Pickup Slide

In a Pickup Slide, Link will move extremely slowly while ignoring all collisions other than basic ground checking, allowing Link to travel through most walls as long as there is ground beneath them. Unfortunately, because the slide speed is so slow, it can take hours of the game running to just get through a relatively thin gate or wall.

How To

To execute a Pickup Slide, Link is required to collect something that prompts the animation of Link turning around to show the item to the camera. You can achieve this by various methods such as rolling into a rupee, picking up a rupee with the Boomerang, or opening a chest. Depending on various factors not yet fully understood (see Notes below), Link may start very slowly sliding in a random direction, clipping any wall or object in his path. The slide will cancel as soon as the text box is closed.

Explanation

The reason Pickup Slides work is that during the animation of showing the item to the camera, Link sways back and forth slightly, but there appears to be a missing frame that would otherwise make the animation a perfect loop. Because of this missing frame, Link moves a miniscule amount in some direction every cycle.

Low% and Low Transforms use Pickup Slides to skip some items/transforms, but the technique otherwise has no uses in speedruns at present due to how long it takes to perform. For example, Low% uses a Pickup Slide to skip the small key in Faron Woods by using a blue rupee from a bokoblin to clip through a gate. Another use is clipping through the wall in the first room of Sacred Grove that normally requires Wolf Link to howl at the stone to remove: It is possible to bonk into the tree in the center of the room, and if a blue rupee falls, use the rupee for a Pickup Slide through the wall. Both slides take over an hour to perform.

Notes

  • Depending on the area, Link's speed during a Pickup Slide may vary, though it will always be extremely slow or completely stagnant.
  • It is currently unknown what factors are required for a Pickup Slide and what determines which direction that and with what speed Link will slide.

Pickup Slide through Faron Gate

Setup by Anorakkis

It is possible to perform a pickup slide through the Faron gate with the following steps, skipping one small key for Low%.

  1. Drop off of the ledge to set the angle to 25162.
  2. Perform a neutral roll
  3. Pause buffer until the frame where Link's skirt is the most visible.
  4. Hold right and unpause. Continue holding right until Link stops rolling. Angle should now be 13162.
  5. Move to the right side of the hill for greater consistency with turn-arounds.*
  6. ESS turn around to angle 45937. Target.
  7. ESS turn around twice. Angle should be 13169 after the first turn-around and 45992 after the second.
  8. Walk to the gate. At some point, perform a roll while holding perfectly up to snap the angle to 46002.**
  9. Kill the bokoblins.***
  10. If a blue rupee drops in a good spot, charge a spin attack into the corner and release.****

* Link needs to turn around clockwise each time, otherwise the angle will be wrong.

**Be careful about rolling to the gate. Neutral rolls are fine, and a roll holding up is needed, but any deviance from up will mess up the angle.

***It is possible to clip the bokos through the fence, which can sometimes get a better position for the blue rupee, but it is not necessary.

****Chances that at least one blue rupee drops are 60.93%. The rupee needs to land far enough from Link that the spin attack doesn't end early (i.e. Link starts the slide in a bad position), but not out of spin-attack range. If Link turns clockwise upon collecting the rupee, the ideal speed of -.007812 u/s on the x axis and -.003906 u/s on the y axis should be achieved.

After 1h13m, press A to clip through. Link's x position at that time should be -31483.5 or below. It is possible to press A as early as X = -31483.07.

Pickup Slide through Grove Wall

Setup by Ketsumomo

To achieve the fastest possible speed for a pickup slide through the first wall in the Sacred Grove, perform the following steps.

  1. Re-Enter or Restart Sacred Grove (Angle of 46968)
  2. Approach the gate while holding the angle (dry rolls and sidehops)
  3. Tap slightly down on the control stick to turn around (Angle of 14205)
  4. Buffer right for 12 frames (Angle of 8061)
  5. Hold L and approach the big tree
  6. Release L
  7. Turn Link around 4 times by tapping slightly up and down on the control stick (Angle of 8006)
  8. Buffer left for 1 frame (Angle of 8518)
  9. Roll to bonk into the tree
  10. Backflip immediately
  11. Throw a boomerang while holding the angle, using all five targets.*
  12. After throwing the boomerang, tap L to untarget the boomerang
  13. Tap slightly down on the control stick to turn around (Angle of 41296)
  14. Hold L and approach the gate again 15A. Hold the control stick up until Link gets the blue rupee 15B. If the blue rupee falls to Link’s left side, go around and pick it up while holding the control stick up-right.

This should give speeds of X -.003906 and Z -.007812 (Angle of 2703), which will allow pressing A to end the slide after 1h27m.**

* This setup works only for rupees that land on the side of the tree that the setup is aiming at (RNG).

** The point at which Link is clipped is approximately on the line z = -(654/305)x - 10760.455557. When crossing this line, Link will bob up and down. Once the bobbing is completed, it is safe to press A.

Pickup Slide through Poe Gate

Setup by Jeez, Link1183, and Anorakkis

Note: this pickup slide was obsoleted by the Displacement Clip through the Poe Gate.

To achieve the fastest possible speed for a pickup slide through the poe gate in Arbiter's grounds, perform the following steps.

  1. Place the pot so that its center aligns with the left edge of the brown (triforce) rectangle on the gate.
  2. Set your angle to a consistent value of 32768 using the ledge.
  3. Stand against the wall and pull the item wheel on the first possible frame.
  4. Hold right and close the item wheel. Angle should be 30768.
  5. Sidehop twice
  6. Head toward the gate. If you are using rolls, make sure to never hold up as your angle could change.
  7. Perform 4 turnarounds away from a wall. This should set Link's angle to the values 63573, 30864, 63691 and 31032.
  8. Head back in front of the gate and perform 2 target rolls. One of them should pause on the first frame, hold right and unpause to bonk after 2 frames, and the other one should pause on the second frame, hold right and unpause to bonk after 1 frame. These can be performed in any order. The 2 frames buffer will shift your angle by 1000 units, the 1 frame buffer will shift your angle by 2000 units. The resulting angle should be 28032.
  9. Break the pot using a slash.*
  10. If the rupee position is good, charge a spin attack in the corner and release. Otherwise, reload the room and restart from step 1.**

* Standing close to the pot tends to result in a smaller bounce. It is recommended to stand as far away as possible when slashing the pot.

** Bad rupee positions are rare with this pot positioning, but if a rupee gets the shortest possible bounce, it is likely in a bad position.

Last updated 02/18/2026 – anorakkis