So you’ve overestimated how much stamina you have left as you paraglide Link over Hyrule. Fret not: if you have a Zonai Wing from a Zonai Dispenser in your inventory, you’re in luck. While it requires a little bit of practice to get the physics right, safely dropping from your paraglider onto a Zonai Wing will restore your stamina and let you coast for some distance before you’re ready to take off again. With enough Wings, you can paraglide for almost forever. Seriously.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is set in a sprawling open world with massive heights and distances to travel. Like its predecessor, Breath of the Wild, TotK has a handful of light survival challenges, and managing protagonist Link’s stamina is one of them. As you climb surfaces, sprint across open planes, swim, and hang on to your paraglider to cross vast distances, your stamina metre will deplete. Once it runs out, if you’re climbing, swimming, or paragliding, you’re in a bit of trouble. While paragliding, you’ll simply start falling — and from a high enough distance, this will result in your certain death. But as it turns out, using one of the game’s newest devices, you can quickly regain your stamina mid-air.
How to basically paraglide forever with Zonai Wings
I first caught sight of this technique on Reddit, courtesy of user Temporary_Process_37. It all seems rather easy: deploy a Zonai Wing while paragliding so that it spawns under you, let go of the paraglider, chill out while your stamina regenerates. It can be easy to mess up if you’re not careful, though, so let’s go over it step-by-step.
Read More: Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s Paraglider Is Easy To Miss, Here’s How To Get It
For this to work, obviously you must have the paraglider, as well as a Zonai Wing in your inventory (I’ll highlight one place to find Wings in a bit). Also, until you get the hang of it, practice landing on the Zonai Wing with a quarter (or more) of your stamina left. At first, it’s easy to miss the landing, leaving you to fall further. Deploying a Wing in freefall won’t work, so you need to have some reserve stamina left in case you screw up. As you get used to it, you can pull this off closer to stamina depletion.
![Gif: Nintendo / Kotaku](https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/19/2d8088d82ca0eecd42990fe16fe918df.gif?quality=75?quality=75)
While paragliding, reduce your speed by leaving the left stick in a neutral position. If you’re pushing it forward to gain speed, you won’t deploy the Wing in the correct spot (same if you’re pulling the stick back), and you’ll fall. You’ll know it’s safe to deploy the wing when there are no vapour trails (the white streaks) coming off the ends of your paraglider. If you see these, you’re moving too fast. Push up on the d-pad and select the Zonai Wing.
If you’re going at the right speed, the Zonai Wing will deploy just before you, dropping low enough for you to safely land. You can chill out on the Wing for as long as you need, provided it’s going in the direction you want to be headed. Depending on your direction, jumping off the Wing is a little tricky as you might just end up back on it. Instead, to easily continue paragliding, simply walk off the Zonai Wing.
![Gif: Nintendo / Kotaku](https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/19/a04674f8609523b7126eaa6c70c2df8c.gif?quality=75?quality=75)
Where to find deployable Zonai Wings
Zonai Wings can be found scattered throughout the game, but you can’t just grab one and put it in your inventory. You’ll need to find a Zonai Dispenser. Toss some Zonai Charges into these and you’ll get a random assortment of orbs containing any number of Zonai Devices. You can get Zonai Charges from slain hostile Constructs (fast-travel back to Great Sky Island and smash up a few if you’re short and haven’t yet reached other Sky Islands).
The Zonai Dispenser in the starting area doesn’t have any Wings, but you don’t even need to go to a Sky Island to get one. You will need to have activated the first Skyview Tower in Lookout Landing and gotten the paraglider in the process. Once you’ve accomplished this, head to the east-most objective in the Regional Phenomena quest, toward Lanayru, and look for the Upland Skyview Tower. Once you get there, things will be a little sticky.
Along your way, you’ll likely spot pools of gunk. This nasty sludge that’s falling from the sky will be blocking the entrance to the Tower. But worry not, simply grab yourself a Splashfruit (they’re found all over the area on plants) and Fuse it to a weapon. Attack the sludge with this Splashfruit-fused weapon and you’ll clear the area (you can also help out the poor guy stuck under the Sludge just steps away from the tower with the same technique).
![Gif: Nintendo / Kotaku](https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/19/b8384b77b23e74ebac10d4116b1c771f.gif?quality=75?quality=75)
Enter and let the tower launch you into the sky (if it’s your first time at this tower, you’ll go through the terrain-scanning animation). Once you’re in freefall, look down to see a spinning orb; that’s where you want to go.
Read More: 15 Things I Wish I Knew Before Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Once you’re on the orb’s surface, walk around a bit to find the opening and drop down into it. In here you’ll find a Zonai Dispenser, a couple of Zonai Devices and the Jirutagumac Shrine. I recommend completing that Shrine as it will get you used to using Zonai Wings (and it’s a lot of fun).
![Gif: Nintendo / Kotaku](https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/19/9296565e200c9ce856e25f12d34c52e3.gif?quality=75?quality=75)
This dispenser will have some wings for you. Toss in as many Zonai Charges as you’d like to stock up on them. Tossing in just one charge will result in a random Zonai Device, so you might be better off tossing in two or three charges, if not more, to not only get more devices, but to increase your chances of a Wing dropping out.
To get out of the big orb, either jump through the opening you came in on, or stop the crank in the middle of the room by using Ultrahand and disconnecting the Zonai Fan. You can push the crank manually to position the exit just so. This is actually a good spot to practice the paraglide-to-Zonai-Wing trick
![Gif: Nintendo / Kotaku](https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/19/7f680bbdb9cc1862179e04847f633246.gif?quality=75?quality=75)
The great thing about this little technique is that it requires a bit of practice, so it’s far from a broken or cheap way to travel, and it can easily save you if you’ve poorly estimated how much stamina you have left. Remember, reduce your speed before deploying the Wing!
![Image: Nintendo](https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/19/d74c6857248e66d4cdf9929bfac43538.jpg?quality=75?quality=75)
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