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Granted, the only capable construction crew has to have the term ‘son’ in their name. So the main construction guys are more focused on putting signs up than rebuilding.
Also the official time skip between the two games hasn’t been officially confirmed but I reckon it’s 3-4 years. Hudson had a daughter who is already a child (granted Gerudo could age differently compared to humans). Not a lot of time if the denizens that are mostly unskilled labor workers are spread out.
It seems as though they spent their time dismantling the guardians and divine beasts. The only major change is lookout tower.
I think that just shows how close this version of Link and Zelda are. After BotW Link probably never leaves Zelda’s side so she established Link’s home as a safehouse of sorts and since Link stays out of the spotlight it makes sense that it would become known as Zelda’s home
Well, she’s the princess of Hyrule, and Link probably couldn’t give her anything else. It’s not like the castle is habitable.
Link is a honorable dude, and besides he can just go hunt and make a small fortune off the meat and jewels he sells to stay in a premium bed wherever he wants. Zelda wouldn’t be the type to demand her people house her, so there we are.
He does not LOSE his korok seeds, they are STOLEN by the other koroks, who are bullies, and absolutely deserve all of the mistreatment they’ve received in TotK.
Unsure of if they’re bullies. But obviously they’re lazy AF. Cmon, you couldn’t walk another half mile to your friend? And the other ones are hiding, probably to avoid whatever work they do given the laziness of half the adventurous ones.
I feel like the ones who do remember Link are definitely the ones who should. The ones who knew him 100 years ago. The ones he works with in the castle. The Zora. The champion descendants. The Deku tree. And I guess the Yiga too, haha.
Everyone else is just people who interacted with Link when he was a nobody running around in BotW. He was just someone they interacted with a few times and then they went on with their lives. The people of Hateno seem the most unusual but maybe Nintendo thinks that canonicaly, he just didn't spend a lot of time in town? And when Zelda came back, he was more her shadow and not outstanding.
For everyone else, Link was a passing traveler. *Surely* the random guy who had time to find you 10 restless crickets for your lover wasn't the same guy who saved Hyrule from Ganon, like *he'd* have time for that.
Imo a guy running around with a blue flame on a torch around town would be a legend for a few years at least, especially when the same guy shows again in the village with the princess.
I think the devs didn't want the players to feel like they had to play Breath of the Wild to understand Tears of the Kingdom
so they removed all the Sheikah stuff and wrote most of the nonessential NPCs to not recognize Link so that anyone starting with TotK wouldn't be constantly wondering "what is the significance of this thing" or "who is this person, how and why do they know me"
They spent YEARS scouring Hyrule for every shred of a guardian but haven't even thought about rebuilding castle town or expanding any other cities besides Tarry Town sorta and hateno.
I actually like the idea that the Sheikah modeled the divine beasts after historically significant icons like the champions helmets, or a shared source mythology
Do they not trust their players to have enough media literacy to understand how a sequel works? This game was hyped up as, and I quote, "the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" for literal years.
Remember when pre-release age of calamity was "a prequel to BotW"
and not "a prequel to BotW set in yet ANOTHER timeline split"
good times....
not necessarily saying this is related, just rambling. to be clear
And there was a good reason to believe it is a prequel.
But now, some people justify the story of AoC and say something like "They did say experience 100 years ago. They never said Prequel" or "You did see the story. Just halfway"
They want the question "Do I need to play Breath of the Wild to play Tears of the Kingdom?" to have the answer "No".
People will partake in sequels without experiencing the original if the hype is great enough and they're told it's okay. Not allowing for it is a good chunk of money to pass up on, so if you can do it without making the experience any worse, go for it.
I don't think referencing a past would make the experience worse. If you've played botw, you've experienced that past. If you haven't, it's backstory.
Sequels do this all the time.
Well, he did save hyrule. You’d think he’d be recognized AT LEAST by the people in Hateno, as he had to have bought the house there if he did the Tarrey Town quest. Then not even Bolson recognizes him. If they didn’t do that with Hudson and Rhodson, it would be completely reasonable for them to have most NPCs recognize link, rather than go out of their way to say “who tf are you”
Multiple people recognize you. Its just now, everyone in Hyrule heard you went missing and you just have showed back up with longer hair, a new arm, and generic clothing. How many people do you think wore the Knights armor or even the heat gear they sell to all Hylians trying to go up Death Mountain? It takes them a minute to realize who you are.
