Tears of the Kingdom Depths Guide

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Laura May Randell

Laura-May is a Lvl 30 gamer and writer, armed with a Bachelor of Arts and far too much gaming experience. A majority of her experience has come from The Legend of Zelda series, and it is her mission in life to discover every secret that Breath of the Wild has to offer. When she's not exploring Hyrule, you can often find her on Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, Kingdom Hearts, Hogwarts Legacy, or almost any other RPG.

Latest posts by Laura May Randell (see all)

• Tears of the Kingdom Depths Guide - June 26, 2023
• Tears of the Kingdom Best Weapons - June 9, 2023
• Tears of the Kingdom Great Fairies Guide - May 28, 2023

The Depths is a dark and scary place in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, especially if you don’t know what you’re in for. But with enough bravery and determination, the Depths can be mastered just like anything else in life.

If you’ve been ignoring the dark and spooky Depths beneath Hyrule because you’re feeling a little anxious about what awaits you down there, let me ease your worries.

Consider this your complete Depths Travel Guide. Here, I will teach you everything you need to know to succeed in the Depths, starting what supplies you should bring with you, and ending with all of the most essential travel tips an avid explorer like you needs to make it back to the surface in one piece.

Bottom Line Up Front

The Depths is an entire world that lies beneath the surface of Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It is pitch black and filled with both enemies and a dangerous substance called Gloom. Gloom saps your vitality and breaks your hearts, rendering them useless unless you restore them using one of a few methods.

The map of the Depths often reflects the surface and, while easily ignored, is essential to explore for several reasons. It’s where you mine Zonaite to increase your Zonai Energy Cells and is where multiple main quests take place, one of which is a Temple.

Your Depths Survival Pack

Living your life spontaneously and diving headfirst into a new adventure with an act-first-ask-questions-later attitude does usually made for the best trips. But the Depths is an entirely different beast. While you shouldn’t let the Depths intimidate or scare you away, it is still an incredibly dangerous place, and you should ensure you are fully prepared.

Thankfully, there aren’t many things you need collect before you drop down into the Depths, but the things you do need are very important. Make sure you have the following items in your Depths Survival Pack before you head down there.

The Depths Survival Pack Checklist:

• Paraglider.
• Brightbloom Seeds.
• Arrows.
• Camera.
• Glowing meals.

The Paraglider

The Depths is a very long way down, and if you jump down the wrong Chasm without the Paraglider, you are going to be in for an extremely swift demise.

A few of the Chasms around Hyrule do have water at the bottom, so, technically, you could jump down there without the glider and survive, but there is no way of knowing until you’re down there, and most of the Chasms don’t have a bed of water to catch you. The best way to combat death, in this case, is to make sure you have the glider before you go into the Depths.

Thankfully, getting the glider is a very easy process, and you will get it almost immediately upon arrival in Hyrule. There are, however, some prerequisites.

You have to complete the Great Sky Garden tutorial, the To the Kingdom of Hyrule quest, and speak to Purah to receive the Regional Phenomena main quest before you can get your hands on the iconic paraglider.

Brightbloom Seeds

There is no light source whatsoever in the Depths, so you have to bring the light with you. Heading into the Depths and stumbling aimlessly into the paths of Gloom Lynels and falling down cliffs is possible but isn’t recommended for obvious reasons.

Making sure you have a healthy collection of Brightbloom Seeds is absolutely necessary for any successful exploration of the Depths.

Thankfully, Brightbloom Seeds are very plentiful on the surface of Hyrule. Almost every cave and well in Hyrule has Brightbloom Seeds growing in it, and there is no shortage of those. Every Stable has a well, and there are hundreds of caves around.

So make sure you explore any that you come across, and you will always have enough Brightbloom Seeds on hand.

Expert explorers Fuse Brightbloom Seeds to their arrows and launch them into the distance to light up the Depths. This lights up far larger areas but can quickly burn through your stash of arrows. If you happen to run out of arrows in the Depths, you can always throw Brightbloom Seeds the old-fashioned way.

