One of the biggest innovations introduced in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom lies in the underground of Hyrule, a game map even larger than the surface that hosts missions, rewards, materials and characters that cannot be found elsewhere. Even if this underground world is occasionally part of the main mission, it is worth giving it due attention, especially when starting the secondary mission. This is available as soon as you reach the Guard Fort of Hyrule Castle, immediately after conversing with Pruna: on the lower floor of the structure, the young assistant and Professor Rovely will ask Link to investigate the mysterious Chasms.
After following Rovely south of the outpost, and having penetrated the bowels of the earth, returning to speak with .. it will be discovered that the girl has identified some strange statues beneath the surface; following this trail of breadcrumbs will launch the first major secondary mission linked to the underground of the kingdom, but before diving headlong into the heart of this area there is a bit of information that is worth keeping in mind. Let's see in detail in this one The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom guide how the underground works of Hyrule.
At this address, however, you can find the well-known guide to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
The rules of the underground
Before explaining in detail how the underground map works, it is good to outline a series of rules: the most important thing to know is that it is necessary to illuminate the area. For this purpose it is necessary to collect Luminous Seeds and Giant Luminous Seeds, two objects that can be found very easily within caves and wells scattered around Hyrule. To easily locate caves and pits, the best method is to reach the Blossoming cherry trees, just like those found at the top of Mount Satori. In these places, by offering an apple in the basket placed in front of the tree, a magical creature will appear and show you through beams of light all the entrances to the nearby basements. In reality this creature tells you the position of the nearest Toads, but it is also an excellent way to find caves and therefore also seeds. Follow the signs, or the magical rabbits trotting around, and you will find them very easily.
Once you are ready for an expedition, the main objective underground is to activate the roots. These structures form a network of fast travel just like the topographical towers found on the surface, but above all they allow you to illuminate large areas of the underground: once you have lit them all in a single region it will be decidedly easier to juggle between a ruin and the 'other. The golden rule is that each root is located exactly below a shrine on the surface: If you've found a shrine, there will always be a root underneath, and vice versa, so it's a great way to find what you're missing in both directions.
Miasma does not allow you to recover life points. There are two methods to unlock "hibernated" hearts: the first is to reach an activated root, or activate one, in order to remove the effect. Alternatively just cook the Dandelion of the Sun, which results in an infusion capable of combating the miasma effect and freeing all frozen heart containers. Sun Dandelion always grows around pieces of floating islands that have fallen onto Hyrule, or right into the flying archipelagos.
This is what you need to know to start your first shipments, but there are a number of key additional pieces of information that we'll cover below.
How do you explore the underground, and what can you find around?
Initially, this underground region of Hyrule might give the impression of being a confusing area, in which to proceed practically blind, but this is not the case: There are a number of very important things to know. The key thing to understand is that the underground map perfectly reflects the one on the surface: each Root is located exactly under a Shrine, below every city there is a mine, per every mountain above there is a valley below, for every mountain below there is a valley above, and practically every single point of interest found in the kingdom has its counterpart in the depths. There first thing to do to learn how it works, follow Josha's mission, which will take you to discover some mines underground. Once you understand how to read the map, you will no longer have to go blindly: always look for a point of interest on the surface, for example Mount Satori or a city, and go and discover what is hidden underground.
It is very important to understand right away that climbing the rock walls is an almost impossible task, especially at the beginning of the adventure. It is much better to limit yourself to flat areas, because they often hide paths that lead to raised roots. In any case, it must be clear that Subsurface exploration is an expensive and complex task: first of all because you need resources, arrows, luminous seeds, sun dandelions to restore health; secondly because the enemies faced beneath the surface tend to be more dangerous than those in the kingdom. To help you explore it is very useful to use the Zonau stations found around, often dotted with useful tools for creating hot air balloons, gliders and four-wheeled vehicles. Now let's look at some of the main points of interest below the surface:
- In outposts of the Yiga Clan, recognizable because they are often built on platforms made of mushrooms and characterized by the typical red color, you can find the Clan Diagrams. These plans for the Schematrix provide everything necessary to be able to produce purely war tools, only combat oriented. Just defeat the guards and the door to the small Dojo will open, always revealing two chests inside, one of which will each time contain the blueprint for the Schematrix of a weapon of war.
- in Forgotten Mines, which are found under every inhabited center present on the surface, there will always be two Zonau golems: the first will allow you to convert the accumulated Zoranium into Energy Cells or Cores, which are used to boost Link's batteries. The second instead will provide you with Zonau projects, therefore peaceful and movement-oriented, to enrich the Schematrix with new functions.
- The chests abandoned in the ruins, often at the bottom of the valleys, host objects recovered from old chapters of The Legend of Zelda, therefore weapons and armor taken directly from video games of the past, and also the exclusive weapons and armor of the Amiibo.
- As you explore the sky islands, you will find maps of forgotten treasures hidden beneath the earth. The maps are always found inside Zonau chests, and mark the area where the treasure is hidden with a very visible X. THE The first three treasures you get underground will always provide you with the complete set of miner armor, which illuminates the surrounding area.
- in arenas it is possible to face the enhanced variants of certain bosses present in the work, to obtain large quantities of Zonau energy cores in exchange.
- The Poo also deserve attention, practically the current currency of the underground, which can be exchanged at the mysterious statues that we have covered in a specific guide.
- More generally, subsurface exploration is an excellent source of Bomb Flowers, Smokers, Disorienting Mushrooms but above all Zoranium, which can be both extracted from rocks and obtained from downed enemies. The presence of high-level enemies, such as Silver Boblin and the like, also makes this section very useful for creating advanced weapons using the Compositor.
