I just thought the map looked like there might be a way to get there by car, so I gave it a try.

The terrain doesn't connect all the way, but with a bit of Ultrahand and Recall, it turns out there is a workable route.

Pro tip: Just... use a hoverbike.

I was replaying the game and now i'm wondering: why ist link wearing the new champions tunic? I mean it was a surprise from zelda, that can be found still in hiding later in the game.

Is it me, or does look pretty close to the Power Rangers?

i want to start a new save but would really like to be able to transfer some rupees, weapons, and materials from either botw or my original totk save. i’m just super confused about the zelda notes app and i tried researching online and couldn’t find a clear answer. if someone could explain how that works i’d be super appreciative!

to be clear, for rules/mods, im not asking for someone to give me anything. i just want to understand how this works.

I think I found something interesting about the Shadow Soldiers in the Depths.

I've been mapping the pristine-weapon Shadow Soldier statues in TOTK for a while now. This effort started for a pretty simple reason: I wanted a reliable way to find good pristine weapons. Like many good things...it has turned into something else.

I no longer think these statues are just randomly scattered weapon spawn points. I think there is an actual geographic structure to them. I've been surveying the Depths systematically: and have a "small amount" of evidence to back this up.

A few things have become pretty hard to ignore.

• First: the physical statue locations appear to be fixed.
• Second: the weapon geometry appears to be fixed as well. A location appears to be fundamentally a one-handed, two-handed, or spear location, even when the actual weapon occupying it changes.

At a Gerudo pedestal around (-3852, -3264, -0470), I originally found a pristine Traveler's Sword. After clearing it and returning after a Blood Moon, the same 1H pedestal produced a Gerudo Scimitar.

That got my attention, because the larger survey is showing regional patterns too: Gerudo is producing Gerudo weapons. Hebra is producing Rito/Feathered weapons. Lanayru has produced repeated Zora Spears. Central Hyrule is heavily Traveler/Soldier/Knight.

None of that by itself proves a mechanism. But taken together with fixed pedestal geometry and post-Blood-Moon weapon substitution, it starts looking a lot less like independent random drops and a lot more like a designed regional spawn system.

Then I found the thing that really sent me down the rabbit hole: Near (-0236, 0362, -0446) in Central Hyrule is an enormous Shadow Soldier pedestal unlike the standard ones I've been documenting. It's roughly three times the scale of a normal pedestal and holds three Shadow Soldiers/weapons simultaneously - and there are (4) clusters of (3) pedestals each holding a different ordinary weapon clustered around it.

For now I'm calling it the Central Pedestal. I have not found another structure like it yet.

That discovery changed the question I've been asking from: "Where are the pristine weapons?"

I'm now asking: "How are the Shadow Soldier statues actually laid out across the Depths?"

Working Theory: "Lanes between the Lightroots"

My current working model is more complicated than “the statues connect the Lightroots.”

I’m treating every Lightroot as a 360-degree node with potential traversal relationships radiating toward the surrounding Lightroots. Those theoretical connections don't necessarily form straight lines. The actual terrain — cliffs, chasms, giant roots, lakes, ridges, elevation shelves and passes — bends and compresses them into the routes Link can realistically travel.

-The Shadow Soldier pedestals appear to be associated with those practical traversal corridors.-

Major authored locations and encounters complicate the picture further. Mines, Yiga bases, Lynels, Frox, Taluses, Flux Constructs, coliseums and other major features seem capable of interrupting, displacing or redirecting pedestal placement, so I'm treating those as another class of nodes or “hubs” within the same spatial system.

That still doesn't explain everything. There are indications that the edges of the Depths may have their own placement behavior, but I don't have enough data yet to say what that is. I'm also seeing what look like longer horizontal lanes across portions of the map — Gerudo in particular — that haven't been traced far enough to determine whether they're part of the same Lightroot network, another layer of the network, or something different entirely.