Press R and the up button, scroll to your Brightbloom Seeds and release the button to throw it by hand. They don’t make it quite as far as arrows, but it works perfectly fine.

Your Camera

A camera deserves a spot on every good travel guide. You are a tourist down there, after all! But in all seriousness, your camera isn’t just recommended to take selfies at all the hottest tourist destinations in the Depths.

There’s more than one side quest that involves taking photos in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. One of these quests calls for photos of all the different statues you will come across in the Depths and the other calls for a photo of every type of monster both above and below the surface.

Both of these quests are pretty long ones, so the sooner you start collecting those images, the sooner you can reap the rewards of the quests.

Some Glowing Snacks

You can also illuminate yourself by eating a meal made with Brightcap Mushrooms or Glowing Cave Fish. Eating a meal like this makes Link softly glow, providing another handy light source for your exploration throughout the Depths.

Travel Tip #1: Avoid Gloom At All Costs!

Gloom is one of the most irritating and dangerous aspects of the Depths. It is a dark, sticky, fluid-like substance that covers much of the surface of the Depths and also covers the monsters that lurk down there. Gloom looks very similar to the Malice that was present in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but it’s much, much worse. I know right, I didn’t think Malice could get worse either, but here we are.

When you come into contact with Gloom, it will damage you, causing you to lose hearts. The catch is, though, that you can’t restore your hearts by simply eating a meal like you usually would. Hearts broken by Gloom are rendered completely useless until you somehow restore them.

Thankfully, there are a couple of ways to do so. If you do happen to find yourself on death’s door because of Gloom, here are the different ways you can get your health back.

Eat a Meal Made With Sundelions

Sundelions are tall, Lilly-like flowers that can be found growing on the Sky Islands or near rubble on the surface that has fallen from the sky.

Sundelions grow on most Sky Islands, but I wouldn’t bother looking on the Great Sky Island. They are relatively few and far between there. If you’re struggling to increase your collection of Sundelions, the best place to find some is the Eldin Sky Archipelago.

Cooking food made with Sundelions restores your heart to varying degrees depending on what else you combine it with. Whenever cooking anything that has a particular effect, like a Sundelion, try not to combine it with anything else that also has an effect, as they can cancel each other out.

A great meal to take to the Depths is a Sunny Meat Skewer. Its strength will vary depending on the type of meat you use, but I like to combine three Sundelions with two pieces of meat to create a meal that both replenishes and restores your heart.

Make Your Way to A Lightroot

Hearts that have been broken by Gloom can also be recovered at a Lightroot. If you’re running out of health and you can see a Lightroot in the distance, make your way over to it as soon as possible. You can also fast-travel to a Lightroot if you’re in dire circumstances and recover your hearts there.

It is worth noting that a Lighroot does not restore your hearts. It just makes them usable again. You will still have to eat some a meal to actually restore your health.

Head Back to the Surface

The last way to restore your hearts is by heading back to the surface. That will fix you up right away, so you can continue your adventure up there or head back down to the Depths if you still have some unfinished business.

Travel Tip #2: Find the Miners Armor Set and the Depths Armor Set.

There are two Armor Sets hidden below Hyrule that have the potential to greatly increase your chances of survival in the Depths. Finding all three pieces of each of these sets gives you a means of combatting two of the worst aspects of the Depths – the darkness and the Gloom.

The Miner’s Armor Set

• Miner’s Mask: Base Defence 3, Stealth Up, and Glow Bonus.
• Miner’s Top: Base Defence 3, Stealth Up, and Glow Bonus.
• Miner’s Trousers: Base Defence 3, Stealth Up, and Glow Bonus.

