Tears of the Kingdom is a MASSIVE game, and while the opening few hours are fairly directed, once you get down there onto Hyrule after the Great Sky Island, it can be a little overwhelming. Today I’m going to run through my beginners guide, plus 15 things to do first to help you and Link on your adventures saving Hyrule in the Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom.

When you first wake up you’ll be on The Great Sky Island, there are 4 shrines there to complete, and you’ll want to trade in the 4 Lights of Blessing to the Goddess Statue and get that extra heart container to open the big door. Once you have done that, that’s pretty much the hand holding over, and it’s just you and Link together to save Hyrule.

Without further delay let’s dive into the tips.

Get the Paraglider

The Paraglider was an essential part of Breath of the Wild and it’s the same again in Tears of the Kingdom, however, it’s not immediately obvious where to get it. Once you have jumped off the Temple of Time and splashed down onto the Hryule ground, then you’ll want to follow the yellow marker to Lookout Landing. Speak to Purah to complete the quest ‘To The Kingdom Of Hyrule’, and you’ll want to start the quest ‘Crisis at Hyrule Castle’.

Purah then sends you out to meet Captain Hoz, who is on the outskirts of the castle. Once you have met with Hoz and witness some strange goings on, then make your way back to Purah and report what you saw. Purah then explains about the Skyview Towers and gives you the Paraglider.

Get the Archaic Warm Greaves

The Archaic Warm Greaves are a great way to stay warm in the cold, and you’re going to need these on your adventures. You can cook up spicy food to stay warm, but that comes with a time limit, and it’s much easier to wear the Archaic Warm Greaves. After you beat the Gutanbac Shrine on the Great Sky Island and get teh Ascend ability, make your way to the rigth outside the shrine and then Ascend up and you’ll find the Archaic Warm Greaves in the chest in the hollowed out tree.

Unlock Camera and Hyrule Compendium

The Camera is a very useful unlock, plus it’ll start you on your journey for other Pura Pad upgrades. After you’ve got the paraglider, have a chat with Pura and when you have finish find Robbie and Josha, and have a chat with them. This is where you pick up the quest ‘Camera Works in The Depths’. Next up, we want to meet up with Robbie, which means heading South out of Lookout Landing. Leave through the Southern Gate, and make your way towards the marker on the map. You’ll come across the massive hole in the ground, and from here you want to dive in.

Once you have jumped down into the hole, have a chat with Ponnick, who’s standing in the light. He’ll explain Robbie ran off, but left a trail. From here you can use the Brightbloom seeds to help light up the path, you can either throw there or fuse them with arrows to shoot them at a distance. Follow Robbie’s path and you’ll find the Nisoij Lightroot. Keep going forward, lighting your path with Brightbloom seeds and you’ll find the Iayusus Lightroot. Next to that will be Robbie, who stands amazed at your new abilities. Have a chat with Robbie and he’ll teach you how to use the camera by taking a photo of the statue, plus he will open up the Compendium too.

Find Impa and the Glyphs

Finding Impa and the Glyphs are a great way to get the story beats in Tears of the Kingdom, plus you’ll get a great weapon at the end too. To find the first gylph and get The Dragon’s Tears quest, you’ll want to find Impa north west of Lookout Landing. You can find Impa at other locations, however, this is where I found her first, and this is a good place to meet her when you first jump off the Great Sky Island. Talk to Impa and she’ll walk you through how to find the Dragon Tear near a glyph.

You have to search the glyph for a small water pool. It doesn’t appear until you are next to it, so you have to walk on the ground to find it. Part of the Dragon’s Tears quest you’ll go to the Forgotten Temple to search for Impa, and in there you’ll find a room with a map, indicating all the locations for the glyphs across Hyrule. Impa marks the location of the Forgotten Temple on your map, so finding it won’t be a problem. Once you have made your way through head down and foward and you’ll find the map room. Once you have found it, take a photo and save it for later, it will make finding them easier. From this point you can travel around Hyrule, unlock all the Tower and when you are flying through the sky you’ll see the Glyphs.