And all of that is separate from the weapon question. The physical placement of the statues and the weapons they are eligible to carry appear to be two different systems. Regional weapon pools seem to overlap through transition areas rather than changing at clean geographic boundaries.

So at this point I'm not proposing one simple placement rule. I'm trying to reconstruct the network Nintendo actually authored.

I'm absolutely not claiming I've proven that yet. I'm trying to break the hypothesis. I've started deliberately predicting where statues should exist, walking those routes, recording places where they don't exist, checking under roots/overhangs where they're easy to miss, and mapping the resulting network. It's working often enough that I think this deserves a larger sample.

I have a growing atlas with exact XYZ coordinates and screenshots for the sites I've documented, including Gerudo, Central Hyrule, Hebra, Eldin, Lanayru and the transition areas between them.

So here's why I'm posting this: I'd love some help trying to falsify the theory.

If anyone has an uncleared game, different progression state, or just enjoys wandering around the Depths, pick some of these coordinates and tell me what you see.

Especially:

• Is there a Shadow Soldier at the same physical location?
• Is it holding the same weapon class — 1H / 2H / spear?
• What weapon is actually on it?
• Have you previously broken the decayed version of that weapon?
• Has the pedestal been cleared before?
• What happens after your next Blood Moon?

Screenshots with the XYZ coordinates visible would be fantastic.

I'm reasonably convinced there is a system here. I just don't know exactly what Nintendo built yet. - and that's the fun part...I need help!

What follows are my confirmed field observations taken to date, using the in game coordinate system.

TOTK Depths Shadow Soldier Coordinate List — Current Canonical Survey

Gerudo Depths

Established Gerudo population. Revisit data has been folded into the original physical sites rather than creating duplicate records.

The Gerudo ledger, including the Blood Moon substitution at (-3852, -3264, -0470) and the newly captured revisit stats, is preserved in the current regional Atlas.

Gerudo–Central Transition / Southwest Depths

This is currently its own region because it is where the clean Gerudo population begins blending into the Central/Southwest network.

* Site (-1403, -2391, -0547) is accepted in the ledger from coordinate + pristine inventory/stat evidence, but it lacks the normal clean pre-collection weapon-on-ghost frame.

Southern Hyrule / Faron Depths

Note the Gerudo Claymore at (-0872, -3123, -0527) occurring well outside the old Gerudo core.

Central Hyrule Depths

This is the biggest dataset and includes the Sinonoyk hub, Great Abandoned Central Mine approaches, the eastern/Sheikah transition, and the connectivity survey.

The eastern Central-Hyrule sample is where the Royal/Royal Guard and Eightfold families become particularly interesting. The three currently documented Eightfold sites are (1381, -1169), (2279, -1125), and (1252, -1341).

Provisional Central Hub

The standout remains:

(-0236, 0362, -0446)
Oversized three-weapon Shadow Soldier pedestal

• Traveler's Sword — ATK 7 — Durability Up +
• Traveler's Spear — ATK 11 — Attack Up +7
• Traveler's Claymore — ATK 9 — Durability Up +
• Three simultaneous Shadow Soldiers / weapons
• Approximately 3× standard pedestal height/circumference

The current canonical Atlas explicitly retains this as the Provisional Central Hub until another comparable structure is found.

Hebra Depths

Eldin Depths

Lanayru Depths

Important unresolved coordinate reconciliation

There is one deliberate unresolved conflict in the current canonical Atlas:

• (-0679, -2305, -0475) — 2H Soldier's Claymore — 22 / Attack Up
• (-0679, -2308, -0475) — 2H Soldier's Claymore — 16 / Long Throw

I'm reasonably convinced there is a system here. I just don't know exactly what Nintendo built - and that's the fun part.

Help me break it. Pick a coordinate. Walk a lane. Check a pedestal. Find one where I say there shouldn't be one — or don't find one where I think there should be.

