There is a new type of damage in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – and if you’re not careful, it can really ruin Link’s day. We are, of course, talking about cracked hearts – damage taken from Gloom and Gloom infested enemies.
The operation of this new type of damage is simple. If you step on Gloom, you will take damage from Gloom – which not only reduces your current health/hearts, but also “cracks” the hearts, making them unhealable by normal means. Additionally, all Gloom-infested enemies also deal this damage whenever they manage to attack you.
For the most part, you’ll encounter situations where you’ll receive Cracked Heart damage from the depths – but that can happen anywhere, as dark enemies are sometimes also found in Hyrule proper and even in the sky.
On this page, we’ll tell you how to heal broken hearts in Tears of the Kingdom – both naturally and at no cost, and while you’re on the go.
How to Heal Cracked Hearts in Tears of the Kingdom
Once your cores are cracked, all basic healing items will only heal uncracked cores. This can be perilous, especially if you have a low Heart Meter to begin with, or are in a situation where you’re fighting off waves of enemies that deal Gloom damage. Quickly, the situation can become untenable, where a single blow can crush you.
However, there is help at hand. In fact, there is three ways to restore cracked heart damage in TOTK.
The first two ways are actually quite simple. First, you can return to the surface or to the sky. Once you are out in the open, Cracked Hearts will naturally heal at a fairly rapid rate. Once they are not cracked, you can eat food to heal normally.
Second, in the depths you can Go to a Lightroot. Interacting with a Lightroot or teleporting to one will restore your Cracked Cores to normal, allowing you to heal without leaving the depths.
There is another way, however – and that is by Cook sunny special meals. These are new to Tears of the Kingdom and exist specifically to heal Cracked Hearts.
Specifically, you’ll want to search for the sundelion item – a yellowish, shiny plant that grows at high altitudes. It grows in a few places in Hyrule, but the best place to get Sundelion is actually in the sky, or attached to chunks of landmass that have fallen from the sky all the way to Hyrule.
Sundelion is very common on Sky Islands – a quick, non-exhaustive visit to a few Sky Islands will easily net you around 20, and you can do this on every Blood Moon. Even without doing any specific collection runs, I never had less than about 15 in my inventory just picking them up as I passed.
Use Sundelion in recipes to make meals that restore cracked hearts. You can mix it with other recipe items for various effects – but as always, the more Sundelion you use, the more Cracked Hearts the meal will generally restore. Other ingredients can also enhance the restorative properties of the meal, as can ingredients that provide other enhancements or protections.
To survive the depths, your best hope is to cook a bunch of “sunny” meals, then take them with you on your caving missions. This way, you can heal yourself as and when needed. And – no spoilers – but you’ll definitely want a stockpile of these before the game ends.
