The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild feels dangerous again with these 7 challenges

Walk softly and carry a Boko Stick.

The wait between Zelda games feels a lot longer than it once did. With Nintendo now taking several years to craft each new entry, the resulting release gap leaves players to make the most of what they already have available.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a huge game, and one of the best options. A single run might easily enter the triple digits, especially for players who make gathering Korok Seeds their life’s work. There’s also the Master Quest DLC to keep the adventure going. But after that, additional journeys in Hyrule are most interesting for players who are willing to play in exciting new ways. Here are seven ways to bring the danger back to Hyrule, even after you’re a battle-hardened hero.

1 Head directly for the final showdown as soon as possible

Breath of the Wild gives you a huge world to explore, but there’s no rule saying you absolutely must. It’s possible to travel directly to Hyrule Castle, after first touching down on the surface. You’ll encounter a boss gauntlet best faced with quality armor, restorative items, improved weaponry, and prior experience. Your journey to that destination near the very start of your next run removes all of those advantages except for the last one. You’ll have to scavenge whatever you can find along the way, saving the best gear to use a little later as you deal with standard mobs that can wipe you out with a single lucky hit. Some people enjoy that sort of thing.

2 Never acquire the Master Sword

One complaint people level against Breath of the Wild is the lack of permanent weapons. You might find a wicked cool sword, but when you hit enough enemies in short order, it will break like a glass bottle. The Master Sword is a happy exception to that rule. Once you acquire it, you can use it until its magical energy depletes. Then you simply have to wait for it to recharge and it’s ready for action once more. The availability of that weapon late in the campaign addresses one of the biggest gripes fans have with the game. It also removes much of what makes some battles so harrowing. Therefore, if you’re looking for a proper challenge, consider just leaving the blade in the Lost Woods where it belongs.

3 Don't eat hearty meals

Link explores the wilds of Hyrule, where he might go a long while without visiting a town for sustenance. Fortunately, he can build a campfire and cook up ingredients like vegetables, fish, and mushrooms. Then he can pull those meals out in the middle of battle when he needs a boost, as with potions in the original game. Some of the dishes he prepares offer unusual benefits, including yellow heart containers that temporarily extend his life meter beyond its regular limits. To make them, he’ll need to find and prepare “hearty” ingredients. For your run, you should avoid such fare entirely. It’s simply too useful for your purposes, and can turn even the final boss into a weakling.

4 Ignore Link's health and stamina upgrades

As you progress through the game, you’ll clear shrines and find Spirit Orbs that you can exchange at statues of the goddess to extend your stamina wheel or life meter. Such upgrades give you a fighting chance against the worst of the monsters that wander the fields and forests outside of town. If you want a greater combat challenge, or if you want to limit how many mountains you can climb without bringing along a lot of potions and a definite plan of action, skip the statues entirely. Or, if tiny stamina wheels make exploration too tedious, at least avoid enhancing your life meter.

5 Parasail only when absolutely required

Near the start of the adventure, you acquire a cloth you can use to sail through the air, free as a bird (at least until you run out of stamina). It’s your ticket to the surface from the Great Plateau. But after that initial drop, you don’t ever have to use it again. You likely pulled it out quite often during your first run through the game, and used it to sail over enemies or cross long distances in a hurry. It made reaching distant destinations a breeze. So, you can change the experience quite a lot if you insist on going everywhere on foot or horseback instead. Suddenly, enemy mobs you trounced the last time around will try to exact sweet revenge. That’s exactly what you want.

6 Turn off the map HUD

Players may spend hours crossing Breath of the Wild’s expansive world on foot. If you’re not paying close attention, you’ll wind up lost in the middle of nowhere, with only a map to direct you back to the nearest village or shrine. If you prefer, you can limit your reliance on such conveniences. Disable the HUD and you’ll suddenly see Hyrule in a new light. Landmarks suddenly matter. The world feels lived-in and dangerous, because it’s no longer just a series of fields you have to cross on the way to a town your map tells you is waiting on the other side. Some people might argue that a journey without a map is the way you should have played the game all along. But they also tend to argue against conveniences like fast travel, so do with that information what you will.

7 Disable all Champions abilities

As you venture through Hyrule, you’ll eventually find and battle Champions. Upon defeating them, you acquire new abilities that make the game much easier. For example, Mipha’s Grace revives you once per 24-minute period, should your health drain completely. Daruk’s Protection brushes aside several powerful enemy attacks like they’re nothing. That kind of power eliminates a lot of risk and makes your adventure considerably less dangerous. The easy solution is to disable them from the menu, if you even bother to unlock them in the first place. You might simply prefer to avoid the Champions, which also helps achieve your current aims by making boss encounters in the final dungeon considerably more difficult.

---

Players have been inventing new challenges in Zelda games going right back to the very beginning. Did you know it’s possible to reach the final battle with Ganon in the original NES game without ever grabbing a sword? That freedom extends to the most recent entries. For instance, you can finish Tears of the Kingdom without ever heading to the surface, if you try hard enough. People have done both of those things, and more besides.

Whatever challenge you set for yourself the next time you play Breath of the Wild, you might be surprised by how much a few restrictions or subtractions add to the experience. Adventure never has to die. Sometimes, it just needs to evolve.