Puzzles are an essential part of the Legend of Zelda franchise, alongside story, exploration, and combat. Both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom made them even better, thanks to their open-ended design philosophy that lets each player choose how to carefully solve each and every puzzle, especially since there are a lot of options available.

Related

Tears Of The Kingdom: Every Legendary Weapon, Ranked

Legendary weapons in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are worth tracking down, and here is how they compare to one another.

However, the game developers at Nintendo are always one step ahead of the players, which resulted in Tears of the Kingdom being filled to the brim with thought-provoking and challenging puzzles to solve. Whether they are inside a dungeon, part of a shrine, or anything else, there are several puzzles in the game that leave players scratching their heads.

8 A Confusing Rail System

Fire Temple

One of the most well-received aspects of Tears of the Kingdom was the comeback of conventional dungeons with different architecture and theming, in contrast to the similar-looking Divine Beasts from Breath of the Wild. One of the new dungeons is the Lost Gorondia Rediscovered, better known as the Fire Temple.

Here, Link will have to unlock the main door in order to access the boss, which is easier said than done. To find every gong, the player will have to traverse through a complex system of rails with the help of Yunobo. While this may seem quite fun at first, it turns into a frustrating experience with many alternate routes. It’s not easy to tell where to go next, and the map has a confusing layout, so there’s inevitably going to be a lot of backtracking, alongside some trial & error.

7 Force Transfer

Riogok Shrine

The Ultrahand is the most important mechanic in Tears of the Kingdom, and there are several shrines at the beginning of the game that show off how this ability can be used efficiently. But there are also some complex challenges at this early point in the game, and the one found within the Riogok Shrine is one of them.

This is a shrine that forces players to stop what they’re doing and think of how to solve its puzzle, as Link will have to use the Ultrahand to put together various poles and gears in order to transfer the forces within one another. It can be frustrating at first, but it ends up being quite satisfying to solve once everything falls into place. The best part is that this shrine is a solid training exercise for other similar puzzles that can be found later on.

6 An Upright Device

Makasura Shrine

But the Ultrahand wouldn’t be such an impressive mechanic if it wasn’t for the various Zonai Devices that can be used with it: rockets, wheels, cannons, and much more. There are a lot of interesting tools to play with. But the Stabilizer is one of the strangest and rarest devices in this game, so it’s likely that most players have never used one by the point they reach the Makasura Shrine.

Related

10 Most Beautiful Locations In Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom

For the best sights, players should take their time and visit these gorgeous locales in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Because of this factor, this shrine’s puzzle may be difficult to comprehend at first, since Link will have to use the Stabilizer in order to get different platforms to stand up and sometimes to throw balls across gaps. Even if players quickly get the hang of it, it may still take a few tries to solve every single part since the physics of the Stabilizer are quite tricky.

5 Courage to Fall

Orochium Shrine

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a clever video game that likes to keep the players guessing and find new ways to surprise them with its mechanics. And this is something that can be perfectly seen within the Orochium Shrine, a complex maze that is filled to the brim with constructs and lasers.

If Link touches any of the lasers, the floor will instantly open, and he will fall, which means that a large part of this shrine consists of carefully dodging vertical and horizontal lasers. But this may be quite tricky to pull off, as it requires a lot of precision. However, there’s one moment where the player deliberately has to touch one of the lasers in order to access an area that is below. This puzzle pretty much turns in its head everything the player knew up to that point, which is very clever.

4 Fire and Water

Tadarok Shrine

This is a unique shrine, because it is all about managing a huge block of ice and slowly melting it, depending on what is needed. And this may not be quite easy for most players, seeing as ice blocks are not the most common tool to use in Tears of the Kingdom. This is a huge game with a lot of different mechanics, after all.

Inside the Tadarok Shrine, Link will have to use the Ultrahand to cover some flames in order to stop an ice block from melting too much, and then use this block so he can access higher platforms or even throw it into lava in order to create some platforms to jump on. All of this culminates at the end when the player will have to build a giant platform with a block of ice, a wooden box, and a metal box in order to use Ascend to go through all of them.

3 Right Arm Depot

Construct Factory

The Construct Factory/Spirit Temple is accessed very late in the game, so it’s only natural that it features some of the most difficult puzzles in Tears of the Kingdom. To make things even more interesting, the gimmick of this dungeon is to find all the parts of Mineru’s Construct and bring them all to the center so it can be rebuilt and activated once again.

Related

Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom – 8 Characters That Deserved More Screen Time

There are a lot of interesting characters in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. These examples, however, deserved more screen time.

This is a dungeon that will make players think a lot, but the trickiest segment is the Right Arm Depot. This puzzle is made up of several small wheels working like a treadmill and a big diagonal cube with electricity in it. So it’s up to the player to think about how to use both of these elements in order to take the construct’s right arm and bring it back to where it belongs.

2 Built for Rails

Jiukoum Shrine

Inside the Jiukoum Shrine, rails are an obstacle once again. Link will have to move different platforms with the Ultrahand and position them in specific ways in order to traverse through the rail lines that make up most of this shrine. This is similar to the puzzle inside the Fire Temple, only that brief and more difficult.

The ways in which the platforms have to be built and placed require extreme precision, not to mention that some will need to be attached to other platforms or fans in order to work better. But the hardest part in this shrine is at the very end, where there’s a huge section of the rails that requires the player to build a cumbersome platform that may not work properly if it’s not positioned correctly.

1 A Fixed Device

Mayachin Shrine

This is the most infamous puzzle in all of Tears of the Kingdom because of how complex it is. The Mayachin Shrine makes good use of the Stakes, an odd Zonai Device that most players may not have used at any point before.

The objective is to attach the Stakes to a rotating device that, when activated with a switch, will hit a ball that can activate a door, similar to a baseball bat or a pinball flipper. But this is easier said than done because both the timing of the switch and the length of the flipper can be difficult to get right, and it will require several tries. The worst part is that this shrine can also be solved by shooting a bomb arrow at the target, completely undermining this complex puzzle in the process.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Platform(s)

Switch

Released

May 12, 2023

Developer(s)

Nintendo

Genre(s)

Adventure