A Mystery in the Depths. Autobuild changes how you travel for the rest of the game, the two Schema Stones come with it, and it unlocks Robbie's three Purah Pad presentations. After that, the Serenade chain: each Great Fairy you wake is a permanent upgrade counter.

Do quest weapons come back when they break?

Some do. The Dusk Claymore and other legendary rewards return through the Bargainer Statues for Poes, the Boulder Breaker can be reforged, and a Rock Octorok will repair the Daybreaker. The weapons guide ranks every weapon on our pages by exactly this question.

How much do Penn's stable quests pay?

50 rupees each for the first six you complete and 100 for the last six, whichever six they are, so a Purple Rupee for a story filed early would have been a Silver Rupee filed late. Nine filed stories also earn the Froggy Trunks.