TotK Blood Moon: How Often, What Respawns, Cooking Bonus

The Blood Moon is the night when the moon turns red and every monster you have defeated comes back. In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom it is what keeps Hyrule full of enemies, and it is also the best time to cook. This page explains how often it comes, what it resets and what it leaves alone, how to cook under it, and how it differs from the Blood Moon in Breath of the Wild.

When does the Blood Moon happen?

Always at midnight on the in-game clock. Hino, the Blood Moon researcher, puts it this way in the game: some nights, whatever the moon’s phase, it rises full and red, and precisely at midnight the whole sky turns crimson. Then the defeated monsters appear again.

The first Blood Moon brings a cutscene with this narration:

Witness the blood moon’s rise. When its red glow shines upon the land… the aimless spirits of slain monsters return to flesh.

Later Blood Moons play a shorter version. After a certain point in the main story the narration stops, but the Blood Moon itself keeps coming.

What you see on the night:

How often does the Blood Moon come?

Roughly every two and a half hours of real play, about six to seven in-game days. One in-game minute is one real second, so a full day lasts 24 minutes. Reportedly the Tears of the Kingdom timer is 144 minutes (six in-game days), shorter than the 168 minutes of Breath of the Wild. Many guides still say “every seven days”, so treat the exact count as approximate.

The timer only counts play time:

• Menus and cutscenes pause it. Opening the inventory to wait does not help.
• Campfires and beds do not speed it up. Skipping the night jumps the clock but not the Blood Moon timer. If a Blood Moon is already due that night, though, sleeping through midnight still triggers it.
• It does not start until you finish the Great Sky Island.

Can you force or delay a Blood Moon?

You cannot summon one at will, with one reported exception: the first. Reportedly, if you have never seen a Blood Moon, entering the area around any of the four towns in the main quest Regional Phenomena (Rito Village, Goron City, Zora’s Domain and Gerudo Town) triggers one immediately.

You can delay one. If you are in one of these places when midnight comes, the due Blood Moon does not happen that night and moves to a later night:

• The Depths. When you return to the surface or the sky, it comes the following night. Monsters in the Depths are still reset when it does.
• A Shrine of Light.
• Reportedly also a temple, Hyrule Castle, a minigame in progress or a Monster-Control Crew battle.

The game can also run a forced Blood Moon when it is short on memory. These ignore the timer and can even appear in daytime. Defeating more monsters does not make them, or the regular one, come sooner.

What does the Blood Moon respawn?

• Defeated monsters, including bosses in the world. Stone Taluses, Hinox, Lynels and Gleeoks all come back, in the sky, on the surface and in the Depths. That is why the gem and Lynel routes are “one lap per Blood Moon”. The quest log of the Monster-Control Crew says it plainly: as long as the blood moon continues to resurrect monsters, the squads must keep fighting.
• Weapons left in the world. Weapons lying on the ground or carried by enemies come back if they are not in your inventory. The soldier figures in the Depths can offer a new pristine weapon after you take the old one. The Royal Guard weapons in Hyrule Castle come back too; a route by location is in weapon farming.
• Rock Octorok repairs. Each Rock Octorok repairs one weapon per Blood Moon cycle; defeat it and it returns ready again. See weapon durability.

What does the Blood Moon not reset?

• Treasure chests. An opened chest stays empty.
• Korok Seeds and other one-time collectibles, and the chest in the Floating Coliseum.
• Story bosses, such as Master Kohga’s fights.
• Materials and ore deposits. They do not wait for the Blood Moon: plants and ore regrow on their own a while after you leave the area. See Sundelion farming.

Does cooking during the Blood Moon guarantee an incredible success?

Yes, from about 23:30 until the midnight cutscene. A cookbook in the game passes on the rumor that “the light of the red moon can have a positive effect on your cooking”, and a teacher’s pop quiz on cooking gives the correct answer as “cooking during the blood moon”.

How to use it:

1. Stand at a cooking pot by about 23:20. Stables and towns have one, and a Portable Pot works anywhere.
2. Wait for the particles and the music change around 23:30.
3. Cook your best ingredients until the midnight cutscene starts. Every dish plays the critical-success jingle.

An incredible success adds one bonus at random: extra hearts, a longer effect, or a higher effect level. Recipe ideas are on the best recipes page. A cave or the Depths hides the sky, so listen for the music instead.

How is it different from Breath of the Wild?

The full Breath of the Wild rules, including the Under a Red Moon shrine quest, are on the Breath of the Wild Blood Moon page.