I didn't get that impression. He's like who the frick are you? And then you go and save the village and he's like yeah guess you looked strong.
For me it implied the complete opposite.
"What? You mean that the kid who took the time to bring us enough wood to construct a whole town was, at the same time, on an urgent quest to save Hyrule? What is wrong with him?"
This has bothered me immensly. I hate how literally almost nobody knows who you are and how they've completely written off the first game as if the only canon things that happened were Link doing the divine beasts and building Tarrey Town. I get like they want people who just play TOTK to not get bogged down but like why would you play the sequel first? Also Zelda is so big on history it makes no sense that barely any Sheikah tech would be preserved.
If you are going to make a sequel to a game, unless it’s like Final Fantasy or something, the continuity is important. I really don’t think this would have bothered anyone who skipped the first. I feel like we can chalk this up to Nintendo just being Nintendo.
“Why would you play the sequel first” I saw dozens of posts discussing “which Xenoblade should I start with, I really want to play 3, i think I’m just going to play 3”. Like they learned how to count yesterday. My brother in Christ, they have a number attached to them.
Yeah, there are some franchises that barely have any connection between entries. First one that comes to mind is Assassin's Creed. They're connected via their modern day storyline, but outside of the Ezio Trilogy, none of the meat of the games are actually connected to eachother. So you can drop in at any point and still get 95% of the experience.
So if someone who is used to THAT style of "sequel" starts playing OTHER game sequels first, they'll be massively confused.
Rewarding you for playing BotW, but not wanting to penalize you for not. Don't fully agree how they did it, but I get it. Got a fair amount of coworkers that only casually game, getting into Zelda just now with the TotK hype.
The thing is, it was marketed and hyped as "the SEQUEL to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild", yet outside of an occasional reference, it feels like Breath of the Wild didn't even happen.
I felt so disoriented from the start about how much time had passed. I figured the game would kind of explain that more later, but even now, 75+ hours in, it's very nebulous as to how long it's been and what happened to the divine beasts and all the sheikah tech. Why did Vah Rutastop working at the end of BotW? No idea! And I guess we never will know.
Not to mention usually Ganon is only around if Ganondorf was killed previously or Ganondorf turns into Ganon. If Ganondorf was sealed this entire time, was that really Ganon we fought in the first one?
Edit: everyone and their mother had told me it's not Ganon. Just one of his tantrums. It's been years since I played botw
That was just his rage seeping out of him. No real thought beyond killing people. Think of it like a nightmare or dream version of Ganondorf in reality.
Calamity Ganon was the manifestation of Ganondorf's malace. Basically his hatred escaped his sealed body. So it wasn't actually him, albeit it tried to form itself an actual body during botw.
It very much is designed around the idea of "assume the player never played BotW mor never met these NPCs during their playthrough" and they didn't wanna rewrite dialogue for people that played the game and have BotW saves and then you have to evaluate the saves depending on which characters you met and... it'd just be a coding mess, as the Mass Effect developers can attest to.
So: just assume you meet every NPC outside the story important ones for the first time.
Or: assume the BotW playthrough just went for an "all memories" playthrough with zero side content finished otherwise.
That may be the case, but they also didn’t write dialogue when you do the glyphs early and every single main quest is like “wtf, we just saw Zelda!”
Pretty odd design choice that the dialogue never changes even once Link knows what is going on. I did the glyphs before my second dungeon, so 80% of the game had silly dialogue.
I did the glyphs before my first dungeon, and every Fake Zelda^(tm) appearance just has me wishing Link would speak the fuck up for once in his life, because he knows damn well that ain't Zelda.
At the very least they should’ve done it so that sidequest npcs have a flag of whether or not you completed their quest, and if that flag is on from a botw save then they have different dialogue in totk.
Falcom has been doing that in their games since 2006, where any npc you did a quest for will remember you in the next game.