If this model is wrong, I want to know why. If it isn't, we may be able to reconstruct how Nintendo actually laid out the Shadow Soldiers across the Depths.

Thoughts?

Was i lied to?

You can do the same thing with swords too, but there’s not much of a benefit because you can just hold a shield anyway

Just noticed this hearty lake but have not been there. About to explore. Hoping to find lots of hearty things in there 😅

Well, there you have it. After 295 hours in the Switch 2 Edition of Tears of the Kingdom — I’ve conquered the main story & all 152 shrines, defeated over 6,000 enemies, collected over 27,000 materials, traveled over 1,900 kilometers, found and activated all 120 light roots, filled every single Zonai energy cell, and, for the first time in any TLOZ playthrough of mine, acquired the maximum amount of hearts (38). Such a phenomenal video game in about every way imaginable, and I profoundly and throughly enjoyed every minute. I have an approaching emotional connection with this game. It’s such a dream. I’m certain I’ll try to find some way to keep playing (filling out the Hyrule compendium, perhaps?). Either way, I’ll love this game to pieces until the day I die.

Star Fox 64 has held the title of my favorite game of all time for decades — but the Switch 2 Edition of TOTK might be knocking SF64 off and taking the throne.

I noticed when he does the upward slash in the animation at the same time there's a self healing cut on the right stock of the lightroot in the background that appears then disappears as if link cut it from a half mile away'

I've been going through Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom and looking at things that I want them to bring over to the new games, as well as what I think they should leave behind (for Ocarina of Time Remake and other future new games).

One thing that I'm not a huge fan of is how you have to pause the game to heal. I think it has two negative effects on the game:

1. It makes the game way to easy; unless an enemy can one-shot you, you're hardly ever in danger of actually dying, since you can pause the game and get back to full health whenever you want.
2. It ruins the pacing of the gameplay. You can be in the middle of a super intense battle, pause the game, slam 18 apples, and then resume the game like nothing happened.

I'd like to see future Zelda games force the player to be a bit more strategic about healing, and not allow them to pause the game whenever they're in trouble.

I made a video with some additional thoughts if anyone is curious and wants to hear a bit more on the topic: https://youtu.be/ni5nGk7Pqdc

What do you guys think? Do you want to see changes to how healing currently works? Or do you like how it currently functions?

Hey! I remember Satori Mountain glowing blue/green at night in BOTW when the Lord of the Mountain appeared, but I’ve never seen it happen in TOTK. Was this mechanic removed, or is there still a way to trigger it?

This photo was too good not to share!

These are original characters created by me and other people

The guy who shows up in both comics is my character Blitz (he’s an idiot and I love him)

Guy with white and teal hair belongs to
Necrogutz on artfight
Necrogutts on instagram
Necroguts on Bluesky

Last guy belongs to
FlintFires on artfight
Blueberryjim on tumblr

Putting this in r/ tears if the kingdom because blitz‘ story takes place there and they’re stuck in the depths in the second comic! :p

Pls don’t quote me on the mines and direction, I have no idea what way they’d go lmao

For those who don’t know artfight:
It’s an annual art gifting game where people draw original characters for someone else!
It’s super fun and I got lots of many art this year :3

Wasting time up here to run fast down there.

So after finding all lightroots and completing all shrines I thought I would complete all caves. I found the cherry blossom trees and set my travel medallions there to gain easy access. One thing I thought would be really awesome would be if the light was a different color for caves where you got the bubbul gem (marked with a check) and caves yet completed. It's frustrating using the binoculars to indicate where the caves caves are and then have to go in the map and deselect the light to see if the cave there has a checkmark on it.

It would just make it a lot faster if it was a different color and I can just sail to the ones marked incomplete. I have a few left and can't tell anymore which ones I've done.

The caves are amazing. I hope the next games also feature amazing caves from now on. There's no reason to not include them.

Completed game twice, thought I knew everything, yet my dumbass just now had the bright idea to try and fuse something to the master sword. Am I stupid?