Game Guides

Tears of the Kingdom's Indestructible Master Sword Glitch Breaks the Game

No need to worry about weapon durability ever again.

by Joseph Yaden
Tears of the Kingdom Unbreakable Master Sword
Nintendo
The Ultimate Guide to 'Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom'

A new glitch in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been discovered, which allows players to obtain an unbreakable Master Sword. Performing this glitch is a little tricky and requires you to duplicate items across multiple saves. If done correctly, you’ll circumvent the game’s most controversial mechanic: weapon durability. Plus, it’ll save you the trouble of having to complete the lengthy quest for finding the Master Sword. Even though it’s not an easy process, we highly recommend performing this glitch, as Nintendo will likely patch it soon. Here’s how to obtain an unbreakable Master Sword in Tears of the Kingdom.

How to Get Unbreakable Master Sword

1. Head to In-isa Shrine

Start inside the In-isa Shrine.

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Warp to the In-isa Shrine on the Great Sky Island (the tutorial area). It’s the westernmost Shrine in this area. As soon as you enter it, make sure you get an autosave. Then, you’ll want to make a manual save.

2. Start a New Game

Begin a new save and play until after the battle with the Keese creatures.

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After you’ve made your autosave, exit to the main menu and start a new game (don’t worry, it won’t override your manual save from before). Play the intro section until you reach the Keese section. Defeat them all and you’ll trigger a cutscene.

Make sure your manual save thumbnail looks like this.

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Immediately after the cutscene, open up the Load menu and check to make sure you have an autosave in the new game, featuring an image with Link, Zelda, and cracked boulders on the left.

3. Load Back Into the Previous Save

Now, load back into the manual save inside the In-isa Shrine and break through the rock wall at the start. Grab one of the nearby boulders, as well as the chest inside the center room (on top of a pillar), and Fuse them together. You can also use the small rock in the water nearby instead of the chest. Make sure to Fuse the chest to the top end of the boulder so it sticks out just a bit.

4. Move Boulder Against Wall

Attach a rock or chest to the boulder and position it just like this.

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Then, move the boulder to the wall just before the Fire Fruit area on the right side. You’ll still be in shallow water here. Position the boulder so the chest is even with the center vertical line in the wall. Equip a two-handed weapon, climb up to the chest, and make sure you’re touching the wall. Then, pause the game.

5. Unequip Weapon

Drop weapon, equip new weapon, and then pause and unpause.

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From here, drop the two-handed weapon, grab any other weapon from your inventory, and then unpause and pause as quickly as you can. Drop the weapon you have equipped, and then load back into the autosave from the intro (the one with the cracked boulders).

6. Load Back Into New Game

Retrieve the duplicated weapon from the stairs.

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Then, head forward through the corridor and then head down the steep stairs. If you performed the previous steps correctly, you should see the duplicated weapon on the ground. Make sure you don’t go down too far, as it’ll trigger a cutscene. If you don’t see the weapon on the ground, you’ll need to perform the boulder jump section again.

7. Head Up Stairs and Load Save

Stand in this exact location for the following step.

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Grab the weapon, then turn around and head up the steps. Look for a large step that appears bigger than the rest (like the one in the image above) and stand directly beneath it. Then, check the Load menu to make sure you still have the autosave from the In-isa Shrine, and make a manual save.

Then, drop the Master Sword you have equipped and equip the duplicated weapon. From here, pause and unpause quickly just like you did before, and then drop the duplicated weapon as well. Link will have no weapons equipped at this point.

8. Retrieve Master Sword From Shrine

Grab the Master Sword from the In-isa Shrine.

Nintendo

Load the In-isa Shrine autosave and head back to where you placed the boulder (you’ll need to break through the wall again) to find the unbreakable Master Sword on the ground. Make sure you make a manual save at this point to preserve your newly-acquired Master Sword.

Unfortunately, you can’t Fuse items to this version of the Master Sword, but there is a glitch you can use as a workaround.

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