For much of The Legend of Zelda series, players could acquire a maximum of 20 hearts by picking up Heart Containers and Pieces of Heart scattered around the world. But with the massive increase in scope in Breath of the Wild came a substantial increase in players’ maximum heart count. Through diligent exploration, players in that game could increase their maximum hearts to 30, giving them a major edge in battles. It seems reasonable to assume that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom boasts the same number of hearts, but does it?
What is Tears of the Kingdom’s highest possible heart count?
As it turns out, Tears of the Kingdom boosts the maximum heart count even further from Breath of the Wild. Players begin their adventure with the usual three hearts, but by the end, they can reach up to a whopping 40 hearts, not counting temporary hearts gained from inns or cooked meals.
A large part of this has to do with the increased number of shrines. Whereas Breath of the Wild placed 120 shrines across the open world, Tears of the Kingdom ups that number to 152. Not all of these shrines contribute to the heart count, of course, as you still have the stamina wheel to think about. But that by itself still provides substantially more opportunities to augment your health, especially since the stamina gauge retains its three-wheel limit from Breath of the Wild.
Alongside the Lights of Blessing from shrines come the full Heart Containers obtained from dungeon bosses as per series tradition. There aren’t nearly as many of these as the shrines, of course, so they only contribute slightly toward the new 40-heart total.
Notably, Tears of the Kingdom does not allow you to obtain both 40 hearts and three stamina wheels at once. To fully maximize your hearts, you will have to forgo a few stamina upgrades at the Goddess Statues. If you want to change your stats around after the fact, then you can head to the Horned Demon Statue beneath Lookout Landing to trade your stamina for hearts and vice versa.
Screenshot by PC Invasion
