How to get cold resistance in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomthere are many elixirs and special foods you can craft to give yourself special enhancements, including heating up and becoming resistant to the cold.

You’ll have to have cold resistance to continue around the Rito areas in Hebra, as well as the Gerudo desert at night, because you freeze and slowly lose hearts when you are too cold. To do this, you need to craft a handful of elixirs and foods that will give you cold resistance and help you stay warm.

Below we list some ways to become cold resistant, including elixirs and foods that you can cook in a cooking pot.


Cold resistance elixir recipes

For elixirs, you want to mix specific lizards and insects in a cooking pot with monster parts. The specific monster parts don’t really matter – as long as it says in the description that it can be used for elixirs, you’re safe.

You can use monster parts with a warm darner (Akkala Highlands or Faron Grasslands) or one summer wing butterfly (Eldin Canyon or Gerudo Highlands). At Tabantha Bridge Stable you can also buy summer wing butterflies from Beedle. Butterflies will run as soon as you approach, so be sure to sneak up on them relatively calmly to successfully catch them.

The more buggy critters you use, the longer the elixir will last. Based on our testing, the quality of the sample drop you use has no effect on the potion. Using a red Bokoblin horn had the same effects as using a blue Bokoblin horn.

You look a little cold my friend…
Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon


Cold resistance recipes

Cooking with spicy peppers (Hyrule Field and Gerudo Desert), hissing trout (Eldin Canyon and Hebra Mountains), sunbathe (Eldin Canyon and Gerudo Highlands), or warm saffron (Eldin Canyon and Gerudo Desert) add warming properties to your food.

The more of the specialized foods you use in your recipe, the longer the resistance to cold will be. For example, if we used five spicy peppers to make spicy baked peppers, we got 12 minutes and 30 seconds of cold resistance.


Using armor to become cold resistant

You can also use armor to become cold resistant. The Snowquill armor, which can be purchased from Rito Village, will give you more resistance the more equipped you are. The prices for the pieces are as follows:

  • Snowquill headdress: 650 rupees
  • Snowquill tunic: 500 rupees
  • Snowquill pants: 1,000 rupees

You can also buy the Ruby Circlet from Gerudo Village for 1,300 rupees to protect you from a level of cold. The couple Archaic warm greaves found on the Great Sky Island during the tutorial also provides a level of Cold Resistance, but it cannot be upgraded to gain more Defense.


Use weapons and tools to get warmer

You can also use specific combinations of weapons and fuse to warm yourself up, but you just have to rely on the above.

For example, you can run around in the cold with a flaming torch in hand to provide warmth, but we don’t recommend this, as Link will put away the torch (and extinguish the flame) when climbing cliffs or interacting with specific things.

You can also use fiery items like an Igneo Talus heart and fuse it into a shield, giving you some heat while it’s on your back.

Again, since tools break down and don’t last long, we recommend using potions, food, or clothing.