What's the point of no return in Tears of the Kingdom?

October 4, 2023 2:19 PM

I'm still a simple mushroom hunter who enjoys wandering Hyrule, but I keep getting nudged towards actually fighting the bad guy and saving Zelda (who is right there and she seems fine to me but whatever). I'm at the stage where I believe I could go do the big final battle.

I'm curious about that, but I don't want to finish playing; I still have shrines to find, errands to run, outfits to try on, etc. If I go fight the bad guy will the game end? Or will I be able to go back to wandering the hills and skies and depths? (This is a Part 2 to my previous AskMe.)

posted by The corpse in the library to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (6 answers total)

Best answer: There's no post game, but if you load your save file after beating the game, it takes you right back to just before the big fight (and adds a small percent completed icon to the loading screens and map), so you can continue to play and do any outstanding shrines, side quests, etc.

So, the game ends and rolls credits, but your save file goes back to just before that and allows you to continue making progress until you decide to start a fresh save.
posted by asnider at 2:43 PM on October 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Yeah, it is the same as BOTW in that respect. I'm not sure if finishing the game opens up any additional quests like it did in BOTW but I'm pretty sure it won't stop you from finishing anything you hadn't gotten around to yet.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:04 PM on October 4, 2023

Best answer: You can go back and finish whatever you like. I did all the shrines but have a lot of side quests left over. YMMV but after beating the big guy I didn't feel super motivated to go track down all of the stable art etc for a little while; I'm only coming back to randomly exploring to cover some of the terrain I hadn't visited yet now, a good three or more months later.
posted by synecdoche at 4:35 PM on October 4, 2023

Response by poster: Excellent! Thank you.
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:50 PM on October 4, 2023

Response by poster: Warning to people who haven't made it to the end yet: that final bit is long. Give yourself at least an hour. And yeah, there's a big scene after the credits.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:02 PM on October 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

the big difference for me between these games is that totk keeps cutting off big parts of the game until I do these hefty boss fights. And I hate boss fights. I'm not good at them, I'd rather stay running errands and farming mushrooms.
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 2:53 AM on October 6, 2023