Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom — How to Upgrade Health and Stamina in TotK

Upgrading Link’s health and stamina in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a fairly straightforward process, especially for those who played Breath of the Wild. Getting more hearts is a mandatory stat upgrade in the TotK‘s tutorial area and is required to get off the Great Sky Island and down to Hyrule. But how do you upgrade health and stamina later? Here’s what you need to know.

How to Get More Hearts and Increase Stamina in TotK

There are two primary ways of getting stat upgrades in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom:

• Defeating major bosses.
• Completing Shrines and turning in Lights of Blessing.

Defeating Major Bosses

One way to get more hearts in TotK is by beating some of the major bosses in the game. Defeating any major boss grants Link a heart container automatically.

Completing Shrines

This way of getting more hearts and increasing your stamina in Tears of the Kingdom is a bit more involved, but you’ll get far more upgrades. There are 152 shrines in TotK, and completing each one gives you 1 Light of Blessing. You can get heart and stamina upgrades by turning 4 Lights of Blessing in at a Goddess Statue.

Hearts or Stamina? Where to Find Goddess Statues

Goddess Statues can be found in major cities and at the Temple of Time. When you have the necessary Lights of Blessing and find a Goddess Statue, you’ll notice it glowing.

Pray at the statue to be presented with a choice: hearts or stamina. Pick the stat you want to upgrade. While the first upgrade is a mandatory heart to open the Temple of Time door, you can pick between Heart Containers or Stamina Containers any time after.

You can bring more than 4 Lights of Blessing to a Goddess Statue and upgrade multiple stats at one time, so you don’t have to keep going back and forth between the statues.

But that’s how to upgrade hearts and stamina in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. If you’re looking for more tips on the game, such as how to fast travel or how to complete specific Shrines, head over to our TotK guides page.