Any% (Gorge) (Empty LH)

This is the optimal Any% route.

If you are inconsistent at Morpheel/Zant without Zora Armor, then you might want to consider a Zora Armor route.

Runs should start with a blank file in slots 1, 2, and 3, as all files are used during the run. The route below specifies which slot to use for each save, but other variations can be equally fast so long as (i) the Bo house save is still available after saving in the entrance to Forest Temple and (ii) all blank slots are used by the end of the run.

It is helpful to watch a top run on the leaderboard for reference when learning, as this route document can only go into so much detail.

Playing on German (PAL) is optimal for this route. English (NTSC or PAL) is only 0.6 seconds slower than German, making both the NTSC and PAL versions of the game near-equally viable. French (PAL) is 5.5 seconds slower than German, but because no rupees are needed for Fyer on French, some runners may prefer it, and in practice the timings become closer if you accidentally get extra rupee text boxes while collecting rupees on non-French versions. See language rankings. If you are playing on French, ignore all rupees in the route except those used for tricks (gorge skip, poe gate clip).

Ordon

Faron Province

  • South Faron warp portal
  • Skip Faron Vessel
  • EMS
  • Skull Kid chase
  • Skull Kid fight (8R)
    🠋 Master Sword puzzle (LD UUU RR DDD LU)
  • Warp South Faron
  • Cross purple mist with lantern
  • North Faron warp portal as human or skip portal
  • Enter Forest Temple
  • Early Monkeys
    • Save on File 3 (if using save prompt buffer BiT in the following step, this is built in)
    • BiT behind load zone (save prompt buffer method is fastest)
    • Perform BiTE and load File 2 (outside Bo's House) to spawn in the King Bulblin fight
    • Set Early Boss Fights (EBF)
    • Note that EBF will remain set after Ook and will be reused on Deku Toad later. EBF will not remain set if the console is powered off or if Link voids in the outdoor room in Forest Temple where the monkey chain is.
  • Load File 3 (Forest Temple)
  • Kill one or both walltulas with deku baba nuts
    • Alternatively, try to climb past one or both walltulas (requires good RNG)
  • Light torches
  • Cross over monkey chain to Ook
    • Voiding at the monkey chain un-sets the boss flag, but it is still needed for Deku Toad later. If you accidentally void here, after the savewarp from boomerang, clip to Deku Toad instead.
  • Ook
  • Boomerang
  • Savewarp
    • [Iron Boots / Boomerang]
  • Warp South Faron
  • Faron Escape
  • Dash to Eldin
  • Postman Skip
  • Enter Eldin Province

Getting to Eldin Vessel (Gorge Void)

Failing Gorge Void incurs a reroute - see Addenda at the end of this page.

Eldin Twilight

Successful/failed Gorge Void routes merge here

Lanayru Twilight

  • Warp Death Mountain
  • Transform in the corner
  • Warp rock to Zora's Domain as human
  • Rutela Skip
  • Lanayru Vessel
  • Bug outside Lanayru spring
  • Lake Hylia warp portal
  • Stepping stones for bug (37R+)
  • Warp Zora's Domain
  • Wall bug and Rutela Skip
  • Waterfall Sidehop or drop down right wall to bug (40R+)
    • If you fail waterfall sidehop by not sidehopping at all, savewarp
    • If you fail waterfall sidehop by falling to the lower level, use Midna jumps to climb back up
  • 2 lilypad bugs
  • Bug on cliff (RNG rupees in grass) (45R+)
  • Listen to Iza for bug (47R+)
  • Down the river
  • Castle Town warp portal
  • Dash cancel through Castle Town
  • Castle Town bug
  • Warp Lake Hylia
  • Bug behind Fyer's house
  • Howl at grass
  • 4 Kargarok bugs, bonk, and press B to say 'No' to Midna
  • Last small bug
  • Boss Bug
  • Vessel complete

Going to Lakebed Temple

  • Warp Zora's Domain
  • Take 2 hearts of damage jumping down in outer Zora's Domain (57R+)
  • Head to Upper Zora's River (UZR) on land
    🠋 Upper Zora's River Howling Stone
  • Steal and Duplicate Lent Bomb Bag as wolf
    • If you accidentally trigger the fight as human and are trapped, savewarp and roll forwards x3 to try again
    • Do not need to talk to Iza at the end to fill the duped bag
    • [Boomerang / Boomerang] (automatic)
  • Warp Lake Hylia
  • Empty Lake Hylia
    • Skip Plumm cutscene and howl to start Plumm's minigame (watching the cutscene costs 6s)
    • Clip OoB and bonk to void out
    • If you entered with more than 1 heart and are still alive, JA to void until dead (backflip is 6f slower)
    • This death fixes the inventory and fills the duped bomb bag with 30 normal bombs
    • [Bombs / Boomerang]
  • Dash west and enter Lakebed Temple
    • Begin wasting normal bombs as you go, leaving at least 2 for Deku Toad
    • If you fail the bomb boost into Lakebed, deathwarp using bombs and try again; do not savewarp, as savewarping will refill the lake