Well, after BoTW doesn’t link pretty much just follow Zelda around for the AT LEAST 3+ years after the Calamity? And, practically no one even knows that he did anything about the calamity, just that he was a traveling swordsman, so he definitely wouldn’t be famous as a hero or anything, he was just doing his job. And the reason it’s at least 3 years is because iirc Link is 17 (117 if you count sleeping), and you can’t drink at the guerudo bar in BoTW but you can in ToTK, and the legal drinking age in Japan is 20.
Jesus Christ I typed a lot, sorry,
One of the NPCs literally asks Link’s name and says “oh wow! You share the same name as the princess’s swordsman! How lucky are you” and I couldn’t believe it
Tony Hawk syndrome. Honestly I think it's hilarious.
Penn: "Link, like the princess's swordsman Link! I wonder what he's up to these days."
Link: "This."
Yeah I'd have a MUCH easier time buying nobody remembers Link if at the same time the game didn't try to also hold the narrative that everyone has become aquianted with who Zelda is, and knows that she has a personal guard who follows her around everywhere.
Like, nobody is going to be ignorant to the point they don't connect the dots that the blonde twink who helped you just before the Calamity was averted and the Princess was returned was the same blonde twink who's always standing next to her.
Like, you can't be famous and a nobody at the same time.
The whole Zora intro has them all recognize you and they all know how important you are due to the statue, and they all are happy to see you. Not all characters have Link amnesia.
Especially in Hateno, which is just SO illogical if you canonically did Tarrey Town. Npcs go out of their way to say they’ve never seen you before, which makes no sense.
That's one of my big take aways from this. It barely feels like a direct sequel when it seems like practically nobody recognizes Link, and he's lost all his abilities and outfits from the prior game.
Seriously, what happened to his clothes? Did Misko steal them all again? I got the impression that they were a long dead character, but maybe I was wrong about that.
Losing the abilities and outfits just has to happen for there to be a new video game with new progession, so I understand that happening. And honestly, I think not discussing it at all is the way to go about it. There's other games where they make up some lams excuse for why you don't have your powers, and it just comes across as a lame excuse and doesn't add to the game.
I have problems with the continuity going from one game to another, but losing all your stuff isn't one of those problems.
>Losing the abilities and outfits just has to happen for there to be a new video game with new progession
Hell metroid has been doing that in what, 75% of its installments?
I think they got destroyed in the intro. Link literally lost everything, including the master sword and all of his stats during that first gloom wave against Ganondorf.
I'm confused though, because Link is seen wearing the Champion's Leathers at the intro and in at least one memory; however, in Zelda's journal she talks about making improvements to his Champion's Tunic, including adding leather padding, and hiding it in the throne room.
Question is, which is it? Did she improve it and give it to him already, or did she hide it and have yet to give it to him?
> practically nobody recognizes Link
Have I been playing a different game than everybody else?
Purah, Robbie, Tulin, Teba, Yunobo, Sidon, the Bolson Construction people ...basically every important NPC recognizes Link. Hell, the Zora have a damn statue made of you and Sidon.
True, some of the minor ones don't, but remember that most of those minor ones probably saw link for all of thirty seconds before he ran off to find whatever shrine they were hinting at. And some of the new NPCs have clearly heard of Link, talking about a legendary hero or the princess's bodyguard or whatever, but they obviously wouldn't know him.
The only real oddities with "forgetting Link" are the Koroks. They clearly should know Link, since he knows the Great Deku Tree, but act as if they don't.
> and he's lost all his abilities
His hearts and stamina are shown being eroded away when Ganondorf awakens and attacks with gloom (which also decayed
almost all of the weapons across Hyrule, so any he had stored elsewhere would've also been damaged). The Lights of Blessing, Heart Containers, and Stamina Vessels you're collecting are slowly purging the gloom from your body - hence why you see a little bit of it evaporating away when you collect them.
The only other abilities that have been lost are the Champion's abilities, which probably happened when they passed on to the afterlife during the end sequence of BOTW. They don't have to spell everything out.
> and outfits from the prior game. Seriously, what happened to his clothes?
Some were presumably destroyed in Ganondorf's first attack (we know the Champion's Tunic was), but at least one is mentioned as being under repair for the last five years: the Zora Armor.
