Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s most boring quest is also its funniest

Link’s list of unethical acts includes torturing Koroks, building war machines and letting an elderly man die from hypothermia and heat exhaustion. Tears of the Kingdom – The Legend of Zelda.

Two short adventures in Gerudo Canyon are the focus of the shenanigans. The two quests form a single adventure. Tears of Kingdom’s most boring and goofy sidequests, as Link bests a poor old man who challenges him to an endurance contest.

The names of the two quests are “Cold-Endurance Contest!” and “Heat-Endurance Contest!” To start the pair, you will need to climb Mount Granajh in Gerudo Canyon and talk to a man named Rahdo living near the summit. Once you find him, he’ll congratulate you on completing the trek successfully and challenge Link to an endurance test.

It’s simple. You just need to survive in the cold air environment for longer than Rahdo. To accept Rahdo’s first challenge, you’ll pay him 50 rupees, and you two will be off to the proverbial races. (I say “proverbial” because in reality you’ll just sit there and look at each other until one of you passes out.)

Rahdo is confident throughout the entire challenge… perhaps too confident. He tells Link that he likes the cut of his “jib” and then eggs Link on to take the challenge. When posing the test, he asks Link, “Now are you ready? Or will you bow to cowardice?” Mind you, this taunt is aimed at the same warrior who saved Hyrule and beat calamity Ganon himself — but, you know, go off Rahdo.

What follows is the world’s slowest and most boring quest with one of Hyrule’s most colorful quest-givers. All you have to do is wait on the tops of two stone pillars for each of you until you either pass out, or both of you die. You, Rahdo and the desert sun set are all you can do. You will wait what seems like forever to play an active game such as Tears Of The Kingdom Rahdo chimes in and says, “Halfway through at last.”

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

From start to finish, the entire challenge takes around eight minutes, and if you want to do the heat challenge, which is the exact same test but hotter, you’ll spend yet another eight minutes. This is the longest I’ve ever sat and played a game without doing anything. In that time I played a video game, petted my cat, looked at Instagram and got bored with it, responded to a text message about weekend plans, ate pizza, etc.

It was funny that, despite my best efforts, I still felt I had to cheat in order to complete this task. Link and Rahdo both strip to their underwear for the challenge. Link can keep the gear he has, like his shield, bow and sword. In order to defeat Rahdo I only had to Fuse a Ruby to my Shield to stay warm. Meanwhile, Rahdo would have to endure the weather. Rahdo is shivering so badly that it looks like a flip phone vibrating. He eventually falls in dramatic style.