Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom fan beats all four temples without Link’s paraglider
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom presents an incredibly vast world for Link to explore. What’s more, there are three levels of world map — the Depths, the main surface map, and the skies — that lend the game a daunting sense of verticality. Thankfully, Link has a full toolkit that allows him to travel from the highest of sky islands, through the deep chasms in Hyrule’s surface, to the game’s enormous underground areas. Chief among these is the paraglider, which lets Link gracefully float through the air and spares him fall damage once he lands. It’s a key part of Link’s kit from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildthat feels more useful than ever in this sequel.
And yet, at least one enterprising player has forgone that paraglider in his playthrough. (Link doesn’t start the game with a paraglider — in the tutorial Great Sky Island region, he leaps into bodies of water, which negates any fall damage.) Chris Brune has played significant portions of the game without the glider — and shared his findings on Reddit, to a stunned audience. In fact, Brune managed to make his way to the four temples from the game’s “Regional Phenomena” quest and finished them without the borderline necessary tool — a testament to the game’s true sandbox qualities, and also one gamer’s absolute willpower.
Polygon interviewed Brune, via Reddit chat and email, to get his take on how he pulled this off, and what inspired him in the first place. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
[Ed note: Spoilers for the “Regional Phenomena” quest line and mild spoilers for “The Dragon’s Tears” quest line follow.]
Polygon: What inspired you to do a no-glider run of the game?
Chris Brune: I wanted to go into Tears of the
Read more on polygon.com