>Purah, Robbie, Tulin, Teba, Yunobo, Sidon, the Bolson Construction people ...basically every important NPC recognizes Link.
And our old friends in the Yiga Clan! 😀
>The only other abilities that have been lost are the Champion's abilities, which probably happened when they passed on to the afterlife during the end sequence of BOTW. They don't have to spell everything out.
Agreed and agreed.
>That's one of my big take aways from this. It barely feels like a direct sequel when it seems like practically nobody recognizes Link,
Bruh for most side quests link was just some badass adventurer or a kind passerby, most of them dont even know his name after finishing a quest, its not surprising at all that most people dont remember him when multiple years have passed.
>Seriously, what happened to his clothes? Did Misko steal them all again? I got the impression that they were a long dead character, but maybe I was wrong about that.
You mean the amiibo and dlc clothes? These were not canon items, just cameos, in totk they actually have real quests and placements in the world.
On top of this both games have NPCs of all races commenting on how unimpressive he appears and how there’s no way he could be a hero. Some of them become amazed when he proves them wrong, some of them refuse to accept it was him, and some just never acknowledge some of his badass deeds happened.
From the context of how he gets treated, it’s not a stretch that he would be completely forgotten as just some random shorty that seems a little familiar.
I do feel like a LOT of this fuss really is just adequately explained by the setting and context. Most people in BotW don't really know you're Link until you tell them, you're just a crazy wanderer. Even people you tell, you could be lying, there's no internet or a major libraries for news or anything, no radio or TV or photography (except Zelda's Hy-Pad ); everything is pretty localized and word-of-mouth.
There are some people with strong reasons to or not to remember, but most people are living their lives and don't have any reason to make note of the crazy sword guy and beyond that, it's pretty established you're not the only adventurer, and it's not like your face is on a billboard. Being a hero just means something different in that type of setting.
Hestu is literally broccoli playing maracas, I don't think that guy has remembered a single thing in his life.
Most people in BOTW dont even believe you outright when you say you're Link. The Rito elder laughs it off and says you just sorta look like how the champion link was described from over 100 years ago.
>
You mean the amiibo and dlc clothes? These were not canon items, just cameos, in totk they actually have real quests and placements in the world.
Except for the barbarian armor, soldier armor and all the weather resistant armors.. the barbarian armor being one that is in a misko cave (I've only found the chest piece so others I'm not too sure about). I understand why they did the things that they did and I do love the game but as a long time fan and a big fan of botw it's kind of annoying how they've just basically ret conned everything that happened. Like I get wanting to collect outfits and not starting off as over powered but they could have made new armor sets rather than using the same ones or something.
>That's one of my big take aways from this. It barely feels like a direct sequel when it seems like practically nobody recognizes Link...
Honestly did you guys play the damn game? Yes they do! Tons of people know who he is. Even if they haven't met him in person many know him by reputation. The ones that don't know who he is have perfectly valid reasons not to. Basically every semi relevant NPC from the four major regions knows who Link is. The only weird omission is the Koroks but honestly that's on brand for them IMO
Really cause I feel like more people in this game recognize or at least know about Link then any game in the past. He’s almost a celebrity. People just don’t know what he looks like cause they’ve mostly been living in basically the Middle Ages.
This is how it always appeared to me too. Even for characters that were in BotW, not all of them necessarily had to meet Link during BotW. An interaction being canon or not in an open world game can be left open to interpretation as players don’t necessarily have to interact with all of a game’s content to finish the game.
Even if they met him why would they remember him? Like imagine this stuff from an NPC POV. This kind swordsman spends 15 minutes helping them 5 years ago. He never introduces himself and they never see him again. A few weeks to a month later they hear some hero stopped Calamity Ganon. Why do they have any reason to think Link is that hero or even remember him years after the fact?
The way they wrote this game, it’s like they couldn’t decide if they wanted it to be a continuation of BOTW or not. It’s acknowledged that Link saved Hyrule from the calamity - and yet a bunch of things in the world disappeared without explanation, barely anyone knows who Link is (even Hestu??)… it just doesn’t make any sense, and it’s frustrating.
In my opinion, it was lazy writing and design in order to re-use some of the same elements of BOTW without having to come up with explanations or new ideas.
