Tears of the Kingdom: Wind Temple’s “hole” puzzle has players perplexed 

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom players have been racking their brains over how to solve a puzzle related to a hole in the Wind Temple. If you have yet to complete it, please be aware that this article will discuss one of the Wind Temple puzzles in detail. 

The puzzle in question involves a treasure chest found in the Wind Temple, which features a lot of verticality in its design. The chest is found in the south-east lower levels—an area that can be used to sneak into the temple from the side. The design of the puzzle is simple: the chest lies in plain sight but between it and Link stands a barrier of vertical bars. There is an opening in the barrier that is located at a height slightly taller than Link, and the player must devise a way to obtain the chest using this hole.  

That said, the simplicity of the design is also why it’s so difficult, and there are almost no items laying around that can help. A quick search on social media reveals many players are desperately trying to find any kind of method, however inelegant, to get their hands on this chest. Tears of the Kingdom has many moments when players will think to themselves, “I seem to have solved it, but I still don’t really know how you’re supposed to do it,” and this puzzle provides a perfect example of that experience.   

Twitter user @SuperSavajin had doubts about their own solution, saying, “There is no way this was the intended solution, right?” and if you search for “Wind Temple treasure chest” (風の神殿 宝箱 in Japanese) you will find many other players who are similarly perplexed. It appears that this hole in the Wind Temple really has players racking their brains. 

So how do you solve it? There are a number of approaches, but making use of icicles appears to be standard practice. The Wind Temple is brutally cold, causing icicles to form in certain places, and attacking these icicles will make them fall to the ground where they can then be used as objects. One method to get to the chest, as shown by @SuperSavajin, is to reach through the hole with an icicle and then connect the chest to it. Or you can also try combining the icicle with other items. In contrast to shrines, you can use Zonai Devices that you got from Zonai Device Dispensers here, so that’s another available option. If your solution includes going through the opening yourself, you can use Ascend to get out. 

It’s rather difficult to work out which solution to this puzzle was the one intended by the developers, but I guess you could say that a solution is anything that works. The way you become curious about how other players managed to solve a puzzle is one of the great aspects of Tears of the Kingdom. As for how I (the original author of this article) solved it, first, I took some icicles and bundled them on the ground below the hole to make a platform. Then I placed a cooking pot on top for extra height and was able to get Link to pass through. It was a rather crude approach that lacked creativity, but I have no qualms about it. If it does the job, then it’s fine in my book. 

Incidentally, although there are many players that remember this puzzle vividly, it appears very few remember the contents of the chest that they worked so hard to get.  

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is currently available for the Nintendo Switch.   

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-05-29 19:14 JST)