TOTK Walkthrough and Guide Updated: Don’t Miss These Crucial Exploration Upgrades
Unlock the Purah Pad's full potential with these crucial upgrades.
As you explore Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, you’ll have the ability to upgrade your Purah Pad – a Key Item unlocked at the start of the game – by exploring, conquering challenges, and completing Main Quests and Side Adventures. These crucial upgrades, which all make Hyrule easier to explore, come in the form of a Camera, Autobuild, Fast Travel Medallion, and much more.
Here’s a complete list of all upgrades you can unlock for your Purah Pad in TotK.
Unlock the Purah Pad's Full Potential With These Key Upgrades
Once you have obtained the Purah Pad from the Steward Construct during the Prologue - Beneath Hyrule Castle, we recommend completing the following quests in order to unlock some crucial upgrades that can significantly enhance the Purah Pad’s abilities. Do note; the following upgrades must be completed in order unless stated otherwise:
Camera
After obtaining the Paraglider, you’ll unlock the Main Quest, Camera Work in the Depths. This quest will send you deep into the Hyrule Field Chasm, where you’ll be tasked with finding Robbie, who has run off into the dark of The Depths.
Before exploring the depths, be wary of the Gloom that lurks inside, as this ominous black and red sludge can make exploring The Depths quite dangerous. Thankfully, you can learn more about how to heal from gloom damage and even resist it in our helpful guide.
Once you’ve finally tracked down Robbie, he’ll activate the Purah Pad’s camera, allowing you to snap photos, entering them in your Hyrule Compendium, taking selfies – and most importantly, it can be used on important objects that can be shown to others to resolve Quests.
- See our walkthrough guide for more details on how to unlock the camera.
Autobuild
If you’re tired of rebuilding all your favorite creations from scratch, you’ll want to unlock Link’s last ability, Autobuild. This Purah Pad upgrade allows you to instantly re-create your Ultrahand projects, using nearby items and zonaite.
Furthermore, this upgrade will save your last 30 creations in a History tab, allow you to favorite your most-used devices, and even unlock new schematics (blueprints) for inventions you may not have considered.
To unlock the Autobuild ability, you’ll want to have started the A Mystery in the Depths main quest, which is unlocked after Camera Work in the Depths. In addition, you’ll also need to have completed at least one of the Temples encountered during the Regional Phenomena Questline.
During A Mystery in the Depths, Link will be tasked with following a trail of statues through the darkened region below Hyrule. When reaching the giant structure by the Great Abandoned Central Mine, you’ll awaken a Construct who will pass along his special ability: Autobuild.
While we don’t necessarily recommend it, you can unlock the Autobuild ability much earlier if you know where to go.
- Check out our comprehensive guide on how to unlock the Autobuild ability early for more details.
Shrine Sensor
The Shrine Sensor is a huge Purah Pad upgrade for anyone wanting to track Shrines on their own, as this nifty upgrade will provide a visual and audio notification whenever a Shrine is nearby.
To unlock the Shrine Sensor ability, you’ll first need to complete the A Mystery in the Depths quest. Once completed, speak with Robbie again, and you’ll begin the Hateno Village Research Lab Side Adventure, which will have you visiting the Hateno Tech Lab.
Upon arriving, Robbie will upgrade your Purah Pad with the Shrine Sensor and will require you to do a quick test run, as you explore the Mayahisik Shrine – see our Mayahisik Shrine Walkthrough Guide for all puzzle solutions and treasure chest locations.
Don't Miss These Additional Side Adventure Upgrades
After completing all three tasks above, Robbie presents three additional upgrades you can unlock in any order by speaking to him at the Hateno Village Research lab.
Fast Travel Medallion
Originally a DLC item in Breath of the Wild, the Travel Medallion is an important Purah Pad upgrade that allows you to drop fast travel points wherever you like – with some minor exceptions if the terrain is unstable.
To unlock the Fast Travel Medallion, you’ll need to speak with Robbie at the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab – after he has installed the Shrine Sensor ability – and he’ll ask you which upgrade you’ll want to start. However, before Robbie can provide you with the Travel Medallion, you’ll need to find the Travel Medallion Prototype, which was left behind at his other research lab in Akkala. While the trek to the far northeast tip of the region won’t be easy, getting your hands on the medallion will be well worth it.
With the prototype in hand, return to Robbie, who will now install the Travel Medallion to the Purah Pad, allowing you to drop fast travel gates almost anywhere across Hyrule.
Once installed, Robbie can further upgrade the Travel Medallion by increasing the number of fast travel gates that can be placed down at any time. In order to do so, you'll need to uncover the map-data locations by unlocking more Skyview Towers across Hyrule.
To get additional charges for the Travel Medallion, you'll need the following amount of locations mapped:
- 10 Regions Mapped = 2 Travel Medallion Gates
- 15 Regions Mapped = 3 Travel Medallion Gates
Hero’s Path Mode
The Hero’s Path is a unique Purah Pad upgrade that allows you to see the exact path you have taken throughout your journey across Hyrule – deaths included. With the ability to track up to 256 hours of gameplay, the Hero’s Path ability can be toggled via the map with a simple push of the X button.
To unlock the Hero’s Path ability, Robbie will request data from 15 Shrines – if you’ve already gathered this data before speaking with him, he’ll begin the upgrade automatically. For more, be sure to check out our Presenting: Hero's Path Mode Walkthrough Guide.
Sensor +
An upgraded version of the Sensor, the Sensor + essentially allows you to find anything you can select from the Hyrule Compendium. To unlock the Sensor +, Robbie will request that you fill your Compendium with five different types of monsters.
As mentioned earlier, you can add new monsters to your Compendium by simply snapping photos of them.
Once you've unlocked all Purah Pad upgrades, there's still plenty more to do, and we have it all catalogued in our full guides to Tears of the Kingdom.
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