The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, like its older sibling Breath of the Wild, is a massive game. It was not really a surprise when gamers started speedrunning this behemoth, but a new, more surprising method of saving the land of Hyrule has been uncovered: completing Tears of the Kingdom without touching the surface, sticking to either the sky islands or depths.
Reddit user Black_Hand_Gotthard posted a set of screenshots showcasing their victory on September 21, including the ending cutscene, their sky map, and proof of all four dungeons completed. If you venture into the comments, you can learn specifically how they pulled off this task.
“I traveled from sky island to sky island,” Black_Hand-Gotthard explains. “Finished all the shrines. Got the Master Sword. Flew from the sky into the depths and finished of Ganondorf [sic]. Mitigated the fall damage by using fairys [sic].”
At first, my thought was ‘no, this surely isn’t possible’. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized… not only is it possible, but with enough determination and grit, it’s quite doable. You also probably need to be adept at dodging, given that Ganondorf packs a massive punch if you’re not careful.
Also, it seems Black_Hand_Gotthard had to fight each of the game’s dungeon bosses after jumping down to the depths of Hyrule Castle, rather than completing the dungeons themselves.
“I didn’t finish any of the dungeons. I just flew straight to the chasm under Hyrule castle after finishing the sky,” they said in the comments on Reddit.
The legend of goofy challenge runs
As crazy — and as masochistic — as this accomplishment seems, the community around modern Zelda games has been filled to the brim with runs just like it. In fact, it’s entirely possible to see the end credits of Breath of the Wild shortly after making it off the Great Plateau, which admittedly defeats the purpose of having a rich and emotionally devastating storyline. But, players have taken that idea and run with it. We’ve already seen several challenges based on defeating Ganon with limited resources, with some more successful than others.
So, we can probably expect another half-decade of players defying the rules and finding new, unique ways to the game. After all, only a little over four months have passed since Tears of the Kingdom launched. We’ve likely only scratched the unwalked-surface of how the most dedicated players will beat this game.