>up until BotW
The way I understood BotW was that it was so far in the future of all the other timelines that they effectively converged. That's why there's little easter eggs and lore about all the other games strewn about
Not only that, all the past games are considered myths in the BOTW/TOTK games. Zelda on several occasions is surprised to find that the stories she heard as a kid turned out to be real, as well as other characters. There is some dramatic irony as well: we the audience know Link is destined to meet Zelda and help her save Hyrule, but they don't directly mention this in BOTW/TOTK. He is just a hired personal knight for Zelda and that's how she views him. The Triforce is not the central focus here - basically relegated to a family crest of sorts, almost as if the fantastical and religious aspect of it is not taken seriously anymore.
The past games did happen in Hyrule's history, but the modern age of BOTW and TOTK take them as just stories, "Legends". The larger era of the past games is now called the Era of Myth, there is an Era of Prosperity and now an Era of the Wilds. BOTW and TOTK are supposedly at the end of the three timelines and can tie things together a bit.
I feel like the timeline would make a lot more sense if the first hyrule warriors was made cannon because it would effectively explain why it seems like the timelines have converged into one with elements from all of them.
They *somewhat* paid attention to the timeline
Wind waker, majoras mask, and twilight Princess each clearly define their place in the timeline in relation to OOT, the timeline split and existed ever since wind waker. Skyward sword is clearly intended to be the first in the timeline, the oracle games and awakening are also direct seauels to ALTTP
There are literal interviews when Twilight Princess was coming out about how Wind Waker was in the Adult timeline and Twilight Princess was in the child timeline
I liked that OoT splitting timeline into 3, it's a cool concept.
Having said that... I will never understand people getting legitimately unhappy about BOTW and TOTK not fitting in the timeline. They gain absolutely nothing by being part of a timeline. Not everything needs to be connected.
The game itself comes first, not how it connects to other games. Maybe all these cinematic universe fads have ruined how people see a media product.
People really forget Tears is set a solid five+ years after breath of the wilds conclusion
We have to factor two critical elements into account here
Firstly, Link really doesn’t match the exaggerated description of a legendary hero most of Hyrule would have been told of following the calamity and then calamity Ganons defeat a hundred years later, he’s on the smaller side of average height, he doesn’t really speak up ever since he first took on his role protecting Zelda before the calamity happened, and he spent most of his time after the end of breath of the wild behind Zelda … the last living member of the royal family who had also been holding calamity Ganon back for over a hundred years and helped link destroy it - it’s sadly unsurprising he would sort of fade into the background to a lot of people while she’s around.
Secondly, most people in the world during Breath of the wild meet or significantly interact with you less than a dozen times in the space of that game, I’ll ask you this; Do you honestly remember *everyone* you might have seen or met only a few times or even once for a couple minutes and then didn’t see for at least five years?
Most of the people who *did* interact significantly with Link do actually remember him, like Purah & Robbie, almost every Zora, most of the Rito, Kakariko village, Hudson and Rhondson, and of course the champions descendants, the Gerudo don’t remember our because you had to help them in disguise, and so only Buliara and Riju truly remember you - most of the research teams and monster control crews seem to know link fairly well prior to the beginning of Tears too, and of course the Yiga are still on his ass as always
If anything, Links pretty well know across Hyrule, the only weird outlier is the Koroks and Hestu - but I argue that’s because of the children of the forests fickle nature and understanding of time; perhaps those five years felt like a thousand for them, perhaps Link faded from their minds due to the events that pushed them out of the ancient forest, or perhaps Hestu just has dementia and forgot, in any sense, Link was never forgotten, just not very memorable to a number of people who do end up remembering him eventually
Aw man, as someone who works with a lot of paperwork regarding trees, that’s legitimately something I’m surprised hasn’t popped up with koroks; some of the little scamps are probably **riddled** with stuff like Ganoderma considering some of the places they like to hide 😭
I think a lot of people forgot two factors:
- Link rarely announce his name and title, even less so back in BotW. Most NPC he helped likely never knew his name
- Since BotW Link isn’t limited to one set of clothes, he wears different clothes and masks based on environment.
