Hestu — Inventory Upgrades and Korok Seeds

Hestu is a large Korok who accepts Korok Seeds in exchange for inventory slot upgrades. Each upgrade from Hestu adds one more slot to either your weapon stash, bow quiver, or shield inventory. Since Link starts with limited carrying capacity, visiting Hestu and upgrading inventory is a top priority, especially early in the game.

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Hestu's Location

Hestu moves around during the course of the game. He appears at three locations in a sequence:

Location 1: Lindor's Brow (Early Game)

Coordinates: -1717, 1044, 0236

Northwest of Lookout Landing, in the Hyrule Ridge area near the Lindor's Brow Skyview Tower. This is where most players first encounter Hestu. He's standing on a path looking distressed.

How to trigger: Approach the area — Hestu calls out to Link and explains that Bokoblins stole his maracas. Find the Bokoblin camp nearby, defeat them, and retrieve the maracas from their cache. Return to Hestu and he begins offering upgrades.

Location 2: Lookout Landing (Mid Game)

After his first encounter, Hestu moves to Lookout Landing — the central hub at coordinates (-0253, -0148, 0034). He sets up near the entrance, usually to the left of the main gate.

Location 3: Korok Forest (Endgame)

Once Korok Forest is ungloomified (a major late-game event in the Lost Woods area), Hestu relocates to Korok Forest permanently. He stays there for the rest of the game.

Fastest access: Once you've cleared the Korok Forest gloom (requires reaching the Deku Tree fight in the Master Kohga IV or the Lost Woods route), Hestu is at Korok Forest and easy to fast-travel to.

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How Upgrades Work

Hestu accepts Korok Seeds in exchange for inventory upgrades. Each upgrade costs a certain number of seeds and adds one slot to the chosen category:

| Category | What It Upgrades | |----------|-----------------| | Weapons | One more held weapon slot | | Bows | One more held bow slot | | Shields | One more held shield slot |

Starting inventory: Link starts with 8 weapon slots, 5 bow slots, and 4 shield slots. Maximum inventory: 20 weapon slots, 14 bow slots, 16 shield slots (numbers may vary).

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Full Upgrade Cost Table

The cost per upgrade increases as you buy more of the same category:

Weapon Slots

| Upgrade # | Seeds Cost | Total Seeds | |-----------|-----------|-------------| | 1 | 1 | 1 | | 2 | 1 | 2 | | 3 | 2 | 4 | | 4 | 2 | 6 | | 5 | 3 | 9 | | 6 | 3 | 12 | | 7 | 4 | 16 | | 8 | 5 | 21 | | 9 | 5 | 26 | | 10 | 6 | 32 | | 11 | 7 | 39 | | 12+ | Increases by 1 each | — |

Bow Slots

| Upgrade # | Seeds Cost | |-----------|-----------| | 1 | 1 | | 2 | 1 | | 3 | 2 | | 4 | 3 | | 5 | 4 | | 6 | 5 | | 7+ | Continues increasing |

Shield Slots

| Upgrade # | Seeds Cost | |-----------|-----------| | 1 | 1 | | 2 | 1 | | 3 | 2 | | 4 | 3 | | 5 | 4 | | 6+ | Continues increasing |

Total seeds for full inventory (all categories maxed): Approximately 340–400 Korok Seeds. There are 900 total Korok Seeds in the game, so full inventory upgrades use less than half the available seeds.

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Best Upgrade Priority

Weapons first, then bows, then shields.

| Priority | Reason | |----------|--------| | Weapon slots first | Weapons break — the more you can carry, the better | | Bow slots second | Multiple bow types are situationally useful (elemental, multi-shot, long-range) | | Shield slots third | Shields break too but you rarely need more than 3–4 at a time |

Minimum viable inventory for comfortable play: 14 weapon slots, 9 bow slots, 8 shield slots. Get there first before maxing any category.

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Early Game Korok Seed Strategy

Even in the first 2 hours, you can collect 10–20 Korok Seeds by:

• Examining suspiciously placed rocks and acorn piles
• Completing floating platform puzzles (balloon + bow = Korok)
• Lifting heavy rocks to reveal Koroks underneath
• Following spinning sparkling lights

These early seeds go directly to weapon slot upgrades — 10 seeds buys you 4–5 extra weapon slots, a significant early-game improvement.

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What Hestu Gives for 900 Korok Seeds

If you find and trade all 900 Korok Seeds, Hestu gives Link a Hestu's Gift — a golden sculpture of Hestu that's a purely comedic reward (it's a pile of Hestu's golden sparkles). It has no gameplay function and is considered one of the game's jokes about completionism.

Despite the gag reward, collecting enough seeds for full inventory is worth doing — just stop once you have max inventory rather than grinding all 900.

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Tips

• First upgrade: weapon slot. Do this the moment you reach Hestu at Lindor's Brow.
• Track Koroks with the sensor. The Purah Pad's Sensor+ can be set to ping when you're near a Korok Seed location. Use it after unlocking the sensor feature.
• Don't trade seeds for rare items. Korok Seeds are only used with Hestu — save them all for inventory upgrades, not anything else.
• 900 seeds is a lot. You don't need all 900. Prioritize reaching comfortable inventory sizes (14/9/8) over completionism unless you specifically enjoy Korok hunting.