Summary
After years of anticipation and speculation,The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomhas arrived on Nintendo Switch. Everything players remember (and love) aboutThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildhas returned, while a swath of new mechanics, dungeons, and quality-of-life improvements have been added to make the sequel one of the most expansive and engaging open-world games of all time.
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While all of that should excite fans new and old for the latest sequel, something elseThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomhas in common with its predecessor is a relatively low level of difficulty. The focus of the game is heavilygeared toward player experimentation and creativity. While some trying challenges exist across the vast expanse of Hyrule, it’s rare to come up against a truly daunting situation. However, there are ways players can play the game that will increase its challenge if they so choose.
Updated June 24, 2025 by Evan Regan:While the insanity of the 2023 video game release schedule leaves little time for distraction, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomremains in the public discussion purely on its merits as a fantastic video game, arguably one of the best in The Legend of Zelda franchise.
This continuing conversation has allowed the game’s community to dig deep and uncover more interesting and challenging ways for Link to conquer his latest journey through Hyrule. For players looking to test their mettle against the toughest trials the game has to offer, these challenges should keep them occupied.
143-Heart Challenge
One of the more obvious ways to make the game more challenging is for players to limit their maximum health. It’s seemingly a mandatory requirement for players to visit the Temple of Time and upgrade their health before leaving Great Sky Island, the game’s tutorial area.
However, players can just skip that step. Leaving Great Sky Island is possible by returning to the Temple of Time but not interacting with the Goddess Statue. This will leave players stuck with just 3 hearts when they reach the surface and begin the meat of the game, a truly challenging endeavor.
13Blessing Collector
Was the 3-Heart Challenge too easy? Well, how about this: not only are players restricted from upgrading their health with this challenge, but they can’t upgrade their stamina either. Instead, players must complete the game with Link’s starting stats.
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However, there’s a catch. It would be one thing to just ignore the Shrines throughout Hyrule entirely, but that would be too easy. No, with this challenge, players must still complete every Shrine in the game and earn their Lights of Blessing; they just can’t spend them. Leave those rewards to wear a hole in Link’s pocket and make him carry them all the way to the game’s conclusion.
12Logs Only
One of the new features inTears of the Kingdomis the Ultrahand ability, which lets Link pick up and fuze virtually any objects in the world together, allowing players to create almost anything their imaginations can come up with.
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Many players are finding, however, that logs can be fuzed together to do pretty much everything needed to complete the game. There are even a fair number of Shrines that provide logs for players to work with. Players can attempt to approach the game by solving every problem via the use of logs if they feel the game’s challenge doesn’t test them enough on its own.
11Ignore Hestu
Hestu, the giant Korok, returns inTears of the Kingdom, once again offering to take any Korok seeds players uncover around the game’s world in exchange for providing them with upgrades to their inventory storage.
While tracking down Korok seeds is a fun challenge on its own, neglecting to use the seeds as upgrade materials can make for some challenging situations later in the game. Players who limit their inventory will often have to make do with less-than-ideal weapons, shields, and bows for the enemies they face, making every battle a scrappy fight.
10No Rockets
Zonai Rockets are another new addition to the game’s world. These items can be found scattered around Hyrule, but are most reliablylocated in the Akkala Highlandsvia a Zonai Device Dispenser. Zonai Rockets can be fused with the Ultrahand tomost objects that players build,granting them the power of flight and, well, rockets.
These rockets are obviously a very valuable traversal tool, making it a lot faster for Link to travel from point A to point B thanks to their flying ability. To up the game’s challenge, players can avoid Zonai Rockets entirely, choosing instead to traverse the world the old-fashioned way - on Link’s two feet - and facing any enemies they meet along the way instead of flying by far above them.
9No Towers
Another returning feature fromBreath of the Wildis Skyview Towers. These towers, 15 in total, are scattered across Hyrule, one per area of the world. Once players climb them (sometimes after completing a puzzle to do so) and activate them, they will reveal their local area of the map.
While the map isn’t a game-breaking tool by any means, the expansiveness of the world of Hyrule can make it easy to get lost. However, for players who want to experience the true thrill of being a lone explorer in a foreign land, avoiding the Skyview Towers and learning their way around the world through visual landmarks and standard traversal is a very satisfying way to experience the game.
8No Merchants
During their travels, players will inevitably accrue a steady supply of Rupees, the traditional currency in theLegend of Zeldaseries. These Rupees can be taken to merchants and spent on a variety of different items, depending onwhere the merchant is located.
However, nothing these merchants sell is an essential tool for completing the game. Health items, weapons, and objects to fuze, they’re all valuable tools, but they can also be passed up. Players looking to scavenge their way to victory can choose to avoid merchants entirely, and while their Rupees will go unspent, their hunting and gathering skills will more than make up for it.
7No Paraglider
Hyrule is a massive world, and virtually from the game’s opening moments, players will have access to its entire landscape, from Gerudo Town to Goron City. There are very few limits imposed on the player’s exploration, and that level of freedom is what helps makeThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomso special.
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One key tool Link uses to explore all that land is his trusty paraglider, which allows him to float down from great heights with ease. For this challenge, players must ignore the paraglider completely. Stuck on a cliff? Climb down. Up in the sky? Use fusion to build a glider and float down. All options are open to the player except - absolutely no using the paraglider.
6Final Boss First
This was a challenge that many players also undertook inBreath of the Wild, and it makes its return in a big way inTears of the Kingdom.Once players complete Great Sky Island and are granted access to Hyrule proper, they can, if they so choose, make their waydirectly to the final boss.
Once they have the Paraglider, players can make a beeline for Hyrule Castle and jump down into Hyrule Castle Chasm. It’s not quite that easy, the chasm is a maze of winding tunnels packed with the game’s most difficult enemies. Much likeBreath of the Wild, since players won’t yet havecompleted the game’s dungeons, they’ll need to take on the four dungeon bosses in a gauntlet before they even encounter the game’s true final boss. This challenge is not for the faint of heart.
5Low Battery
Energy Cells are a new resource introduced toTears of the Kingdom.They are used to power Zonai devices when they are fitted to structures or used to solve puzzles. Players will start with one Energy Cell but can upgrade that count byexchanging 100 Crystallized Chargesat a Crystal Refinery.
However, players can get by without upgrading their Energy Cells at all. It just makes progression a lot more difficult. Zonai devices (such as the Zonai Rockets mentioned earlier) are by far the most elaborate devices players can fuze to their creations. Limiting the amount of energy they have available will force players to be a lot more precise about how and where they build.
