After putting 2,460 hours into The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, series superfan Bobby Blue Holliday has turned to Tears of the Kingdom and now spent over 1,500 hours on a self-imposed quest to become "the first player on the planet to manually cap all materials in-game."
Holliday, known on Reddit as FirefighterIcy9879, shared an update on their massive grind with the Tears of the Kingdom community earlier this week, hot on the heels of the Japanese player who spent 1,885 hours collecting 999,999 Poe simply because they were "curious."
"Zero duping!" they said of their impressive item collection, thousands upon thousands of ingredients and materials scrolling by in a video. "I’m gonna be the first player on the planet to manually cap all materials in game by farming them! Wish a brother luck, goro."
Dumbstruck and, like many Reddit onlookers, suspicious of a disguised dupe, I reached out to Holliday to talk through his quest and request some more updates on his progress. He shared an updated screenshot of his Nintendo Switch profile, and sure enough, he's logged 1,575 hours in Tears of the Kingdom, which is an average of just over six hours a day since the game's release on May 12, 2023. "While everyone else sleeps, I save Hyrule," he said in a Reddit reply.
Over 1500 hours! from r/tearsofthekingdom
A recent post on his TikTok account, which is filled to the brim with Zelda gameplay shorts and art pieces, shows that he's played at least 55 hours in the past few weeks. In the comments on the post, he says he's been a fan since the release of the first Zelda game in the mid '80s.
"I [100% completed] Tears of the Kingdom at around 450, maybe 470 hours in," Holliday tells me. "I have a screenshot somewhere if I need to double check 'cause I totally flexed it to a buddy of mine. This includes the main quest, side adventures, Addison, Bubbulfrogs, key items, all armor upgrades, Koroks, you name it. I even found all 1,317 treasure chests, but that was with the help of the Tears companion app. By the way, that shit's free on Android and iOS and it’s a literal godsend for completionists like myself.
"It’s gotten to the point where there’s literally nothing else to do story-wise, and I know Hyrule like the back of my hand, so... I decided to do a no-dupe 999 run just like I did with Breath of the Wild, and even at 1,575 hours currently logged into Tears, I have a very long way to go. BOTW took me roughly 2,300 hours to 100% and I unfortunately had to use [the inventory slot glitch] to get fairies capped. No shame there."
Holliday says he recently passed 100,000 Poes, and he's aware of the Japanese player, Squall, who capped out Poes. "Honestly, I Initially found it difficult to believe that he not only maxed Poes, but also 100%-ed the game within 1,800 hours in total," Holliday says of Squall's achievement. "Those numbers are sheer insanity. I was averaging around 10,000 a session but I'm nowhere near his level. However, I did scope his route and noticed he was missing several notable locations that hold Grand Poes that would’ve perfectly [fit] his routing. I guess it’s a little late for that now though."
I asked Holliday about his farming routes and the hardest items to acquire. He notes that hearty versions of items are "by far the most tedious," though the real sticking points are fairies and King's Scales since they have lower innate soft caps which clash with the all-999 dream.
"The hardest material to gather for me would be stealthfin trout," he adds. "They have two locations in-game which yield around five if you’re lucky, and most of the time I absolutely forget they even exist."
With over 1,500 hours put into the game and some 1,100 hours of that being post-100% completion, how long will it take Holliday to reach his goal of filling Link's inventory to its absolute limit? By his estimation, potentially years.
"I honestly have no clue, as it took me years to cap everything in BOTW alone, so I assume Tears would take significantly longer due to having 251 uniques on top of all other 100% qualifiers," he says. Best of luck, goro.
Zelda leads said they were blown away by what Tears of the Kingdom players made with Ultrahand: "It's beyond even the development team's imagination." I have to imagine Holliday's quest would impress them, too.
