Tears of the Kingdom – How to Find & Unlock All Elite Enemies

Exploring Hyrule is one of the most enticing facets of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, as you can find tons of unique citizens living throughout the kingdom. But be wary, as the grassy plains and snow-covered hillsides are crawling with terrifying monsters. Some of these creatures are worse than others, and you can spot how difficult they are by their color.

The more powerful enemies in Tears of the Kingdom are the Silver foes, which are some of the toughest combatants that you can find. Thankfully, these creatures do not show up immediately, and you need to finish a specific task to bring them out. Here’s what you need to know about how to find all elite enemies and their entries in Tears of the Kingdom.

How Elite Enemies Start Spawning in Tears of the Kingdom

The Elite Enemies in Tears of the Kingdom have two phases where they start to appear. They initially begin to populate the world after you acquire the Master Sword. The Master Sword is lost to Link at the beginning of TotK but can be unlocked by landing on the front of the Light Dragon and having at least two full wheels of Stamina. After this and a brief cutscene, the Master Sword is available and can be freely used as one of your weapons.

Alternatively, the Light Dragon becomes easier to track after finding all of the Geoglyphs, which are scattered throughout Hyrule Kingdom. Tracking these locations and unlocking the memories at each of them brought us one step closer to the Light Dragon.

This introduces the first wave of elite monsters. After I began running around with the Master Sword, I started to find Silver Bokoblins, Horriblins, and nearly every type of monster had a distinctly silver variation to it, thrown in alongside the standard enemies I had been fighting.

The Silver versions of every monster in Tears of the Kingdom hits a lot harder, making a fight against these foes a much more dangerous engagement throughout the rest of the playthrough.

The second wave of monsters, and when you can start purchasing their Compendium entries from Robbie at the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab, is by defeating the final boss. We don’t want to get into too many spoilers regarding this portion of the game, but the final boss will have three different forms you battle through during the end of the game, and there’s a final cutscene to close out the game. After you reach this point, Elite Enemies should be much easier to find, even before using the Master Sword.

And that’s it! Check out our other The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom guides below to help with crafting, exploring, and tackling challenges across Hyrule.

Tears of the Kingdom Complete Guide | Every Ability & How To Unlock Them | How to Get The Paraglider | How to Get & Use The Travel Medallion | All Armor Locations & Where to Find Them | All Construct Materials & Where to Find Them | All Shrine Locations & Strategies | How to Get More Heart Containers