The Miner’s Armor Set is an outfit hidden in the Depths that has lights on it that make exploring the darkness much easier. Running out of Brightbulb Seeds is a real possibility in the Depths, and the Miner’s Armor Set can offer an infinite light resource. It also offers more light than eating food with a Glowing buff, so is a great asset for Depths exploration.

You can find the Miner’s Armor Set in treasure chests at the following locations:

• Miner’s Mask: The Abandoned Kara Kara Mine below the Gerudo Desert
  Coordinates: -3259, -2500, -0475
• Miner’s Top: Daphne’s Canyon Mine Northwest of the Central Abandoned Mine
  Coordinates: -0976, -0552, -0515
• Miner’s Trousers: Hylia Canyon Mine Southwest of the Central Abandoned Mine
  Coordinates: -1284, -2250, 0707

The Depths Armor Set

• Hood of the Depths: 3 Base Defense, 1x Gloom Resistance
• Tunic of the Depths: 3 Base Defense, 1x Gloom Resistance
• Gaiters of the Depths: 3 Base Defense, 1x Gloom Resistance

The best protection against Gloom that you can get is the Depths Armor Set. The Depths Armor Set consists of three pieces. The Hood of the Depths, the Tunic of the Depths, and the Gaiters of the Depths. Each piece offers 3 defense and resistance to Gloom.

To collect each piece of the Depths Armor Set, you must find at least six of the Bargainer Statues that dwell within the Depths.

They can be found in any order, but the first one I came across was the Bargainer Statue in the Abandoned Central Mine as part of the Call From the Depths side quest. There is also a Bargainer Statue on the surface in Josha’s Lab in Lookout Landing.

The Bargainer Statues trade goods such as armor or weapons in exchange for Poes, which you can find floating around the Depths.

You can repurchase armor and weapons that you already have from the Statues, but they also offer unique pieces such as the Depths Armor Set and the Dark Armor Set. Each Bargainer Statue that you find unlocks one more piece of armor in the following order:

• Bargainer Statue #1: Dark Trousers – 150 Poes.
• Bargainer Statue #2: Tunic of the Depths – 150 Poes.
• Bargainer Statue #3: Dark Tunic – 200 Poes.
• Bargainer Statue #4: Gaiters of the Depths – 200 Poes.
• Bargainer Statue #5: Dark Hood – 300 Poes.
• Bargainer Statue #6: Hood of the Depths – 300 Poes.

Travel Tip #3: Find the Lightroots and Illuminate the Darkness

Lightroots are one of the biggest keys to success when it comes to the Depths. Lightroots are large tree-like structures that reach the surface and have a soft orange glow. Whenever you find one of these Lightroots in the Depths, head over to it and press A underneath to activate it.

This is how you will start uncovering the map. As you may have already gathered from the name, Lightroots not only light up your map but the entire area surrounding you, so you don’t have to keep using Brightbloom Seeds to see.

Lightroots only exist directly underneath Shrines in the overworld, so finding them can help your exploration above, and vice versa. If you know there’s a Shrine somewhere around you on the surface, place a pin on it, head in that direction, and you will find a Lightroot.

Similarly, if you find a Lightroot, but you haven’t found the Shrine above it, you will know exactly where to look once you’re back on the surface.

Travel Tip #4: How to Deal With Enemies in the Depths

The Depths contains every type of monster you can find on the surface, but they make the ones you encounter on the surface almost seem cute.

Enemies in the Depths are angry, and they’re almost completely covered in Gloom which destroys your hearts with every hit. A majority of the enemies you will come across are Lizalfos, Elemental Keese, Chu-Chus, Bokoblins, and Moblins.

There are also new enemies lurking in the Depths called Frox. Frox are small frog-like creatures who eat the Brightbloom Seeds you lay down to illuminate the darkness. Frox monsters are most easily defeated with spears and drop Brightbloom Seeds and Zonaite when defeated. They are also usually Gloom-free, which is a nice change.

