I Stumbled Upon a Zonai Cannon Recall Trick That Decimates Enemy Camps

I still remember the afternoon I accidentally turned a simple Bokoblin camp into a smoking crater. Hyrule was drenched in golden hour light, and I was just messing around with a Zonai cannon I’d fused to a rusted soldier’s broadsword — not because I had a plan, but because I’d run out of arrows and patience. That’s when I fumbled the controls, triggered Recall, and watched a twisted piece of ancient tech hang frozen in midair while I scrambled for a bomb flower. What followed was a roaring chain reaction that obliterated every moblin in the area before I could even scream. Since that day, I’ve refined the technique into a devastating combat loop, and I haven’t looked back.

The core idea is absurdly simple once you see it, but it flips the slow, methodical pace of Tears of the Kingdom’s combat into something instant and chaotic. 🧨 Recall isn’t just for solving shrines or reversing falling debris — it’s a combat time-stop layered on top of the Fuse system. When you activate Recall on a cannon fusion, the cannon becomes a suspended detonator, hovering in place and holding its firing state. The real magic happens right at the start of the animation: if you cancel the recall by switching weapons or items while the cannon is still airborne, it remains locked in place, giving you a precious window to litter the ground with bomb flowers, chuchu jelly, or anything that goes boom.

Let me walk you through the exact steps I figured out after dozens of experiments in the Depths:

• Freeze your targets first. This is non-negotiable if you want the explosion to hit cleanly. I prefer White Chuchu Jelly because it freezes a wide radius and lingers just long enough for the setup. Drop a jelly, fire an ice arrow, or toss a frost emitter — anything that locks the enemies’ feet to the dirt. ❄️

• Activate Recall while holding the cannon weapon. You can fuse a Zonai cannon to any one-handed blade or spear; it doesn’t need to be pristine. Aim at the cannon, hold L, and select Recall. The cannon will begin to levitate backwards along its last trajectory. The critical moment is the first half-second: you’ll see it pulse with green energy but not yet start to move.

• Quick-switch to cancel the animation. Immediately tap the quick-change menu (D-pad right) to another weapon, shield, or even an unfused stick. This cancels the active ability but leaves the cannon suspended in midair, frozen by the Recalled state’s residual effect. It’s a glitch? An oversight? Whatever the developers intended, it works.

• Drop bomb flowers beneath the floating cannon. While the enemies are still frozen, sprint around their feet and drop up to five bomb flowers from your inventory. You can also scatter red chuchu jelly or explosive barrels if you’re low on flowers. The cannon will remain suspended for about eight seconds, giving you plenty of time.

• Put distance between yourself and the blast zone. The resulting explosion is not your friend. Backflip out of range, climb a nearby ledge, or just sprint until the white freeze effect starts to crack. If you stay too close, you’ll eat a faceful of fire and go ragdolling off a cliff.

• End Recall and watch the fireworks. Tap Recall again, or let the timer run out. The cannon will immediately fire a volley directly downward, detonating everything on the ground in a chain reaction that deals massive AoE damage. A black Bokoblin camp that would normally take me four minutes and three broken weapons was obliterated in a single blast. 💥

The first time I pulled this off deliberately, I laughed out loud. I was in the Lanayru Wetlands, surrounded by electric lizalfos that had been harassing me for twenty minutes. I froze them with a White Chuchu, executed the trick, and watched the entire group evaporate in a blooming mushroom cloud of orange and purple. My framerate dipped, my heart pounded, and my Switch’s fan went into overdrive — but it was the most satisfying combat moment I’ve had in three hundred hours of Tears of the Kingdom.

There are some nuances you pick up after a while. Zonai cannons drain battery rapidly when deployed, but a fused cannon tied to Recall doesn’t use any extra energy while suspended — it’s a static projectile waiting for the command. I’ve also noticed that if you fuse the cannon to a boomerang or a throwing spear, the trajectory the Recall ability locks onto can get a little wonky. Stick to short swords or even just a bare cannon held in your hands. The bomb flowers should be the largest you have; mighty bomb flowers from caves create a secondary shockwave that can kill silver-tier enemies outright if they’re frozen.

Why does this matter in 2026? The game has been dissected to the atom by now, but the community still stumbles on interactions that feel genuinely unintended yet perfectly balanced. This trick doesn’t break the game — it requires careful positioning, resource management, and a willingness to blow yourself up a few times while learning the timing. It’s the kind of organic discovery that makes me love the Ultrahand and Fuse systems all over again. Every time I think I’ve seen every possible weapon combination, someone — or the physics engine itself — shows me something new.

I’ve since used this technique to clear monster-control-crew camps in under ten seconds, to farm zonaite in the Depths without repairing my sword, and even to stage a hilarious accidental party wipe when a friend visited my game world and wandered into the radius of my test detonation. (Sorry, Tyler.) The joy of Tears of the Kingdom isn’t just in the story — it’s in the sandbox push-and-pull where a clunky bat and an ancient cannon become the most lethal arsenal Hyrule has ever seen. If you haven’t tried the Recall cannon detonator trick yet, grab some bomb flowers, find a training camp, and let chaos do the rest.

Stay creative out there, heroes. And maybe pack a few extra fairies.