In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Hinoxes are some of the biggest standard enemies you can face. In this guide, we’ll give you advice on how to beat Hinoxes and also get their items easily.
Baddies with Goodies
While exploring Hyrule, you will no doubt come across a Hinox at one time or another. If you’re only early in your quest, chances are you’ll have a pretty tough time taking one down.
What will tempt you to try though, are the goodies hanging from each Hinox’s neck. Tied with rope, like a necklace, a Hinox will usually have a bow, sword, club or spear. Each Hinox will have three items around its neck. In some cases it will have a special item that is used for a quest.
There are several ways to nab these items; let’s tell you how.
Stealing with Stealth
Link is able to take each and every item from a sleeping Hinox without waking it up. A Hinox is too big for Link to just sneak up to and climb though; that would wake it up. To steal the items without starting a fight, Link will need to use an aerial approach.
Find a hill or mountain somewhere near the sleeping Hinox. You could even set a fire some distance away if you were feeling extra crafty. Use the Paraglider to position yourself above the sleeping Hinox and gently float down.
When you land on the Hinox’s chest, click in the left stick to crouch and slowly move until you’re close enough to the items to see their indicator. When you can, hit ‘A’ and grab them.
At this point I’d advise that you sprint away. Whether the Hinox wakes up now is besides the point. You’ve already stolen all his stuff.
Shoot ’em. Loot ’em. Run!
If you’re unable to glide onto the Hinox, or you’d rather start a fight, you can. This second method doesn’t require you to kill the Hinox, but it does mean you’ll have to wake it up.
Get close to the Hinox and either throw a bomb at it, shoot it with an arrow, hit it with a melee weapon; the choice is yours. As soon as it stands up, move away a decent distance and make sure Link is facing it.
One minor problem I faced when fighting the Hinoxes was trying to lock-on. If Link was facing away from the Hinox, because I was running away, but the camera was set so I could see behind, hitting ‘L’ would simply set the camera back behind Link. Not what you want when a crazed cyclops is on your tail.
When you have the Hinox locked-on, hit RZ to bring up your bow and shoot it right in the eyeball. The Hinox will drop and cover its eye. In this moment you’ll have enough time to sprint up to the monster and get close enough to grab the items from around its neck.
After you’ve cleaned it out…RUN!
Ready…FIGHT!
The third option is obviously just to stand your ground and fight. A Hinox can be really tough, but if you have patience and stay calm; you’ll be fine.
Be sure to hit it in the eye whenever it walks towards you and when it’s down, race in and smack it with you melee weapon. Some Hinoxes have wooden ankle protectors which makes your job a bit difficult. Fire Arrows will make short work of the ankle guards though.
After a time — and when its health starts getting low — the Hinox will start covering its eye with one hand. You’ll need to fake it out to get a shot. Aim at its eye then quickly drop your bow. When the Hinox drops its hand, you should already have your bow back up. Take the shot.
Hinoxes are big, but you know the old saying…the bigger they are, the quicker you die.
Use our methods above and you’ll be able to get your hands on some really cool equipment. You might even be able to kill the Hinox with the weapons you stole from it.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is available now on Switch and Wii U.