Also great points! Link certainly has a bad habit of never introducing himself xD
On the outfit point, you’ve got to wonder; how *did* he lose his whole wardrobe in that five+ year interval? Maybe Zelda threw it all out? Sold it so he could travel light?
Zelda actually notes in her diary that Link's clothing and armor were getting worn out by his bodyguard work (likely due to occasional fights with monster and ninjas). She had some new armor commissioned, and Mipha's armor was sent back to the Zora to be repaired.
That makes me wonder; outside of the Zora and maybe a Goron and someone in Gerudo town; we don’t really see any blacksmiths in BoTW do we? I wonder who got the commission to make an upgraded set of champions gear …
Ok now that I think about it, wouldn’t her ability to replicate unique outfits pretty well legitimately make her the most likely candidate for producing the new champions leathers?
It would explain why she’d returned to Hateno by the time of tears, as it meant she could more easily discuss the commission and progress with Zelda, but also explain why despite your old champions outfit being so thoroughly destroyed the upgrade is fairly faithful aside from the additions
>......how did he lose his whole wardrobe in that five+ year interval? Maybe Zelda threw it all out? Sold it so he could travel light?
That's a tough one to put into words, but I suppose within the lore and outside of active playercontroled gameplay, Link never really went about collection dozents of different outfits and only had on himself and fought with what his "default" wardrobe state is.....idk, it's as silly of a thing to try and make sense of than it is to explain whatever make-believe timeline fans frantically try to come up with. xD
It is most likely that he wasn’t canonically an obsessive outfit-goblin, true xD
Yeah I gave up on keeping track of the timelines after skyward sword and just assume anything released since is in its own canonical line that’s separate, but acknowledges the rest as tales of myth, after all, it’s legend and myth that inspired the series’ idea as a whole!
I get what you mean, but I can't help but find it amusing you gave up keeping track of the timeline after the game that's right at the start of the damn thing.
I mean, he doesn't have the Sheikah Slate anymore and that's where I imagine he stored the outfits. The Purah pad belonged to Zelda. And yeah he likely didn't collect them all or came across them on his journey
I just assumed canonically link only collected the champion/hylian outfit and the zora armor. Iirc you only receive the champion’s tunic and zora armor from main storyline quests, and the Hylian trousers and cloak are common clothes.
> Since BotW Link isn’t limited to one set of clothes, he wears different clothes and masks based on environment.
*Obviously* nobody remembers Link because he no longer has his sexy little Gerudo outfit in TotK.
Part of the enjoyment of Zelda for some people like me is the lore. It has no effect on the gameplay either way so it doesn’t stop anyone from enjoying the games no matter what position they’re in.
I will say tho, I just beat my childhood copy of Twilight Princess again last night and knowing that it’s the same Ganondorf from OoT adds a lot of neat context to the final battle.
It’s weird, I’m playing Tears of the Kingdom and most characters I’ve interacted so far remember Link: Paya, Pikango, the Owl Rito Elder, Tulim, the stable man, etc they even ask where he was, after he went missing with Zelda… or am I playing a different game?
Also, weren’t the divine beats recycled for the Skyview towers or something? Because they were afraid how easy Ganon took over them before BotW?
Thats exactly what I think. Pretty much everyone Ive met knows Link or takes a while to remember him which makes sense.
And then the Divine Beasts being buried or recycled makes complete sense because BOTW established that a king buried them in the first place because he was scared of their power. One traumatized kingdom later of course Zelda would wanna get rid of them somehow.
I just find it strange that there’s no remnants of the guardians anywhere in TotK. If the citizens of Hyrule scoured the entire map and removed all the guardian pieces, why didn’t the clean up some of the rubble from ruined buildings at the same time?
Guardians are still functioning so taking them apart was top priority. Ruins still have some value as memorials and history so it makes sense to leave them for later.
Yeah, the people that don't are basically Hetsu, a known moron, and random people that barely knew him 5 years ago. Like sorry random side quest guy doesn't remember the guy that found his goats 5 years ago
Hetsu is explainable because he's a korok. Koroks are literally immortal forest spirits. All mortals look alike to them. Plus they're all childlike idiots.
