One of the best things about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is that you can pretty much go anywhere and do anything you want. After completing the first Big Sky Island quest and landing in Hyrule, you’re free to run in any direction.
That being said, there are a few things you should do before you get too adventurous in TotK. And after completing the first few quests, you’ll find yourself with 4 new map points as part of the Regional Phenomena quest line that will guide you to each of the temples located throughout Hyrule.
While you can complete the temples in any order, the story naturally pushes you towards the Wind Temple first. Here’s the order we recommend for tackling Tears of the Realm dungeons.
First, start with the Wind Temple
There are several reasons why you should start with the Wind Temple before any of the other three temples. After starting the Regional Phenomena quest by mentioning Rito Village, NPCs will naturally point you in that direction. This is largely because going in this direction will naturally start a few important side quests along the way.
If you start heading towards Rito Village from Lookout Landing, you’ll find Impa near New Serenne Stables on Hyrule Ridge. By talking to him, you’ll start the Impa and Geoglyphs quest, which is very similar to the Captured Memories side quest from Breath of the Wild. After that, if you continue along the path, you should encounter Hestu, who is scared of some harmless-looking trees. After helping him, you’ll be able to trade your Korok Seeds for increased inventory space, and he’ll move to his second location.
After these two encounters, you can head to Rito Village. To enter the Wind Temple and take the game’s first Zelda dungeon, you just need to complete Rito Village’s Tulin quest.
Take the second Fire Temple
After completing the Temple of the Wind, you’ll remember Death Mountain in the center and you’ll want to return to Lookout Landing, where you’ll find a Goron to go to Woodland Stable to get an idea of where to go next. This should naturally lead you to Goron City and the second part of the Regional Phenomenon quest.
You’ll need to complete the Yunobo of Goron City quest before proceeding to the next dungeon, and you can check out our full Fire Temple walkthrough for tips on how to complete it.
Take the third Water Temple
Once you’ve completed the Fire Temple, you’ll want to return to the sentinel opening, where there will be additional side quests. If you talk to Purah, she’ll mention that there are monsters active in the South – this will take you to the natural Zora Domain.
Once you get to Zora’s Domain, you’ll want to talk to Chroma, Kira, and the third villager standing next to the statue and the slime-filled water. This will start the Mud-Covered Statue quest that leads to Zora’s Sidon, which you must complete before going to the Water Temple.
Take the last Thunder Temple
If you’ve finished all the other temples first, this will leave you with only one map point in the Regional Phenomena quest. You’ll want to head towards Gerudo Town where you’ll find Riju and begin the Gerudo Town Riju quest. After that, you can go to the Thunder Temple.
You can watch our video above to get to know the full Lightning Temple.
Looking for more Kingdom Tears guides? Check out our larger TotK guide for tips on completing all the main story quests in order.