Find the Skyview Towers

Opening up each of the Skyview towers will reveal the map on main Hyrule and also in the sky too, plus it’s going to make it much easier to get around Hyrule, so I would recommend going around and unlocking all Towers as early as possible. Some of the Towers have little puzzles, but none are too tricky. Having the map opened up, and especially the sky islands is going to be a valuable tool for exploring Tears of the Kingdom.

Get the Hylian Shield

It’s pretty easy to get the iconic Hylian Shield early in the game, plus it’ll help you defend yourself in battles. The Hylian Shield is located under Hyrule Castle, and you can access it through the North West entrance via the docks. Either use a boat or a Zonai vehicle to get there. Once you have made it to the docks either fight past the Gloom Hands and Phantom Ganon, or run past them and you’ll find a large lamp surrounded by smaller ones. Shoot a fire arrow in the middle and this will reveal a chest. Open up the chest to get the Hylian Shield.

Get the Champions Leathers

You can find the Champion’s Leathers (AKA the Champion’s Tunic) at The Sanctum in Hyrule Castle. To get to Hyrule Castle, shoot yourelf out of the Skyview Tower at Lookout Landing and make your way north to Hyrule Castle, and you’ll want to land near the front gates. The Sanctum is very easy to get to, just walk in through the front. You will see a couple of torches in the middle, to the left and right of the statue and you want to light both torches with fire arrows. Once they have been lit a chest will reveal itself, and then go and open the chest to to get The Champion’s Leathers. This chest piece has starting stats of 5, plus you can upgrade this at the Great Fairy Fountains.

Find New Serene Stable and Horse

Getting around the map quickly is key in Tears of the Kingdom, especially if you are short on Zonai Devices or energy cells. There’s a stanble fairly close to Lookout Landing, just north west, near where you meet Impa for the Glyphs quest for the first time. If you had horses from Breath of the Wild and your save data is on the same Nintendo Switch, then you can access your Breath of the Wild Horses in Tears of the Kingdom. No worries if not, you can easily catch new horses and add them to your stable. New Serene Stable is nice and close to the starting area, however there are lots of pther stables dotted around the map, plus this time you’ll get Pony Points and a rewards scheme.

Get the Shrine Sensor

To get the Shrine Sensor you want to unlock the quest Hateno Village Research Lab. To get this quest you’ll need to speak to Robbie and Josha in Lookout Landing and you’ll want to complete a couple of quests first, “Camera work in the depths” and “A Mystery in the depths”. Once you have completed these quests, Robbie will get in his balloon and make his way to Hateno Village. You’ll want to follow him, although you’ll have to go there on horseback or Zonai Machine. When you reach Hateno Village and speak to Robbie in the Lab, he’ll unlock the Shrine Sensor for you on the Pura Pad. You’ll now easily be able to find shrines and therefore level up hearts and stamina with Lights of the Blessing.

Get the Travel Medallion

Another good upgrade for the Pura Pad is the Travel Mediallion. To get the Travel Medallion, Robbie sends you off to Akkala Ancient Tech Lab in Akkala as part of the Hateno Village Research Lab quest. Once you have made it to the lab in the north east, you have to get ready for a fight with the Yiga Clan. After you have beaten the Yiga Clan members, enter the lab and open up the chest and you’ll get the Travel Medallion Prototype. Now you have this, make your way back to the Hateno Research Lab and have a chat with Robbie. You can drop travel points when you need on the map and also delete them too from the map screen.

Find Hestu (Upgrade Inventory)

You start off with a small inventory, meaning you can’t carry many weapons, bows and sheilds. You’ll need to collect korok seeds, and find Hestu, the wandering musician of Korok Forest to increase your inventory space.

