The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild continues to offer up new surprises for players who explore the far reaches of Nintendo’s open-world adventure, and the latest is the ability to “ride” the dangerous Guardians scattered through the game.
While you can mount a wide-variety of animals in Breath of Wild simply by sneaking up on them (include Bears and Stags), the Guardian takes a little more preparation and a very special item. As hinted at by various characters on the outskirts of Hyrule Field, you can combine Ancient Guardian parts into some recipes to create powerful concoctions. Although this always results in the useless Dubious Food when you cook the parts alongside regular food, bringing together a Giant Ancient Core and a Fang from each of the game’s powerful dragons–Dinraal, Naydra, and Farosh–will create an Ancient Guardian Key.
The item description for the Key reads: “You’ve distilled the Power, Wisdom, and Courage of Hyrule’s three dragons into a mysterious key. It glows with energy when Ancient Guardians are near, but what could it be used for…?” And as you can guess, when you get close enough to a Guardian with the key in your possession, you’re given a new command prompt: Enter. You can see us catching a ride in a Guardian as well as some tips for collecting each of the Fangs in the video at the top of the story.
Harnessing the destructive power of a Guardian has been one of Breath of the Wild’s better kept secrets, but one aspect of the process that has us curious is the fact that the Ancient Guardian Key is a consumable item. This presents the possibility that it may have other uses somewhere in Hyrule that we haven’t discovered yet. If you’ve found what else the key unlocks, let us know in the comments below!
And for even more Breath of the Wild coverage check out our list of the best armor in the game as well as a list of a few other secrets the game doesn’t necessarily tell you outright.