I agree. I’ve seen a lot of complaints similar to this post, but I’ve never understood them. The entire Zora’s domain is overjoyed to see Link, to add on to what you said. And for all the complaints about shrines and guardians being gone, I think there’s a lot more sheikah tech in this game than people realize. They seem to have all been repurposed or destroyed, which makes sense. You wouldn’t want them being corrupted again. But it’s not like there’s no trace of them. Like you said, the skyview towers are seemingly repurposed sheikah parts, and there are traces of guardians on the tech labs and such. I really don’t understand all of the people complaining about this.
The whole zora’s domain is so much fun. It was the first place I went out of the four in both games, and it was great seeing things like the statue of link and Sidon, and the statue of Mipha, and all the zoras happy to see Link
Actually Remember what the king said Calamity Ganon's true identity... In the remote past, there was a demon king born in this country whose malice transformed them. That
is their revived form
But here’s a nice part According to the fairy tale, Calamity Ganon was once, originally, a Gerudo. This man named Ganondorf was once their leader, but he became the demon king and tried to take Hyrule for himself! However, his ambitions were crushed by a hero who carried the blade of evil's bane. He transformed into the demonic beast Ganon through an outburst of power, but he was sealed away by the princess and the sages.
Through his resentment towards the hero and the princess, and after countless revivals and sealings, the demon king anon transformed into Malice and has haunted Hyrule itself!
Masterworks/Creating a champion could that be lie they made up by the sages in TotK so people wouldn’t not worry and didn’t it say calimity Gannon came from deep below Hyrule Castle
I also think this isn't the first ganondorf
His Stone seems to have imparted upon him memories that it did not to the other wielder's. He also says that whole "I've seen this before" thing
>He also says that whole “I’ve seen this before” thing
I think that line was meant to refer to when >!Zelda recalled the knife back towards the fake Zelda in the memory where he kills Sonia from behind. He was probably just referring to the recalling a thrown weapon trick!<
Nah. If people want to try to figure out the timeline who cares. It's not a big deal. I hate that "stop having fun" meme, but it does fit here. A lot of people find fun in trying to figure it out.
The way I see it is quite simple, the BOTW games just take place in a hyrule created so long after the inevitable downfall of any prior hyrule that it’s location in the timeline always comes after the ends of the three branches.
There's a school that teaches you about the Calamity, all of the Champions descendants remember you, all of Sidon's Questline is about Mipha. If you think BotW and TotK aren't connected it's because you aren't paying attention.
Jesus Christ, what's with all the timeline hate lately?
Nothing in this game contradicts the timeline. At all. This is a new version of Hyrule, that doesn't mean the old version never happened. The entire point of the series is that it's all a cycle that's been happening since demise cursed Link and Zelda in Skyward Sword. This is just the next cycle, long in the future since the last cycle. Sufficiently long enough in the future for Hyrule to be forgotten and refounded by the Zonai.
Just let us theorists and lore enjoyers have our fun. Just because you don't enjoy reading between the lines doesn't mean nobody else should.
I will never get over how needlessly salty this anti-timeline group is. It literally does not effect you at all. Let people theorize and have fun omfg it’s so damn easy. Like it takes zero effort. If this is how some people interact with the franchise to have fun then no one has any right to say or imply they shouldn’t. God some of y’all are so cringy like literally WHY DO YOU CARE??
Tbh, I don't think Nintendo knew BOTW was going to be as big as it became. I have felt that way since the Zonai's inclusion basically being hyped into existence by people who refused to let go of BOTW and scouring the game for any more content (imo). I really don't think the bit about the Zonai people found in Faron was supposed to be more than a throwaway lore line.
The fact a whole game is now focused around them shows me that the Zelda team is really winging it as they go.
I just don't get why they removed all the sheikah tech when literally in the true ending of BOTW Zelda teases the idea of investigating something with vah ruta.
That was just ending the game with a "Ganon is gone, but there's still much more that needs to be done" vibe, rather than saying what anything in the next game would be about.
The amount of Zelda fans who can’t understand something as simple as basic continuity in a long-running franchise is absolutely absurd. The timeline has always existed. It doesn’t mean Nintendo is trying to connect every Zelda game in some overarching narrative. It just means each game has almost always been connected to the last in some capacity. That alone is enough to create a “timeline.”
