A second playthrough of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom feels fresh when you change what counts as progress. Instead of following the same story route, make the sky or Depths your main expedition, limit your abilities, or set a rule for travel and crafting. Nintendo frames Hyrule as an open-ended journey across the surface, sky islands, and Depths, so these challenges can reshape a run without needing extra content. (Nintendo’s game overview)
Choose an exploration rule
Pick one layer or route as your priority. You can still visit other areas when the game requires it, but your self-imposed rule determines where you spend your time.
1. Make the sky your first expedition
Prioritize floating islands, aerial routes, and ways to return to the air before focusing on surface exploration. Look for opportunities to use Recall on fallen objects as a launch back toward the sky. Nintendo describes the islands as floating above Hyrule and presents the game as exploration across land, sky, and depths. (Nintendo’s game overview)
2. Descend into the Depths first
Treat chasms and Lightroots as your main map. Limit surface trips to gathering supplies or completing story gates that block your next descent. This shifts the rhythm of exploration: instead of using the Depths as a detour, you make its routes and discoveries the point of the run. Nintendo identifies the Depths as one of the game’s distinct exploration layers. (Nintendo’s game overview)
#1 Best Overall
- Enhanced performance and visuals exclusive to the Nintendo Switch 2.
- Explore the skies, caves, and vast lands of Hyrule in a massive open-world adventure.
- Wield new and returning abilities to craft solutions, vehicles, and weapons.
- Discover the mystery behind the spreading gloom threatening the kingdom.
- Use the ZELDA NOTES app to share, compare, and earn daily bonuses.
3. Swap your regional order
Choose a different order for visiting regions than you used on your first save, and finish the local objectives you set before moving on. For example, make each region’s exploration and quests the complete chapter of your run rather than leaving one early for a familiar route elsewhere. The point is to follow a path that you choose, not to treat one sequence as mandatory. (Nintendo’s game overview)
Change what counts as progression
A progression rule gives the run a different finish line. Decide what you are pursuing before setting out, and let that goal take precedence over the main story unless a gate makes it necessary.
4. Let shrines lead the run
Make shrine discovery and completion your main advancement loop, while postponing major story objectives where possible. Each shrine offers a challenge or puzzle, so this approach rewards detours and experimentation rather than rushing between story milestones. (Nintendo’s game overview)
5. Turn collections into milestones
Pick a collection or exploration goal and use it to define when you have “finished” a region or phase of the run. Set a manageable target before starting rather than trying to collect everything by default; the aim is to give exploration a purpose different from your first playthrough.
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For a more focused run, move between story objectives and avoid treating every nearby discovery as an obligation. This is the opposite of a shrine-led or collection-led playthrough: side exploration is welcome, but it does not determine when you move on.
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![The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Standard - Nintendo Switch [Digital Code]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51PuJ83o9KL._SL160_.jpg)
- Ultrahand: Using the new Ultrahand ability, Link can pick up, move, and rotate almost any object, and can even attach objects together to create bridges, vehicles, and more!
- Fuse: Magically fuse almost any object to Link’s current weapon, shield, or arrow to increase durability, damage, or even add a new effect. Experiment with lots of different combinations to come up with surprising—and sometimes hilarious—results!
- Ascend: Add a new dimension to your exploration with Ascend, which gives Link the ability to pass through solid objects above him. Rise up through ceilings, hillsides, and even certain enemies to create seemingly impossible shortcuts.
- Recall: Use Recall to make objects in motion move backward through time, letting Link ride fallen boulders skyward, recover thrown weapons, or send projectiles back where they came from.
Put limits on your tools
Link’s abilities and construction systems make it easy to solve the same obstacle in multiple ways. A tool restriction makes you pause and find alternatives instead of reaching for the familiar answer.
7. Build the run around one ability
Choose Ultrahand, Fuse, Ascend, or Recall as your defining ability. Use it whenever it offers a fair solution, and avoid defaulting to the other abilities when your chosen one can do the job. Nintendo identifies all four as Link’s abilities, including Recall’s power to move objects backward through time. (Nintendo’s game overview)
8. Use a Fuse theme loadout
Pick a palette for your fusions—elemental materials, monster parts, or utility objects, for example—and stick to it when choosing what to attach to weapons. A theme is more interesting than a blanket ban because it asks you to adapt your equipment to the materials you actually find. Nintendo notes that monster parts can be fused to weapons and used in elixirs. (Nintendo’s game overview)
9. Give every Ultrahand build a design brief
Before building, name the job your machine must do: cross land cheaply, stay stable in the air, or provide a rescue platform. Keep the brief specific enough that you have to make design choices, but flexible enough to allow experimentation. Nintendo’s guide documents Ultrahand construction and Autobuild’s ability to recreate structures you have made. (Nintendo’s game guide)
10. Make Autobuild designs into unlocks
After you obtain Autobuild, allow yourself to use only designs you have saved or discovered. Treat each new blueprint as a milestone: until you have a design for a job, build it manually or solve the obstacle another way. Nintendo explains that Autobuild recreates structures previously made with Ultrahand. (Nintendo’s game guide)
Rank #3
11. Take the Recall route whenever it works
When a fallen object can help you gain height or recover a route, try Recall before ordinary climbing. The rule is “whenever possible,” not “at any cost”: use a different route if there is no suitable object or the recalled path does not solve the problem. Recall moves objects backward through time, making it a distinct way to rethink traversal. (Nintendo’s game overview)
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Make travel or preparation the challenge
Mobility and supplies influence nearly every expedition. Changing either rule can make familiar destinations feel different without changing the destination itself.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors12. Choose a pilgrimage, field-kitchen, or amiibo ritual
Pick one of these preparation-and-travel variants, or combine them if you want a stricter run:
- No-fast-travel pilgrimage: Travel on foot, by horse, glider, or with vehicles you build. Use towers and shrines as landmarks, but do not teleport between them. This keeps the surface, sky, Depths, and construction systems connected by the journeys between objectives. Nintendo presents Hyrule as a three-layer world and documents construction through Ultrahand. (Nintendo’s game overview; Nintendo’s game guide)
- Field-kitchen run: Make monster-part fusions and elixirs your main preparation loop. Sell or ignore stockpiled alternatives so you have a reason to gather and use what you find. Nintendo documents both weapon fusions and elixirs as uses for monster parts. (Nintendo’s game overview)
- Amiibo-supported collector run: After unlocking the amiibo rune, make a scan part of your daily routine and treat any rewards as optional collection bonuses, not required equipment or progression. Nintendo confirms compatible amiibo can be scanned after the rune is unlocked. (Nintendo amiibo information)
Pick a replay rule that suits your goal
Use this quick comparison to choose a starting point. The ideas are self-imposed rules, so you can combine them—for example, a sky-first pilgrimage with a one-ability limit—or keep one rule at a time.
| What you want to change | Replay idea |
|---|---|
| Exploration emphasis | Sky-first expedition, Depths-first descent, or a new regional order |
| Progression | Shrines, regional objectives, collections, or story milestones |
| Problem-solving tools | One ability, a Fuse theme, a construction brief, Autobuild-only designs, or Recall routes |
| Mobility | Normal fast travel or a no-fast-travel pilgrimage |
| Preparation | Ordinary supplies or a monster-part and elixir field-kitchen loop |
| Optional collection ritual | Daily compatible amiibo scan after unlocking the rune |
For the cleanest new-save challenge, choose one rule from a category that most changes how you play—exploration, tools, progression, or mobility—and define in advance what counts as an exception. If you already know the map well, a strict travel or tool rule usually changes more moment-to-moment decisions than simply choosing another collection target.
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