The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a game with huge levels of exploration and discovery, letting you do what you want and follow your own path. However, after completing the initial tutorial and starting quests, it can be quite difficult knowing where to start or what to do first. Luckily, we’ve prepared a list of things you may want to consider doing first, from objectives that will benefit you in the long run to fun and creative side quests or activities to help you get used to the game. Without further ado, and in no particular order, here’s our recommendations for 10 things to do first in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Complete the Tutorial / Great Sky Island Quests
The game’s first stage sets Link off in Great Sky Island, with Rauru by his side, teaching him everything he needs to know. This acts as a tutorial and first quest for the player to work out how to navigate the environments around them efficiently, get the hang of any abilities, learn to cook some dishes, and more. Regardless of what you choose to do and how long you spend doing the Great Sky Island intro, you’ll eventually need to complete this first mission alongside Rauru by clearing all the Shrines before descending into Hyrule to kick things off.
Get Used to Ultrahand & Fuse Mechanics
Ultrahand and Fuse can be quite tricky to get used to, and take a bit of practicing to get the rotating, attaching, and separating mechanics down. These Abilities provide quite endless opportunities for Link’s adventuring, such as building bridges, vehicles, structures, making new weapons out of handy materials, and solving puzzles. Because of this, we’d recommend you have a little bit of fun just messing around with these abilities and making a few practice objects / structures / vehicles before trying to commit to anything too drastic.
Have Fun Exploring the World & Admiring the Setting
Tears of the Kingdom has a visually appealing world and a beautiful setting to admire as you explore and adventure through various lands. Because of the extensive exploration mechanics and free-roaming, it makes it relatively easy to get off track and kill an excessive amount of time with sight-seeing. We encourage you to have fun with this! There’s plenty to discover and get creative with along the way, so why not take a little time to roam around and admire the beauty of your surroundings?
Help the Koroks on Great Sky Island
In Tears of the Kingdom, you can find hidden Koroks around the world map to receive Korok Seeds, an item that can be used to expand the size of Link’s inventory. However, a couple of troubled Koroks on Great Sky Island will gift you some Korok Seeds to help them reunite with one another. This requires some simple puzzle-solving with Link’s abilities and is quite an excellent way to get a head start on accumulating Korok Seeds without seeking out those pesky hidden locations!
Start Taking Down Enemies & Grinding For Rupees
Once you get to Hyrule, you will encounter a much wider variety of enemy creatures. Some of these enemies will drop Rupees once killed, which are the in-game currency. Rupees are used to buy anything Link may need and can not find or craft himself, such as extra materials, weapons, and clothing, so starting to grind up and save those Rupees as soon as possible is a good idea that will more than likely help you further down the track.
Find the Archaic Warm Greaves
The Archaic Warm Greaves are a clothing item that grants Link permanent Cold Resistance when being worn. This can come in extremely handy, and saves you the time of constantly having to cook and eat Cold Resistance dishes, such as Spicy Peppers. The Archaic Warm Graves can be found extremely early on at Great Sky Island, so it makes sense to set out and grab these as soon as possible.
Buy Some New Clothing at Mubs’ Shop
Once you get to Hyrule, Purah will inform you that you can now purchase items from Mubs’ shop. This includes a small selection of clothing pieces, which are very decently priced. If you’re looking to improve your armor and give your Link a more appealing outfit, you can purchase an entire clothing set from Mubs’ shop or choose to buy any of these items individually — first, you’ll just need to gather some Rupees.
Increase Link’s Max Health & Stamina By Clearing Shrines
When you clear a Shrine in Tears of the Kingdom, you receive a Light of Blessing. Once you collect four Light of Blessings, you can choose to trade them in at Goddess Statues for an extra heart of health or extra stamina boost for Link. This can really come in handy and make all the difference in combat and navigating the world, so it can be a good idea to set out and clear quite a few Shrines and give your Link a nice buff near the beginning of the game.
Investigate the Regional Phenomena & Dragon Tears
Once you’ve got the tutorial and Great Sky Island quests out of the way, the next step in the story is to follow the lead of Zelda’s disappearance by investigating the Regional Phenomena and Dragon Tears that have begun to show up all over Hyrule. This one is pretty easy to follow as long as you pay attention to your map locations and quest log, and will start off with you reuniting with and helping an individual known as Impa, the Sheikah Elder.
Get Your First Horse to Get Around the Map Faster
You’ll probably notice fairly quickly that Hyrule is an extremely large map, and Link takes a long time to travel large distances on foot. This is especially relevant in the early stages of the game when you have lower health and stamina. To help remedy this and make travelling large distances much quicker, it can be a good idea to get your first horse.
It seems that the quickest way possible to do this in the early game would be to find a horse in the wild, sneak up on it by crouching, and then mount and tame the horse successfully by following the prompts on screen. After the horse is tamed, you can use it to get from one location to another much easier, and eventually even register it at a stable to use as you wish.
That’s it for 10 things to do first in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. What are you going to set out and do first in your playthrough? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below, and don’t forget to check out the rest of our content here at Twinfinite for even more Zelda guides, lists, and news, to keep you updated on everything related to Tears of the Kingdom.
