How to beat Ganondorf in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
The Demon King himself.
So, you’ve managed to bring together the various regions across Hyrule and retrieve your restored weapon at long last in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. This means there’s only one thing left for Link to do, and that’s destroy Ganondorf.
Finding Ganondorf is a perilous journey down into The Depths again, and there’s plenty of enemies along the way to stop us from reaching him. But with some perseverance, here’s where to find and how to beat Ganondorf in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Where to find Ganondorf in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
After having retrieved the Master Sword from the head of the Light Dragon, the first thing you ought to do is return to Lookout Landing and speak with Purah.
This will kick off the ‘Destroy Ganondorf’ quest. Now, we just need to work out where the Demon King is hiding. He is, of course, somewhere in The Depths underneath Hyrule Castle.
Before heading down there, I highly recommend stocking up on meals that will restore your health and heal any Cracked Hearts; there’s a lot of gloom down here for us to run into. I farmed Sundelions across the Sky Archipelago’s to make into plenty of meals that’ll restore cracked hearts prior to this.
You should’ve already paid a visit to the Serutabomac Shrine at the castle during the Crisis at Hyrule Castle quest, so fast travel over there and hop down to the ground level. You then want to dive into the chasm beneath the castle while facing north.
If you’re facing north as you descend into the Hyrule Castle Chasm, you’ll see a Lightroot on your way down that we want to head towards. This is the Camobatures Lightroot; activate it. In case you get lost, the Camobatures Lighroot is at -0177, 1169, -0515.
Now, face the west and jump down to the very bottom of the chasm. To the south will be a cavern that has three Shock Likes within it. You can kill them if you want, but I recommend gliding past them for now.
Following the Shock Likes, you’ll come to an area with four Black Horroblins. Kill them, as they’re easy enough to take out, and keep on heading south. When you come to the cliff-face, climb up it.
The next area will now contain Electric Keese. Kill them off and press forward. When you drop down into the next area, there’ll be a Silver Lynel.
Lynel’s also aren’t worth fighting right now. You can fight as many foes down here as you want, but I recommend saving your meals and hearts for when we finally meet up with the Demon King.
From the Lynel, if you look to the left, you’ll see our next path illuminated by lanterns. If you don’t fancy fighting the Lynel, just glide on over there and climb up.
In this area, the platform beneath us will crumble and fall. Fall down with it, and then head east. You’ll find some falling blocks here, too; climb atop one and use Recall on it.
From this area, follow the path to our right. You’ll soon come to an opening with a bunch of Ice Likes and Ice Keese to our left. We want to make our way past these guys. You’ll then come to another drop with more Keese and Lizalfos around the place; ignore them and dive down to the bottom.
Upon reaching the bottom, there’ll be two more Lizalfos, and a very unfortunate message; ‘The power of a sage cannot reach you.’ Yeah, that’s right. We no longer have our summons to assist us down here; it’s just Link and the Master Sword from here on out.
We now want to head north towards the broken bridge that the Silver Moblin is guarding, but we’ll need to build a flying glider to help us cross the gap. So, kill the Lizalfos so that they don't get in our way, and get building.
If you fall, you'll want to climb back out as quickly as possible, or else you're going to be at the perils of some unruly Gloom Hands.
Fight the Moblin on the other side of the bridge if you want, but again, I recommend running straight past him and taking a left. You’ll now arrive in the Forgotten Foundation. You’ll run into some Gibdo next, and a Silver Bokoblin. Take out the Bokoblin first, and then kill the Gibdo using Electric Chu Chu Jelly or Shock Fruit fused to your arrows.
The following doorway will be blocked by stone; destroy this using either Bomb Fruit or a hammer weapon.
The next room will be very familiar, as it’s where both Link and Zelda were at the very beginning of the game! That is, before all hell broke loose. Destroy the breakable rocks around the room to reveal more of the mural, and another doorway to our right.
We’re soon approaching the Demon King, so now is the best time to prepare yourself! If you’re low on food or your armor isn’t up to scratch, place a Travel Medallion down here for a convenient fast travel location.
If you don’t yet have the Travel Medallion, here’s to hoping you’ve enough food to save scum your way through this, or else you’ll have to trek back down here all over again. Also, once you start the fight with Ganondorf, you aren't actually able to leave; you'll have to load a previous save and try again.
Once you reach the Imprisoning Chamber, dive down to reach Gloom’s Lair again.
How to beat Ganondorf in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Once down in Gloom’s Lair, head south. When you reach the ledge, dive down again.
Enjoy the small cutscene, which sees all five of our summons coming to Link’s aid again for this fight. Wahey!
This particular fight is made up of a few phases, and we won’t be meeting with Ganondorf until the final one.
Phase 1 - The Demon King’s Army
The first phase consists of The Demon King’s Army, which will pit us and our summons against an assortment of foes from around Hyrule. We’ll start out with Bokoblins, and once we whittle the army down to half of their health, we’ll need to fight some Lizalfos. We’ve tackled plenty of these around Hyrule and have our Sages with us, so they’re no issue.
Once the army is then at a quarter of its health, we’ll have to quickly take on some Gibdo, which are no problem whatsoever with Riju by our side. Last, but not least, we’ll have to take on Moblins. These are a bit tougher than Bokoblins and Lizalfos, but ultimately, still no issue for Link and his army of Sages.
