Tears of the Kingdom: Koroks are the biggest enemy of anyone aiming for 100% map completion

In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Korok Seeds account for more than a third of the map completion rate—a fact that is receiving a lot of attention from players. It turns out that even in this game, Koroks are one of the reasons that players may be struggling to raise their completion rate. 

After finishing the main story in Tears of the Kingdom, a completion rate will be shown on the map screen. This percentage shows how much of the map has been discovered, including shrines and named locations. But it seems that there’s one particular element in the game that is a major source of trouble for players who are trying to raise their completion. As pointed out by the Reddit user below, Korok Seeds account for around 40% of the map completion percentage.

There are 1,000 Korok Seeds that exist in the game. 200 of these involve transporting Koroks that cannot move to their friends, so that means you get two seeds for each of these Koroks that you help. The remaining 800 seeds are obtained by finding Koroks that are hidden behind small puzzles. Some examples include needing to line up rocks or chase a teleporting flower. In total there are 900 locations where you can obtain Korok seeds. 

Now, each location that you discover in the game adds 0.04% to the completion rate, meaning that the 900 Korok Seed locations account for 36%. Several users who posted in the aforementioned Reddit thread had seen their completion rates stall at around 60% in large part because they had not found many Korok seeds. 

There were also 900 Korok Seeds locations in the previous game, Breath of the Wild, but in that game, each location added 0.08% to the map completion rate. This means that Korok Seeds accounted for more than 70%. Many of the players who aimed for 100% completion were surely searching for Koroks day in and day out. Going through such a harrowing experience may not have been without merit though, as when a commercial for Tears of the Kingdom was released before the game had come out, some players could immediately spot the presence of Koroks (Related article).

Although the Korok Seeds now make up only half the amount of map completion as they did in Breath of the Wild, the number of locations in Tears of the Kingdom is the same at 900. And while the 100 Koroks that you need to transport are relatively easy to find, the others are hidden away not just on the Surface of Hyrule, but also on the Sky Islands floating above. With this added vertical depth to the world, finding Koroks is potentially even more difficult than it was before. No matter the case, Korok Seeds are still one of the major hurdles that players must overcome if they’re aiming to complete the game’s map. 

Of course, the Korok Seeds themselves are items that can be used to greatly expand your pouch slots for weapons, bows, and shields. But to increase your pouches to the maximum size, you only need to gather 441 Korok Seeds. In other words, once your pouches are maxed, collecting the remaining seeds is only something worth doing if you want to achieve 100% map completion. Maybe you could say that 100% completion in Tears of the Kingdom is an accomplishment reserved for those who are willing to frantically seek out every last Korok.

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-08-08 18:46 JST)