You’ll be able to find Hestu just south of Lindor’s Brow Skyview Tower. Trade in a few Korok seeds to upgrade your inventory. You’ll find Korok seeds all over hyrule in mini puzzles. Hestu then moves to Lookout Landing, then after that Korok Forest in the Lost Woods.

Unlock Great Fairies (Upgrade Armor)

When you start out you’ll have basic stats for your armor, but you can enhance armor by unlocking all the Great Fairy Fountains. To get access to the fairy fountains, you’ll need to visit each one with a musical troupe called The Stable Trotters.

There are 4 Great Fairy Fountains in all corners of Hyrule, and they all are located near a stable. When you speak to the first fairy, then they will mark the other 3 on your map, which makes finding them nice and easy. As soon as you unlock the first one, you can start upgrading your armor, but ideally you want to unlock them all to upgrade your armor to their full potential.

First up, you want to start with the Woodlands Stable in Eldin Canyon. This is west of Pico Pond and near Crenel Hills. The first two members of the musical troupe The Stable Trotters are there. Have a chat with them and that will kick off the quest, plus they will give you clues along the way. If you want a more detailed guide, check out the guide called ‘How To Upgrade Armor’ on Triforce Times.

Upgrade Energy Cells

Energy Cells are key to powering Zonai Devices. Early in the game on The Great Sky Island, you’ll get your first Energy Cell. Zonai Devices really open up the gameplay options in Tears of the Kingdom, and you are going to want to upgrade this feature, especially if you want to explore the Sky Islands later on.

Here’s the quick version, and then we’ll go into detail on each point:

• Zonaite is the raw material you’ll need to mine (Find this in the Depths)
• We then convert the Zonaite into crystallized charges with Forge Constructs (Find one on the Great Sky Island)
• We use the Crystallized Charges to upgrade the Energy Cell Capacity at Crystal Refineries

For a more detailed guide check out How to increase Energy Cells on the channel.

Get the Glide Armor

Skydiving is one of the major selling points in Tears of the Kingdom, and it’s pretty seamless jumping from a Sky Island down to Hyrule, or even down into the depths from above. You can open up your paraglider to safely land on the ground, however, the new Glide armor has a hidden bonus which removes fall damage completely.

You can find the Glide Shirt on Courage Island which is a sky island northwest of the Central Hyrule Sky. Use Lingdor’s Brow Skyview Tower to launch Link into the air and then glide to the southwest sky island. You can find the Glide Tights on Bravery Island, which is a sky island in the North Hyrule Sky Archipelago. To get there launch Link from the Thyphlo Ruins Skyview Tower and paraglide south to the circle shaped sky island. You can find the Glide Mask on Valor Island, which is a sky island in the South Lanayru Sky Archipelago. To get there use Mount Lanayru Skyview Tower and you can easily get there with just the paraglider this time, and you are looking for a circular shaped sky island. Upgrade the armor twice and you’ll neevr have to worry about fall damage ever again.

Unlock Autobuild

Autobuild is a hidden ability, and it’s going to revolutionise building in Tears of the Kingdom. After you have completed ‘Camera work in the depths’ quest you’ll want to speak to Robbie and Josha and pick up the quest ‘A Mystery in the Depths’.Once you have the quest, head down into the depths by going down the chasm in Central Hyrule Depths. Once you jump down into the Depths then head for Iayusus Lightroot and from there go south to Nihcayam Lightroot. You are looking for the Great Abandoned Central Mine, which you can get to by following the statues. Each statue is pointing in a direction, and you want to follow the statues until you reach the mine. Once you speak to the researchers you’ll be directed towards a Steward Construct, and they will give you the Autobuild ability. Then run through the tutorial with the Construct, defeat the Yiga Clan Leader, and you are then free to use Autobuild.

Let me know in the comments your beginners tips for Tears of the Kingdom.

That’s it for this beginners guide and 15 things you should do first in Tears of the Kingdom. For more Tears of the Kingdom content like this check out Triforce Times on YouTube and subscribe today.