Lakebed Temple

Midna's Desperate Hour

  • Transform wolf
  • Dash to Castle Town
  • Enter Telma's Bar through the door
  • Louise Glitch (saves about 1.7s)
  • Push box once and dash jump to window
  • Ropes in bar or rope skip
  • Poe
  • Enter sewers
  • Burn first web as wolf with stick
  • Transform at 2nd web and use lantern
  • Dig into hole
  • Bulblin archer
  • Exit tower
  • Early wind cycle
  • Zelda cutscene

Getting to Snowpeak Ruins

  • Ending Blow from golden wolf to your right against the wall
  • Warp Zora's Domain and exit on land
  • Jump down without taking damage
  • Enter Peak Province
  • Map Glitch
    • Alternatively, do wolfos superjump, which is faster in theory but is risky, difficult, partially rng-based, and hard to save time with RTA
  • 🠋 Snowpeak Howling Stone (only howl once, then leave)
    • With wolfos superjump, howling is not needed
  • Cave
    • [Clawshot / Boomerang]
  • Snowpeak Messenger Skip
    Blind snowboarding
    • Press B at Yeto's first text prompt to decline to go on a spiritual journey, as it adds more text
    • Try to mount the snowboard from as far away as possible, as this will make the snowboard's initial speed as high as possible
  • Enter Snowpeak Ruins

Snowpeak Ruins

Desert Province

  • Warp Lake Hylia
  • Get Memo
  • Jump down without autoroll to take damage (2 hearts)
  • Dash down to Fyer
  • Boomerang red rupee from front of Fyer's cannon (277R+)
    • [Ball & Chain / Auru's Memo]
  • Show Memo to Fyer and go to Desert Province
  • Get hit by three moldorms in the desert (0.5 hearts)
    • If you end up with 1.5 hearts, take a hit from Death Sword as wolf; if you end up with 1 heart, take damage from a bomb between Poe Gate Clip and the load zone
  • Enter Bulblin Camp without a boar
    • [Clawshot / Boomerang]
  • Map Glitch to King Bulblin
    • Dying with map glitch active is a softlock, so save in Bulblin Camp if worried about dying to fire arrows or King Bulblin
  • Enter Arbiter's Grounds as human

Arbiter's Grounds

  • Human entrance
  • Pull chain
    • [Lantern / Boomerang] between clawshotting chain and pulling it to automatically put clawshot away
  • Small key
  • Torch room
    • [Boots / Boomerang] between lighting torch and door to automatically put lantern away
  • Poe door cutscene
  • Poe gate clip (282R+)
    • [Clawshot / Water Bombs] between throwing the boomerang for the final time and the pot reaching Link
    • If at 1 heart, bomb boost into load zone (0.5 hearts); if above 1 heart, take damage from Death Sword instead
  • Boss key early (autoroll method)
    • Get blue rupee in the skull if needed - want 280R+ before warping the sky cannon
    • If traversing next room as human, get boss key now; if using wolf, get boss key on the way to Stallord
  • Full human movement after boss key
    • or stay wolf (roughly 2s slower)
  • Triple Stalfos Skip
    • Get 2R in pots in front of Death Sword's door if needed
  • Enter Death Sword
    🠋Skip or fight Death Sword (0.5 hearts)
    • If above 1 heart, get hit by Death Sword during phase 1 to take 1 heart of damage (0.5 hearts)
    • Skipping Death Sword and deathwarping is 18s faster than killing Death Sword and exiting the room (comparison), not including time spent damaging down (~5s optimally)
  • Spinner
  • Deathwarp with water bomb and spinner
    • [Clawshot / Spinner]
    • Die to Death Sword if low on bombs or high on health
  • Spinner to door
  • Epic spinner room
  • Open boss key chest if you didn't already
  • Spinner to socket
  • Enter boss room
  • Skip or fight Stallord
  • Exit Arbiter's Grounds

Getting to City in the Sky

  • Mirror Chamber warp portal with a bomb
    • If you didn't skip Stallord, you have to zoom in all the way on the map and press Z to enable portals from now on
  • Warp Kakariko
  • Early City in the Sky
  • Press Z to talk to Midna about cannon
    • Press B to say 'No' to Midna
    • Map warp to Lake Hylia
  • Boomerang red rupee from front of Fyer's cannon (300R)
    • If you are short on rupees, Fyer has 60
    • [Clawshot / Boomerang]
  • Pay Fyer 300R to fix cannon, enter cannon
    • If you have fewer than 2 water bombs left, open underwater water bomb chest after cutscene

City in the Sky

Palace of Twilight

Hyrule Castle

Addenda

Bomb management

Ideally, bombs will be acquired and spent as follows in this route:

