Zelda Tears of the Kingdom: Ancient Blade farming location & uses

by Alex Donaldson on 19 May, 2023

Many of the special items introduced in the previous entry are gone from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, replaced thanks to the intriguing new mechanics and systems of this latest Zelda adventure. In almost every case there is a new equivalent replacement, however - and such is the case for the Ancient Blade.

There's more to this ultra-rare material than first meets the eye - and the name might tip off players with experience of BOTW as to how it should be used. On this page, we explain the Ancient Blade, how you should use it, and how you can easily farm for more of them - as you'll definitely want a stock of them to hand.

How to use the Ancient Blade in Tears of the Kingdom

The Ancient Blade is a new item in Tears of the Kingdom - but its function is actually familiar. Here, we explain how to use them - and how to farm more.

While new to TOTK, the Ancient Blade is actually more or less a remnant of an element of BOTW - that game's Ancient Arrows. The look of the item resembles the Ancient Arrows, though this time it's described as "an ancient dagger-like blade". Functionally, however, it acts just like the arrows in BOTW. Think of it as an upgrade in the same way that the Champion's Leathers is a TOTK update of BOTW's Champion's Tunic (which reappears in TOTK as the Tunic of Memories).

Which means, yes, that's right - the Ancient Blade is a one-hit kill item. However, it's also a single-use item - so you should always think carefully about how you use it.

With 50 Fuse Power, it might just seem like one of the most powerful fusion items you can obtain in Tears of the Kingdom - but it's incredibly fragile, and only lasts a single use. The Ancient Blade can be fused to melee weapons to create a one-hit-kill blade, or it can be fused to arrows to create an effect that's more or less identical to BOTW's Ancient Arrows - one shot, one kill.

We can't stress enough, however - once the Ancient Blade fused arrow is shot from your bow, hit or miss, it's gone. Once your melee weapon fused with an Ancient Blade actually makes contact with an enemy, the enemy will be instantly vaporized - but so too will the weapon. So don't go fusing this to anything important or rare!

As in the previous game's arrows, the one-hit-kill nature of the Ancient Blade works on pretty much any 'regular' enemy in the game - just don't expect it to work on bosses.

How to farm and get more Ancient Blades in TOTK

Later on in TOTK, you'll be able to unlock this vendor, who'll trade you as many Ancient Blades as you like.

Now you know what the Ancient Blade does, you'll likely want to get yourself a nice little stack of them in your inventory for a rainy day or a pinch situation. While Ancient Blades can be found across the world of Hyrule in chests and as rewards for certain quests, there is one clear and easy way to farm them and obtain a bunch of them - repeatable and relatively exploitable. It will eat up some time, however.

Scan the Archer Link Amiibo

If you have access to it, you can scan the Archer Link amiibo that was released alongside Zelda BOTW back in 2017. This has a drop table of items it can spawn when scanned - but among them is the Ancient Blade, which is appropriate as this amiibo also used to spawn the arrow counterparts back in that game.

If you have the amiibo, great - if not, there are slightly naughty alternative methods you can look into, such as amiibo cards.

Trade Zonite for Ancient Blades at the Spirit Temple

This method will require story progression - but later in the game, an NPC unlocks that actually gives you the ability to trade the easily farmable material Zonite for Ancient Blades. You can trade 50 Zonite for a single Ancient Blade as many times as you like - which makes this very farmable indeed, albeit quite expensive.

The NPC will only be available once you clear the challenge that leads to the Spirit Temple. The main narrative of Tears of the Kingdom will point you towards the Spirit Temple later in the game - though you can actually find it earlier and 'sequence break' the intended order if you're so inclined. If you want to do that, the quest for the Spirit Temple begins on Dragonhead Island, which is a floating isle in the stormy skies above Faron in the south-east of Hyrule.

Down in the Depths, the Spirit Temple itself is also found under Faron. After clearing the temple, there'll be two constructs at the coordinates 1335, -3365, -0737. One of these constructs sells you rare Zonai weapons, while the other will offer you the Ancient Blade trade.