Summary
AZelda: Tears of the Kingdomplayer uses text boxes, a steer stick, and clipping to skip most of the Great Sky Island tutorial. The open world ofZelda: Tears of the Kingdomoffers players the freedom of completing objectives and shrines in a different order, and this player has skipped the tutorial itself.
Similar to the Great Plateau of its predecessor,Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s Great Sky Island is a lengthy tutorial zone. Players are introduced to the game’s mechanics, abilities, and many items on the Great Sky Island before being able to exploreTears of the Kingdom’s land of Hyruleor The Depths beneath it. Due to the tutorial nature of the Great Sky Island, most of the challenges on it are easier than the challenges players face on the main map and its many shrines. After much trial and error, one player has discovered a way to skip most of the tutorial zone to go straight to Hyrule and The Depths.
YouTuber Timber recently shared a video detailing the process they followed to escapeZelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s Great Sky Island. The key moment is when the player receives their first Energy Cell. In Timber’s case, they shoot a fan to activate the text box introducing the item. Once done correctly, it takes the player roughly 30 minutes of slow falling to reach the Hyrule landscape below. The video shows that this can be done inTears of the Kingdomversion 1.0 and 1.1.1, but only if a player relies on hard saves rather than autosave. It’s currently unknown if this strategy works for the current version of the game. A player must already have the bow to accomplish this task, requiring that they play some of the tutorial before being able to leave the Great Sky Island.
What’s the Benefit of Skipping the Great Sky Island?
Timber can accesstheTears of the KingdomDepthsfrom the Great Sky Island by repeating the process and waiting longer before closing the text box. Failing to do the process correctly can result in Link being stuck in a void, or a soft lock that shows him repeating a fall animation. Ahead of leaving the Great Sky Island, Timber collected multiple rubies, shields, and some stamina and speed-boosting food. The YouTuber then created a small platform that Link could land on in The Depths, allowing him to go straight to The Demon King’s Army boss battle from the Great Sky Island. After completing this fight, Timber fights Demon King Ganondorf, and Demon Dragon to highlight how quickly the game can be completed using this strategy.
Because Timber showed that players can skip most of the Great Sky Island,Tears of the Kingdomspeedrunsmay be completed faster than before their upload. As things stand, Timber may be among the topTears of the Kingdomlow percent speedrunners.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
WHERE TO PLAY
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the sequel to the beloved open-world adventure, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This installment once again sees Link and Zelda battling to protect Hyrule from falling to Ganondorf. This new adventure takes place in the same land of Hyrule as Breath of the Wild but sees something called the Upheaval, which allows link to travel to Sky Islands, as well as deep into the Depths beneath Hyrule. Players can use special abilities to fuse together weapons, and build items to help them progress through the release.