  • 30 normal bombs after emptying Lake Hylia
    • 1 entering Lakebed
    • 1 Deku Toad
    • 28 wasted
  • 10 water bombs after clawshot
    • 1 Morpheel (required for route)
    • 1 Darkhammer (saves 1s over fight without bomb, including extra equip)
    • 1 deathwarp from spinner chest (saves 6.3s over deathwarping off of Death Sword's attack; only relevant if skipping poe gate)
    • 1 Mirror Chamber portal (saves 2s over fight without bomb)
    • 2 Zant (required for route)
    • 1 Hyrule barrier 1 (theoretically loses time compared to LJA - see below)
    • 1 Hyrule dynalfos (saves 4.5s over fight without bomb)
    • 2 extra bombs

The two relevant bomb backup chests post-Morpheel are:

  • AG epic spinner room: 10 bombs (+8.5s with poe gate skip; +10s without poe gate skip) - this chest will only contain water bombs if the bomb bag still has at least one water bomb in it
  • City entrance underwater: 15 bombs (+21s; always water bombs) - this chest always contains water bombs

However, since most Morpheel fights use more than 1 bomb, it's useful to plan bomb usage based on the number used for Morpheel. Note that the timelosses estimated below do not include the time lost to Morpheel, nor do they factor in Hyrule barrier 1 skip, which is theoretically faster than the bomb strat, but is difficult to do without losing time and is not widely known. This video compares bomb and bombless strats as well as getting bombs vs. not getting them for these scenarios.

  • 1-to-3-bomb: ideal bomb use as listed above
  • 4-bomb: skip Darkhammer bomb strat (+1s)
  • 5-bomb: skip Darkhammer AND Mirror Chamber bomb strats (+3s total)
  • 6-bomb: skip Darkhammer AND Mirror Chamber AND Hyrule dynalfos bomb strats (+7.5s total)
  • 7- or 8-bomb: get AG 10 bomb chest (as wolf; get boss key after spinner) and do all bomb strats (+8.5s)
  • 9-bomb: skip Darkhammer bomb strat, get AG 10 bomb chest (+9.5s)

  • 10-bomb: skip Darkhammer bomb strat, get AG 10 bomb chest (normal bombs) and City underwater 15 bomb chest (water bombs) (+30.5s)

    (⮤ return to route)

Backing up failing Gorge Void

The fastest route after failing Gorge Void is to return to do rupee roll, complete Eldin Twilight, then head to Lanayru and open Zora's Domain, and finally meet back up with the successful Gorge Void route warping to Death Mountain. In detail:

Note that because the route detailed above is only 9 frames faster than going to Lanayru before returning to Eldin after failed Gorge Void, some runners choose the slower option just to avoid having to skip splits on their timers. The 9 frames come from cursor movement on the warps from Kakariko Village and Zora's Domain. (⮤ return to route at merge point)

Damage routing

In preparation for deathwarping after Death Sword Skip, the damage route specified above is:

  • 3 hearts after SPR savewarp
  • 2 hearts after Auru's Memo
  • 1.5 hearts after desert moldorms
  • 0.5 hearts after Death Sword phase 1

An alternative damage route that is about 1.7s slower is:

  • 3 hearts after SPR savewarp
  • 4 hearts after getting heart from pot outside SPR
  • 3.5 hearts after desert moldorms
  • 0.5 hearts after KB3

Arbiter's Grounds route without poe gate skip

After the poe gate cutscene:

  • Enter left room
  • Poe 1 Skip
  • LJA to the door
    • [Lantern / Ball & Chain]
  • Stalfos with Ball & Chain
  • Light front and left torches
  • Poe 4
    • Backup blue rupee in skull if needed
  • Poe Scent
    • If you forget the poe scent and realize in the next room, void out to respawn at the poe 4 room exit; if you realize later than that, kill poe 1 in the main room for the poe scent
  • Leave room
  • Jump to the other side using chandelier
  • Push the large metal box 4 times
    • Only get red rupee from chest if very low on rupees - 255R or less may work as a cutoff for most people
    • Backup rupees include RNG green rupees at poe 3, guaranteed blue rupee in skull before Boss Key Early, and guaranteed 2R in pots in front of Death Sword's door
  • Main room
  • Pull chain, enter downstairs door
  • Kill redead, open small key chest
    • [Clawshot / Ball & Chain] (or equip Water Bombs over Ball & Chain if using bombs for triple stalfos before Death Sword)
  • Red rupee from redead (275R+)
  • Poe 2
  • Return to main room
  • Enter left room
  • Climb the destroyed stairs past the large metal box
  • Cross upper floor of main room on chandelier
  • Enter ghost rat room backwards (don't get the key)
  • Poe 3 room backwards (kill 2nd redead for red rupee if needed) (295R)
    • Try to get green rupees to reach 300R
  • Back to main room, enter big door
  • Get the boss key on the way to Death Sword
  • After Death Sword, savewarp and backtrack to Stallord (⮤ return to route)
Last updated 07/08/2026 – bewildebeest