It depends, but we’ll break things down
Like Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom makes use of an array of open world definitions to describe its breadth. Some “dungeons” could be considered small, and some errant areas could be thought of as large. For the purposes of this article, we’ll use term “dungeon” to describe a traditional puzzle-solving experience akin to classic Zelda titles, and leave the rest up to you.
Spoiler alert!
So the exact amount of dungeons Tears of the Kingdom has is under debate, there are four core temples that do meet that criteria. You can do these temples in any order, just like Breath of the Wild handed Divine Beasts:
- Wind Temple
- Fire Temple
- Water Temple
- Lightning Temple
There’s also a Spirit Temple: but it’s not actually a dungeon, it’s a quick boss fight.
Hyrule Castle*
Also just like Breath of the Wild, there’s a “it-is-what-you-make-it” Hyrule Castle area. While you can still just float up to the throne room, a questline will force you to explore most of the castle.
This could be considered a dungeon if you work your way through the various basement floors and beyond, plus it has small storyline sequence dealing with the location of Zelda. As-is, it’s an asterisk.
Hyrule Castle Chasm/The Forgotten Foundation*
Found underneath the castle, this is a micro-dungeon that leads directly to the final boss.
There are plain-old open world caves nearly as big as this sequence, so counting the chasm/foundation as a dungeon is an asterisk; even if some might consider it meeting the criteria.
The Construct Factory*
While this is a puzzle-centric series of quests, the Construct Factory (in the depths) is essentially four completely-separate shrines that are relatively close together. Even if you haven’t been there it’s easy to conceptualize: do you consider that “dungeon-worthy?” Then you can bump that number up.
As for me, I think four is the safe hard number, with asterisks, if someone is looking for traditional Zelda dungeons. If you think of The Construct Factory and the Spirit Temple boss together as one dungeon, you could bump it to five.