Phase 2 - Temple Bosses
The second phase of this fight is entirely avoidable if you completed all four Regional Phenomena and their respective boss fights; Colgera, Marbled Gohma, Mucktorok, Queen Gibdo, and the Seized Construct.
It functions as a punishment, somewhat, for having not helped a region and prepared yourself for this fight with Ganondorf. But in turn, also ensures you're not going ghead-to-head with Ganondorf without a full team by your side. So, if you didn’t beat any of those foes for whatever reason, you’ll be forced to tackle them now.
If, on the other hand, you completed all five boss fights associated with each temple and Sage, you won’t have to worry about this second phase whatsoever. There’ll be a small cutscene featuring all five Sages, and then you’ll be able to immediately crack on with beating the Demon King himself.
Also, the good news is that if you do have to fight a temple boss here, you’ll unlock the ability to summon their associated Sage afterwards. So, either way, you’ll be fighting Ganondorf with five Sages by your side.
Phase 3 - Ganondorf, The Demon King himself
Make your way north to the end of the chamber to rendezvous with Ganondorf. Believe it or not, the fight with the Demon King himself consists of yet another three phases.
- Demon King Phase 1 - Human Ganondorf
The first phase sees us go up against Ganon in his normal form, with all of his attacks dishing out Gloom damage. He’ll act exactly as Phantom Ganon did, so our main goal here is to lock onto Ganon, dodge his attacks in a timely manner, and Flurry Rush attack him back.
The only issue is that he now will change what weapon he’s using, so you’ll want to pay attention to his weapon type and dodge accordingly. With his sword, dodge backwards. With his club and spear, dodge to the side.
When he uses a club, he’ll also be able to fire out projectiles that can permanently rob Link of hearts, so be mindful of these. In addition, whenever he begins to charge up and there’s an updraft around the room, glide up immediately to avoid Ganon’s devastating blast of Gloom. You can then use arrow attacks while gliding downward for some easy hits.
Whenever you do find yourself succumbing to Gloom, you want to consume any meal that can restore your Cracked Hearts; Sundelion is a key ingredient for this, if you unfortunately don’t already have any.
- Demon King Phase 2 - Ghostly Ganondorf, with ghostly friends
The second phase of the Ganondorf fight gave me quite the shock. Following a cutscene, he’ll reappear in ghostly, Gloom-ridden form with a health bar so huge that it might as well go off the screen entirely. He’ll also have some ghostly friends with him, but fortunately, our Sages will also slowly reappear and can take care of those!
At half health during this phase, he’ll send his ghostly friends away, as well as your Sages… Not good. This time around, Ganondorf unveils a few more new attacks. During this stage of the fight, he’ll be wielding a Gloom Sword two-handed for the most part. Continue to look out for updrafts and avoid his gloom blast whenever he charges up the attack.
Ganondorf will now be able to fire arrows, and yes, these will deal Gloom damage. On top of that, he’ll also continue fire out projectiles that will permanently destroy Link’s hearts. He can form a circle of these projectiles that will hurt Link if he doesn’t escape them immediately, too, much like the Marbled Gohma’s circle of rocks that would explode on us.
This isn’t going to be easy, but stay calm and continue to dodge Ganon’s attacks as you already were. If you repeat what we have been doing throughout our fights with Ganon - dodge and Flurry Rush - you’ll be able to get through this phase in little to no time at all. You just have to bear in mind that Ganon can now dodge and counter-attack us, meaning you’ll have to time two dodges in a row perfectly.
If anything, this portion of the fight is the hardest out of this entire ordeal; everything after this is a breeze.
- Demon King Phase 3 - Demon Dragon
Now, the third phase of this fight will no longer be in The Depths. Following a brief cutscene, you’ll find yourself atop the Light Dragon with your hearts restored finally. Now, we’ll be taking on the Demon Dragon.
Once you manage to destroy a carapace, quickly jump from the Demon Dragon’s back; if he manages to throw you off first, you’ll take some damage in the process. You’ll want to take caution walking on the Demon Dragon’s scales, as these will cause your hearts to crack. You might also be worried about falling off the Demon Dragon, but we’ve got the Light Dragon here for a reason; they’ll swoop in and collect Link when needed!
As for the Demon Dragons’s attacks, he’ll fire projectiles at Link that we’ll have to try to dodge. These aren’t too bad whatsoever and can be easily avoided. Once you finally destroy three of the four carapaces, however, he’ll have a shiny new attack to show off.
This attack involves summoning the Blood Moon that we all love to hate, but it ultimately does us a favour by casting a light on the fourth and final carapace we ought to attack; the Demon Dragon’s head! This also means the projectiles that the Demon Dragon was firing at us are now Gloom-enhanced.
The Demon Dragon will continue to fire projectiles now, so continue avoiding them while going to land on the dragon’s head. Once landed, wail away at the glistening stone in his head. A few hits, a final attack, and the fight is finally over.
Your last job now is to enjoy the cutscenes (which involve a few button presses).
A suitably epic end to a suitably epic adventure, don’t you think? Link has now successfully saved Hyrule, and it’s time for us to be reunited with Princess Zelda. Well done for making it this far. Now, you can enjoy everything else Hyrule has to offer without the looming threat of Ganondorf watching over you.
For more on Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, complete the Lucky Clover Gazette quests, go about using your Bubbul Gems, and make sure you’ve acquired the Shrine Sensor so you can seek out every shrine in Hyrule!