The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Shrines guide

The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Shrines and Temples guide

There were plenty of videos to give us a glimpse at The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom before the release, but it’s only with the game out that we know that Shrines are back, so here’s the beginning of our guide. You get to take on four as a part of the opening sequences, which you can find out about below, but there are a lot to discover.

We had a hunch that they’d be back because the trailers and Nintendo Direct didn’t showcase another mechanic that would unlock Link’s stamina wheel and hearts. The fact that they were still there as before told us a lot, so we knew that there was going to be something at least similar to before.

We’d also seen the swirling energy signatures in the trailers released so far, but they didn’t look like the Shrines featured in The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. However, the fact that Link was seen climbing up the side of floating sky islands in Tears of the Kingdom, meant that there had to be a need more stamina as you progress through the game to be able to get to previously unreachable spots.

It was entirely possible that Nintendo might have done away with the stamina system altogether and given us freedom to go wherever we wanted right from the start, but that was always unlikely. Not only would it have undermined the stamina Link needed in the first game, but it would also mean Tears wouldn’t have Shrines, which were a big part of the success of the previous game.

The good news was that the presentation showed us both the stamina wheel and hearts as they were in the previous game, and they were low, like the way they might be at the beginning of the game. As such, there had to be some way to build this up to be able to do more.

Now that the release date is in, we now know that there will be plenty of The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Shrines to take on. The early ones give you a good introduction to the new mechanics in the game, but later on there’s a lot of variety.

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The first Shrines in The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom

The opening sequence of the The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is very similar to Breath of the Wild and you’ll have four Shrines in total to complete up in The Great Sky Island. These are Ukouh, In-isa, Gutanbac and Nachoya Shrine. You can watch the walkthrough video below to see how to get to each of them and how to complete them when you get there.

It can be a bit confusing at first trying to work out where to go, so the video should help you to start the game well. You’ll need to use Ultrahand a lot to make it across water and gaps between islands, and then you’ll need to cook up some spicy pepper for a little cold resistance for the Shrine above the snow line.

You can also see the location for the all of the Great Sky Island Shrines with the image below. You start at Ukouh, to the lest of the Time Temple. In-isa is bottom left, Gutanbac is bottom right and needs cold resistance and Nachoya is at the bottom and only appears after beating all of the others.

The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom All Great Sky Island Shrines

Early Shrines to visit when you get down to Hyrule

After the Great Sky Island, you travel down to Hyrule and make your way to Lookout Landing, which is sort of your base of operation. The list of Shrines below are the ones that you can pick up easily as you do this and follow the main campaign quests that you get from Purah.

Kyononis

You’ll find this in Hyrule Castle Grounds on your way to see Hoz at the castle when you get down to ground level after Great Sky Island. It’s a simple combat trial with tutorials on moves from Breath of the Wild like parry and flurry rush.

Jiosin

Another one close to Lookout Landing, Jiosin is all about Superhand rotation of blocks to fit through shaped holes. It can be tricky, so if you need it you can check out the video below to see how to complete the shrine and get the chest.

Ishodag

On the road to Hebra, you’ll find this Shrine to the East of Lookout Landing, which you can see on the location map above. You need to use Ultrahand build to use the fans to get to the end, but it’s pretty easy after the Great Sky Island. For the chest, put the fan on the other side of the moving platform, activate it and use ascend to get up to open the chest.

Gatakis

We pick up the trail for Shrines in Hebra as you head to talk to the Rito about the arctic chill they’re experiencing. You’ll use your glider and you’ll need to smash through the ice by jumping on it. Pick up the chest on the platform below, jump across to beat the other constructs and fly up the gap to get to the end.

Mayaumekis

On the way to the Wind Temple above Hebra East Summit is where you can find Mayaumekis and you’ll need to shoot an arrow at the lock trigger next to the door to get into the main section. It’s then just a case of making the boat jumps and shooting the trigger high up as you’re gliding to make it through to the end.

Jonsua

Heading East of Lookout Landing you’ll find Jonsua Shrine on the way to the Zora Domain. Use Ultrahand to push the ball under water and it’s jump back out to hit targets and objects in the way, giving you an easy path to completing it.

Jirutagumac

This is one of the first hard to reach shrines in our list as it’s up inside a floating ball island above the Upland Zorana Skyview Tower as you head over to the Zora Kingdom for the Water Temple. Us the map marker above to see where the tower is and you can get up above it from there and land easily using the glider.

