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Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom players are using traps to catch horses

Being sneaky? No thanks

Nicole Carpenter is a senior reporter specializing in investigative features about labor issues in the game industry, as well as the business and culture of games.

I have died so many times in stupid ways since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom came out — many of which were instances brought on while trying to catch and tame a horse. Dying at Bokoblin camps or in boss fights? Nah. But a swift kick to the face from a horse foot? That’s been more my speed.

I have no real reason for needing to collect so many horses, aside from a dumb initiative I’ve invented, which is: All my horses need to have a Junior counterpart. For instance, my horse Larry has a son named Larry Junior, Fred has his son Fred Jr., and so on. (The horse used in the header image of the post is named Junior, and I’m still working on Junior, Jr.) All this is to say that I have struggled to catch horses for a while, continuously getting bucked off or sent into space by a hoof — until I discovered the horse trap.

Players much, much smarter than I am are creating traps to catch and tame wild horses. The key element is Ultrahand, the ability that lets Link glue random things together. The simplest of horse traps needs just some logs or lumber, arranged into a square with a long pole attached. It can be used like a fishing net, but for horses. More complex devices could have wheels or spring mechanisms, too. The core goal remains the same: Put the horse in the box, then jump onto them. You may still get kicked off, but the success rate is much higher when the horse can’t run away.

Unless your horse trap has wheels, you’ll need to use Ultrahand to extend the trap’s reach so as to not startle the horse with its presence. They’ll get scared once the box is around them, but you’ll be able to hop in, jump on, and start soothing your new steed.

The thing is, you do still need adequate stamina to be able to tame a horse, even with an ingenious trap. The trap itself is still handy for the catching part, although the taming is all on you.

Beyond horses, you’re able to tame other animals, like bears, in Tears of the Kingdom. The horse trap could be useful there if you’d like to give it a go — but you need to have a lot of stamina or face certain death. Other players have been using the trap method to easily defeat large groups of Bokoblins and their big bosses.

These inventions are so stupid that they just work. And that’s beautiful.

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