So you’re playing Tears of the Kingdom and you’ve thought to yourself: Surely there’s gotta be a better, more stylish way to reach those Sky Islands (or skylands, as I prefer to call ‘em). Well, if you have a bit of time on your hands to practice this wild trick some players have discovered involving a board spear (in other words a board fused to a spear) and a plank of wood, you just might be in luck—but this one will certainly take a few tries before you nail it.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a wildly impressive open-world adventure. While it features many a rich opportunity to go on fun side quests or simply check out some pretty vistas, the game’s physics and building systems allow for both predictable and unpredictable scenarios that are a delight to see in action. One such trick involves exploiting the Recall ability (which reverses time on an object) and Ultrahand (which lets you move and glue large objects together). By timing it just right, you can effectively throw a weapon, only to then freeze it in time, glue it to an object, then recall it again to transfer its reverse inertia to send you flying. I promise that you won’t need a degree in quantum mechanics to understand how this works, but it will take a step-by-step breakdown, so let’s go over it. You can check it out in action here:
Reddit user deep40000 also shows off their implementation of the trick here, which led one user to reply “Bro this could be the next speed run strat congrat.” It takes mere seconds to set up and can send Link soaring straight up into the air, so they’re probably not wrong on that front.
Here’s another instance of it from 8bitNostalgia on Twitter:
YouTuber Blize has also been able to get this trick working, this time with a Zonai Wing instead of a board:
How to send yourself flying with a spear and wooden board (or Zonai Wing)
To start, get yourself a spear (a long stick will work, but a spear seems to be far more reliable in my experience) and fuse a board to it to create a Board Spear. You might be able to forgo the board spear and just use a regular spear. For now the board spear just seems to make the weapon easier to grab mid air. Then position yourself in front of another board (or Zonai Wing) laying flat on the ground (the flatter the surface in my estimation, the more likely this will work).
Set your ability to Recall by holding L and moving the right stick to the right first. Then give yourself a little more than the spear’s length in distance away from the board and throw it. Aim high so the spear doesn’t end up too close to the ground. As soon as possible, hit the L button to freeze time. The timing of this is pretty critical as you want to freeze time before the spear clears the board on the ground.
Once you’ve frozen time, hover over the spear and hit A, then immediately hold L and select Ultrahand. This next step is by far the trickiest part: grab the spear with Ultrahand before it starts moving back to you. Then glue it to the board.
Hop on the board and activate Recall once more, this time specifically selecting the spear you’ve glued to the board. Send it back in time and hold your ground on the board with your shield raised or your arrows aimed to help with positioning. Once the spear moves back far enough, and you have the positioning correct, it should send Link flying.
I’ve yet to get this exploit to send Link flying up to the Sky Islands, but have had a few close attempts. I recommend trying out different types of ground as that might influence how the board kicks back when Recalled. Nailing the position and timing is tricky for sure, so expect to do a fair bit of troubleshooting, but you should at least be able to get a solid handle on throwing the spear, freezing it, and gluing it in position before long.