Once inside the shrine, use a Wings device to get over to the left and then attach a set of wings to the wheel board and fly it over to the right. Attach the fans to the back and line up the device with a good runway over the edge. Circle back to pick up the chest and then fly to the end to complete it, as you can see the in the video below:

Mogawak

This is the shrine right in the middle of Zora, just over the side of the main path. You can pick it up on as you progress to meet up with Sidon before the Water Temple. Attach the planks and the chest to the spinner to get it moving to charge up the battery with the power on the pad.

When it’s fully charged you can use it to open the door opposite to get the chest. The water will be electrified in parts (the strange physics of The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom), so swim around this to get to the chest. You can then attach the battery to the pad next to the elevator to ride it up to the shrine goal to complete Mogawak.

Temples or Shrines?

As mentioned above, we’d seen no sign of Shrines in any of the trailers but that’s not surprising because Zelda says that the Sheikah technology from Breath of the Wild is starting to fail. Maybe it was only supposed to be functional until Calamity Ganon is defeated and after that it goes dark.

If that’s the case then there’s a new threat in town and we have a new prospect for the final boss contender, Undead Ganondorf. He’s the red-eyed husk that appears to be in the process of transforming back into his Garuda form with a little Walking Dead charm thrown in to boot.

The new danger wouldn’t have been known to the Sheikah people that invented the technology that gave us the Slate, Towers and Shrines from the first game, so it wouldn’t trigger them awake. If there are no Sheikah Shrines, but we still need stamina progression we’re going to need to get it from somewhere.

One option was that there will be new Shrines, but this time from the Zonai people and that turns out to be true. Like the Sheikah, the Zonai were a technologically advanced civilisation from Hyrule’s past and you can see their handiwork in the flying and moving machines that Link has at his disposal in the game.

We also got to see these in action in the Nintendo Direct presentation, but there were no Shrines, so another option was that we might get Temples instead. We’d seen Temple-like structures in the videos, so maybe they were the Tears of the Kingdom equivalent to Shrines.

From what we’d seen in the limited footage, the Temples are located up in the sky, so the challenge would have been getting up to them. Breath of the Wild had some ingenious Shrines, so Tears needed to take things to genius levels of construction to deliver something as good as this, but with a fresh take on puzzle solving.

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The reality is that there are indeed Temples up on the sky islands, but these are not the same as Shrines. Instead, you just need to look for the rotating Zonai energy signature and you know that it’s the latter.

They can be found both up in the sky and down on the ground, so there are a lot of options to go for. You can get a sense of how many there might be in the section below.

How many Shrines will there be in Tears of the Kingdom?

You may or may not know this already, but Breath of the Wild had a whopping 120 Shrines dotted around its open world Map. The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom’s big hook and Hyrule transformation is in the sky islands, which gives us a lot of scope to get close to that number in the very least.

From what we’ve seen, it looks like the added verticality is going to come in the aftermath of Ganondorf’s resurrection, and you wake up in the sky. You then have the series of Shrines to complete in the Great Sky Island, which are similar to the ones in The Great Plateau at the beginning of BotW.

You essentially need more hearts to be able to get through the closed door and you do that by competing the four Shrines. It’s also a good way to introduce you to the new mechanics in the game like Ultrahand and Fuse.

We didn’t get to see even a little gameplay of this in the presentation and trailers before the release, but with the game out we’re starting to add in more details. The ten minutes gameplay is taken from one free roam section with patches in the sky islands and on the ground, so it was close to the Shrines, but not in them.

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Our guide to completing Shrines / Temples

Obviously, our guide to the Shrines and or Temples of The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom will remain incomplete until the release date rolls around in May. However, we’ve added in some general tips to get you off to a good start.

Firstly, it’s all about observation to begin with. Have a look around to see what it’s all about and how the mechanisms work. Look out for marking on the wall or other hints that will point you in the right direction. If there are numbers or number patterns then these are bound to be a part of the solution.

It looks like we’re going to get some new tech that will have similarities to the Sheikah Slate abilities from Breath of the Wild. Previously, each Shrine normally focuses on one of these abilities, so figure out what that is and think about the various things you can do to use them to your advantage.

There were a number of Shrines that combined abilities to complete them, so try to mix things up if you find you’re not getting anywhere with just one. You might also need ot combine activities on a timer basis for look out for moving parts that return to their previous position and work out how to get around them.

We’ll update our guide as we discover additional details about the game. Check out our computer games section for more news and features on The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, or visit the official website at https://www.zelda.com/.

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You can also see how to get the Master Sword in The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom to help you take on the Shrines with more power.