The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – How to Find and Defeat the Final Boss | Ganondorf Guide

Though the difficulty of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom might not be quite as severe as it was in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you’ll likely be surprised by how difficult the final run up to Ganondorf truly is.

A full-on gauntlet of neverending enemies and gloom galore, you’re going to want to make sure that you’re properly prepared before you head into the depths one final time to take down The Demon King. Don’t worry, though; we’re going to tell you everything that you’ll want to bring to the final battle of this massive game.

Other The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Guides:

Elixir Guide | Cooking Guide | Secret Mount Guide | Surviving Cold Weather | Surviving the Gerudo Desert | Beginner’s Guide | How to Reunite Koroks Guide |  Lookout Landing Shrines and Solutions | How to Solve Ekochiu Shrine | How to Solve Tajikats Shrine | Hylian Field Shrines and Solutions | Sahasra Slope Shrines and Solutions | Lindor’s Brow Shrines and Solutions | Ulri Mountain Shrines and Solutions | Eldin Canyon Shrines and Solutions | Best Healing Item Location | Rupee Farming Methods | Arrow & Bomb Farming Methods | Zonaite Farming Methods | How To Get Cold Protection | How To Respec | How To Unlock Autobuild & Camera | How To Upgrade Armor | Great Fairy Locations | How To Upgrade Horses | Horse God Location | How To Unlock The Dream Home Plot | How To Easily Find Bubbul Gems | How To Unlock Gerudo Secret Club | Gleeok Boss Tips | Giant Horse Location | Hylian Shield Location | Glide Suit Locations | All Purah Pad Upgrades | All Misko’s Treasure Locations | All Divine Beast Mask Locations | Gloom-borne Illness Quest Guide

Preparations for the Final Battle with Ganondorf in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Before you head into the chasm below Hyrule Castle, where you can find Ganondorf after defeating him in Hyrule Castle, you’re going to want to make sure that you’ve done a few other things. Firstly, make sure you’ve completed Mineru’s Dungeon in the depths, as each of the sages will be very helpful when it comes time for the final battle.

Next, be sure that you’ve got the Master Sword and have completed at least 100 Shrines if you don’t want to have your butt kicked too badly by Ganondorf. Third, you’re going to want to have the Travel Medallion so that you can set up a spot as close to the boss battle as possible in case you need to venture back to the surface for more supplies or to improve Link’s hearts or stamina for the fight.

Finally, be sure and bring some Portable Pots, Sundelions, and at least five to ten gloom healing recipes before you begin this perilous trek. It’s a long, hard road, and every single enemy down here uses gloom-based attacks that will permanently diminish your hearts. Furthermore, there’s no spot to heal and recover before the final fight, so you’re really going to want to follow our advice on this.

Before the Fight with Ganondorf

To start the final quest, you can either warp to a nearby Shrine and glide into the chasm below Hyrule Castle, or you can simply hover in by launching yourself from Skyview Tower. Either way, once you reach the bottom, you’ll know when you’re headed in the right direction because you’ll run into several like-likes as you’re gliding your way deeper and deeper into the earth.

As you go deeper, we can’t stress enough how badly you want to avoid fighting the enemies here. In fact, there are almost no battles down here that you can’t skip with a little bit of creative ingenuity. Essentially, what you want to do is quickly scan each room or area that you enter as you continue your trek to the end of the Hyrule Chasm and look for the quickest way out.

Use your abilities, as well as climbing, running, and jumping, to exit each room as quickly as possible and continue your journey. If you have a lot of bombs, this is the time to use them, as Bomb Arrows can give you a lot of breathing room from enemies. Save some for the fight before Ganondorf, though, because they’re very useful there as well.

There’s at least one section where you’ll have to either kill some gibdos in order to move onto the next room or maneuver yourself around them in order to clear the obstructions to the next area. There’s also one point where you want to use Ascend to reach the pathway out of the caverns and continue onward to Ganondorf. Aside from that, there are no puzzles or anything, so just keep moving forward, and eventually, you’ll find your way to the last chamber, where the boss fight begins in earnest.

Battling Ganon’s Legions in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Now you’re going to be forced to fight Ganondorf’s army. Luckily, though, you don’t have to do it alone. Though the five sages have been largely absent from your trek through the Hyrule Castle Depths, they will rejoin you here and help you to fight the army off. The easiest way to whittle down these foes is to shoot bomb arrows into them in big groups and then pick away at the stragglers.

In other good news, even though there are four groups to fight before you can move on to Ganondorf himself, they’re all enemies that you’ll have fought dozens of times throughout your playthrough by now, so they shouldn’t give you too much trouble. However, you will lose the five sages for a bit at the end of the battle. Once this happens, it’s a straight shot to Ganondorf, so this is the time to do any last-minute healing or equipment changes.

The Final Battle with Ganondorf Pts. 1 & 2

Phase One

Now you’re going to have to take on The Demon King himself. Your best bet for this fight is to use careful dodges, parries, and flurry rushes. Furthermore, it’s really important to try and get the timing right for these because Ganondorf doesn’t allow himself to get hit very much otherwise.

He will change his attacks based on which weapon he is using, and the spear is the easiest for dodging and getting a flurry rush in, as he charges you straight on with it most of the time. Also, you can shoot Ganondorf with arrows to help whittle him down, especially if he’s almost out of energy.

Phase Two

Now comes the hard part. Not only does Ganondorf get a massive increase in his energy bar, giving him more than twice the health that he had to begin with, but he will also spawn several copies of himself. Luckily, the five sages will return to aid you, and each takes on one of the copies, leaving you to just focus on the main man.

How you want to handle this part of the fight is up to you. For instance, if you help to take out a copy or two, those Sages will join you in fighting the real Ganondorf. Either way, though, the strategy pretty much remains the same here. You want to dodge, parry, and flurry rush as much as possible, and you can still knock him in the head with the occasional arrow for an advantage.

Unfortunately, halfway through, it’ll be just you and Ganondorf again. He’ll also get some more explosive attacks and likely take some of your hearts away. He also has a gloom-based attack that can snap a heart or two away for good, but by now, that shouldn’t matter too much. Just keep your dodge game tight, and those flurry rushes will put him down for the count in no time.

Battling Dragon Ganon in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Now you’re onto Ganon’s final form. Luckily, this is actually pretty easy once you figure out how you’re supposed to hurt him. He has four or five glowing pustules of gloom on his back. Your goal is to leap from the Light Dragon and land on his back nearby one of these before wailing on it until it disappears.

Essentially the whole battle is just doing this over and over again until the only one that remains is the red crystal between his eyes. There will be some cinematic moments as the two dragons face off with one another, but basically, this is all that there is to the final form, so if you survived up until now, you should be just fine. Also, don’t worry about falling, as the Light Dragon will catch you no matter what.

After the final battle, there will be one more quick time event that Link has to get right in order to save a certain someone. Make sure you use R to speed up your fall speed for this, and otherwise, just tap the action button when you get close enough to finally get the happy ending that these two heroes of Hyrule deserve.