The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom adds more verticality in the much awaited sequel with the addition of sky islands. However, we’re all wondering, how do we get up there? Tears of the Kingdom comes with new abilities allowing you to get creative with how you travel. You can now rewind time, create vehicles, and even phase through the ceiling to reach higher ground. These abilities will either lead you directly to the sky islands or leave you just high enough to paraglide to your destination.
Read on to find out how to reach the sky islands in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom based on footage from Nintendo’s gameplay demonstration and official trailers.
Recall falling debris
Image: Nintendo
The first method shown during Nintendo’s March 28, 2023, gameplay demonstration is by using your Recall ability which allows you to rewind an objects movement. In this case, you can use Recall on the fallen rock to carry yourself up into the sky, and then paraglide to one of the nearby sky islands. Keep an eye out for any crash-landed objects on the ground as they might be your elevator up to a sky island.
Build a plane or flying contraption
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Image: Nintendo
Footage from the second official Tears of the Kingdom trailer shows Link riding a hot air balloon and a hovercraft. From what we know now after Aonuma’s gameplay demonstration, these vehicles don’t exist naturally in Hyrule; they were created using Ultrahand, a new ability in Tears of the Kingdom allowing you to fuse objects together. Gather some building materials and craft yourself an aircraft to reach the islands in the sky.
Ascend to higher ground
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Image: Nintendo
Another ability added in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is Ascend, allowing you to phase through the ceiling to get to the floor above. Of course this wouldn’t let you get to a sky island directly, but Ascend could be used to reach higher elevation on the ground or on another sky island to then paraglide to a lower sky island.
Launch into the air off of jump pads
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Image: Nintendo
In the final The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom trailer, Link is seen launching into the sky off of what seems to be a jump pad of some sort. A Rito is attached to Link by the hip and could be assisting him on his journey above. It is speculative, but Link seems to be shooting up into the sky for quite some time. It can only be believed that he is on his way to higher ground.
Blast off with a rocket
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Image: Nintendo
In the final trailer, Link ascends to the sky with the help of a rocket! We’re assuming that Link assembled the rocket with the help of either the Fuse or Ultrahand abilities, due to the fact that the rocket seems to be attached to an item on Link’s arm. It’s also possible that the rocket is an item found in the environment that you can use.
Update (April 13): We have added two more methods on how to reach the sky islands based on footage from the final trailer.
These are not the only ways to reach sky islands in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom as there are more undiscovered methods. We’ll update this post down the road with all of the methods once we get our hands on Tears of the Kingdom.