If you’re unlucky enough, you might also come across mini-bosses in the Depths. Defeating enemies like Lynels in the Depths requires either a large inventory of Gloom restoring meals or a mastery of combat. There are also brand-new mini-bosses lurking in the Depths called Obsidian and Blue-White Frox.

These can be defeated by shooting their eyes with arrows and mounting them to destroy the ore deposits on their backs.

I know you’re probably hoping I will give you the secret to dealing with enemies in the Depths, but unfortunately, there is no magic answer. But if you make sure you have the Depths Armor Set, plenty of Sunny meals to replenish your hearts, and frequently visit Lightroots, you have everything you need to defeat any foe in the Depths.

Travel Tip #4: Explore!

The Depths may seem like a barren and empty place for the most part, which might cause you to leave prematurely to explore the bright and populated realms above.

The story does call for you to visit the Depths as part of Josha and Robbie’s research or to complete the Temple in the Depths, but other than that, you aren’t technically required to explore it any further if you don’t want to. There are, however, several amazing things you can do and find down there if you’re willing to explore.

Collecting Schema Stones

The Yiga Clan is a returning scourge from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and they have taken over the Depths.

The Yiga Clan has set up several bases throughout the Depths, which are guarded by one or more Yiga Footsoldiers. Your mission at these bases, if you choose to accept, it is to take out these Yiga Members and gain access to their Treasure Room.

Within the waves of Yiga Clan Members at these bases, there will be one that holds the seal to open the door. Destroy that individual to break the seal and make your way to the treasure.

The treasure is usually a Schema Stone containing an Autobuild Recipe, which can be used to quickly and effortlessly build Zonai structures and can prove quite useful throughout your adventures.

Collect Better Weapons

During the Upheaval, all of the weapons on the surface became decayed and brittle. This decay didn’t reach far enough to touch the ones on the Depths, however, making it a brilliant resource for pristine gear. Weapons from the Depths have double the attack power of their decayed surface counterparts and are also far more durable.

If you’re ever low on weapons, taking a trip to the Depths and filling your inventory with pristine weapons should be at the top of your to-do list.

You can find these superior weapons on top of large rock formations. At the top of each of these formations, you will find a spirit offering you some sort of weapon. These weapons vary depending on your location and your progression.

Create More Energy Cells

All the incredible Zonai devices provided to you in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom require Energy Cells to power.

These are batteries that sit in the place where your Sheikah Slate used to be in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. You start the game with one of these Battery Cells, but collecting the rest of them is completely optional and up to you.

Although it is optional to increase your Battery Cells, it is recommended and truly makes traversal and combat a much easier experience. Horses are magnificent, but with Battery Cells and Zonai devices, you can make cars, planes, flamethrowers, and even orbitall canons if you’re particularly creative. All of these require Battery Cells to power.

You can collect these Battery Cells by mining Zonaite in the Depths. Zonaite can be found in ore deposits and collected as loot from defeating monsters below the surface. Once you have enough Zonaite, you can turn it into Crystallized Charges at a Forge.

Once you have enough of those, you can turn your Crystallized Charges into Energy Wells at a Crystal Refinery. The process is relatively long and quite complicated, to be honest.

If you’re having trouble figuring out the ins and outs of Energy Cells, check out our Energy Cell guide, which goes over everything you need to know in detail, but here is a rough guide of the amounts required:

• 3x Zonaite = 1x Crystallized Charge.
• 100x Crystallized Charge = 1x Energy Well
• 3x Energy Wells = 1x Energy Cell.

FAQs

Tears of the Kingdom Depths Guide: Final Thoughts

That is everything you need to know about the Depths without delving into too many spoilers regarding the Temple or other main missions you can find there.

Now that you know exactly how to explore the Depths, what to seek out, what to avoid, and what to do down there in the first place, the rest is up to you.

And hopefully, now that you know exactly what to expect, you are a little less anxious to go down there and explore for yourself. As dangerous and spooky as the Depths are in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the rewards you can find down there far outweigh the risks.