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The Master Trials, the first expansion to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, brings a new gameplay mode, a horde mode-style challenge, a couple new tools for exploring Hyrule and some new outfits and armor. That horde-mode challenge is more than just a test of strength, wits and endurance. There’s a big payoff when you make it to the end.
With this DLC, you can return to Korok Forest where you retrieved the Master Sword. Placing the sword back into the stone you drew it from will offer you the option to start the Trail of the Sword.
Trial of the Sword
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The Trial of the Sword is broken into three sets of (roughly) 15 rooms each. These are the Beginning, Middle and Final trials. Predictably, the difficulty increases with each set. Clearing the Beginning Trials’ set of rooms unlocks the second set and will let you start at the Middle Trials. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you should.
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The premise of the Trial of the Sword is that you have to survive on your wits and resourcefulness alone. Every time you start the trials (no matter where you start), you lose all of your items, meals, weapons, bows, shields and armor — but you’ll get them all back when you leave the trials. You are dropped into a series of rooms with increasingly difficult enemies. You are left with only your rune powers and your paraglider.
Once you clear all the enemies in the room, a pad will activate and allow you to travel to the next room.
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As you progress through the trials, you’ll pick up weapons, items and shields to help you defeat your enemies. This means that jumping into the trials in the middle might not be the best idea — you’ll be up against harder enemies without the benefit of gathering resources from the easier/earlier levels.
Some of the rooms will have puzzles, but since we haven’t seen them yet, check back here when the DLC is released and we’ll walk you through what you have to do.
So what’s the reward?
After you complete all three levels of the Trial of the Sword, you’ll unlock the true potential of the Master Sword. It will remain powered up and active — you won’t have to worry about it running out of energy any more.
