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From the earliest moments in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, players will likely look for ways to increase Link's inventory space. Those familiar with the game's predecessor, Breath of the Wild, will no doubt remember how many times Link was faced with the dreaded 'You can't carry anymore...' message. Link will once again have to deal with his small pouches until he comes across Hestu, the dancing Korok who wields the power of inventory expansion.
In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Hestu's role is virtually unchanged. After successfully completing the tutorial section, Link will once again be set free in the vast open world that is Hyrule. After just enough time passes for Link to get frustrated at his serious lack of space, he will run into Hestu, who has once again lost the seeds to his wonderful maracas. This guide will explain where to find Hestu, as well as exactly what it will take to increase Link's inventory.
Updated August 28th, 2023: Finding Hestu in Tears of the Kingdom is one of the most important things that players can do in the earliest parts of the game. In order to increase inventory space for weapons and shields, players will need to find Hestu and fork over their Korok Seeds. Unfortunately, finding Hestu in Tears of the Kingdom can be a bit ambiguous, especially if players progress a certain part of the story. To better help players immediately find Hestu in TOTK, the following guide now includes a video.
Where to Find Hestu in Tears of the Kingdom
Link will not come across Hestu in Tears of the Kingdom until he has descended to the surface. After meeting with Purah, Robbie, and Josha, Link will have several options for where he will head next.
Eventually, Purah will inform Link that Hyrule's four main regions have reported strange occurrences, with Rito Village being suggested as the first destination. This is the perfect time to look for Hestu, as his first location lies directly in the path.
Hestu can be found northwest of Lookout Landing, near Lindor's Brow. His exact positioning is southeast of the area's Skyview Tower, at these coordinates: -1714, 1067, 0202.
He will appear to be scared, cowering in fear until Link comes to speak to him. This will begin the side adventure "Hestu's Concerns," which essentially requires Link to simply give him a single Korok seed. He will offer to upgrade one of Link's inventory slots in return. Hestu will only perform an upgrade twice at this location.
Once Link completes two upgrades, Hestu will give Link an extremely vague hint that he will be going east and that he wants to be around more people. With this, Hestu leaves, concluding his brief side adventure.
How Inventory Upgrades Work:
Hestu offers three categories for upgrades: weapons, bows, and shields. Each upgrade branch is only affected by its own upgrades, meaning that upgrades to bows will not affect the upgrade cost of weapons, etc.
The cost of upgrades will increase with each subsequent request and with the last several inventory slots costing a great deal of Korok Seeds. Link will have to scour the land of Hyrule to come up with all the seeds he'll need to upgrade his inventory fully.
Hestu's Second Location
Hestu can next be found in Lookout Landing. This will be the first location where Hestu will allow Link to continuously upgrade his inventory until he's out of Korok seeds.
Hestu can be found under a tree at the following coordinates: -0024, 0059, 0018.
Hestu's Third Location
Hestu's next location, possibly his last, is the Korok Forest. Once Link arrives in the forest and locates Hestu, he will stay in that location for the duration of Tears of the Kingdom. However, Hestu will only appear here after Link has completed his encounter with the Deku tree. Once that is complete, Hestu can be found at these coordinates: 0412, 2124, 0143.
How to Find Korok Seeds
FInding Korok Seeds in Tears of the Kingdom works much the same as in Breath of the Wild. While exploring, Link will come across a wide variety of situations that indicate the presence of a Korok. Here are several examples:
- A circle of stones with one (or more) clearly missing.
- A pillar with a missing section that looks out of place (new 'Ascend' encounters)
- A small, brown stump with the image of a leaf.
- A Single rock placed in unique places, like the peak of a mountain.
- An invisible entity moving around, often near shallow water, surrounded by 'sparkles.'
There are, of course, several more possible encounters that result in a Korok Seed. Tears of the Kingdom features another new encounter that sees a small Korok utterly exhausted after hauling a large backpack.
They will tell Link that they are trying to reach their friend, who is sending up smoke signals in the distance. Link will have to use Ultrahand on the surrounding materials to create a means of traversing the distance and is amply rewarded with two Korok Seeds. If Link spends significant time searching for seeds, he will usually come away with several.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available now on Nintendo Switch.