Are you curious how long a full day in-game is in Zelda Tears of the Kingdom compared to real-time? While you are heavily invested in Link’s adventure, you can easily pass the hours without noticing it. The day-and-night cycle can fly by quicker than players realize. Knowing how long you have until night arrives can be helpful if you need to stock up on useful items like Blue Nightshade. Some people just want to know to satiate their curiosity. Sure, you can change the time of day on a whim, but what if you just let it play out on its own? Here is how long the days are in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
How Long Are the Days in Zelda Tears of the Kingdom?
Image source: Nintendo via The Nerd Stash
A full 24-hour cycle day in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom takes 24 minutes if you do not pause the game. Every hour lasts a minute in real-time, which you can see by watching the clock near your mini-map. That is why the days can seem to go by so quickly when you get into a session where you spend a significant amount of play activity.
The 24-minute days are a carryover from Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch. That game also implemented these short sun and moon cycles. Leaving the timer on a shorter duration like this lets players not have to wait forever if they need a certain time of day. Of course, they could always go to a campfire or bed to fast forward to a specific time if needed.
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It’s not uncommon for games with day and night cycles to utilize short-timers. Minecraft, for example, is a survival game with several elements that change at nighttime. A full-day cycle in that game takes 20 minutes in the real world. It’s a development choice that happens in games that might have enemies that only appear at night, which Tears of the Kingdom does have.
While a full day goes pretty fast in Tears of the Kingdom, how many days pass in-game doesn’t matter. Looking at The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, that game had a three-day timer before the moon would fall and destroy Termina. While Hyrule seems to be in shambles still here, you can spend as long as you want completely avoiding the main story if you choose to.