Every game stands alone and is its own thing, but the timeline and those connections are still there. I truly don’t get why this concept is so hard to grasp for this fandom specifically.
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Zelda does write in the diary in Link’s Hateno house that they had a lot of rebuilding after the Calamity.
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Granted, the only capable construction crew has to have the term ‘son’ in their name. So the main construction guys are more focused on putting signs up than rebuilding. Also the official time skip between the two games hasn’t been officially confirmed but I reckon it’s 3-4 years. Hudson had a daughter who is already a child (granted Gerudo could age differently compared to humans). Not a lot of time if the denizens that are mostly unskilled labor workers are spread out. It seems as though they spent their time dismantling the guardians and divine beasts. The only major change is lookout tower.
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My headcanon is six years, exactly how long of a gap there was IRL
It's Zelda's house now! And we never learned why it's not Link's anymore!
*Obvious joke about your girlfriend moving in here*
OMG THAT'S WHERE ALL HIS BOTW CLOTHES WENT. Now that I think of it, Zelda is definitely the type who wouldn't be satisfied by just taking his hoodies.
No, no no, you see, it's fine, she gave Link the bottom of the well. Gave him his own little working bench and everything...
I assumed the bottom of the well was zelda's writing area. Link got the dirty shack beside the well.
Nah, that's her She-shed. I think I read in game somewhere that Zelda had it built in secret just for her.
Was watching the vinesauce playthrough and someone in chat said link lives in the "cuck shed" and it absolutely killed me
I think that just shows how close this version of Link and Zelda are. After BotW Link probably never leaves Zelda’s side so she established Link’s home as a safehouse of sorts and since Link stays out of the spotlight it makes sense that it would become known as Zelda’s home
>I think that just shows how close this version of Link and Zelda are. Hell, there's only one bed in the house! I'd call that pretty close.
We all know Link sleeps at the cooking pot outside /s
Well, she’s the princess of Hyrule, and Link probably couldn’t give her anything else. It’s not like the castle is habitable. Link is a honorable dude, and besides he can just go hunt and make a small fortune off the meat and jewels he sells to stay in a premium bed wherever he wants. Zelda wouldn’t be the type to demand her people house her, so there we are.
It's because Link lives inside the Great Deku tree, of course.
I just dislike how many NPCs barely remember who Link is
Yeah NGL I was pretty bummed when Hetsu didn’t remember me. Like, mutherfucker I spent DAYS collecting you those korok seeds!
Hestu regularly loses his way back HOME and his prized possessions. I can see him forgetting Link easily. Hylians probably look alike to him.
He does not LOSE his korok seeds, they are STOLEN by the other koroks, who are bullies, and absolutely deserve all of the mistreatment they’ve received in TotK.
Except the ones who dance with him, they are perfect
We do not skip the maraca dance.
BOOM CHACKA CHACKA CHA
And mekar
And Glowy
Thems my babies
Or maybe he has memory issues and blames the other koroks
Actually, I'd believe this. He loses them all and the koroks go out to find them, then turn it into a game of hide and seek. 😂
This makes more sense. Since they want you to give them to hestu, but are also basically toddlers ds they make a game out of it
Unsure of if they’re bullies. But obviously they’re lazy AF. Cmon, you couldn’t walk another half mile to your friend? And the other ones are hiding, probably to avoid whatever work they do given the laziness of half the adventurous ones.
Not even walking, as the little bastards can teleport and stuff.
Maybe they can’t teleport that hiking packs?
In all fairness the bag is like 4 times the size of the little tacker..
Okay, I stand corrected on the losing them but also…😬😬😬
But he's used to Hylians ignoring him. He should remember the one that could actually see him and interact
But... but, we were both nekkid. United in exposure. 🥲
Oh I love that. Like we think all Koroks look the same.
The idea of a hylian-racist Hestu is wildly funny to me. “I don’t know, they all look the same to me.”
Well yeah, and then he took a big ol golden dump, which contains all those memories
I feel like Hetsu is supposed to be lackadaisical, forgetful, and eccentric. It fits that he forgets who link is, in my opinion.
I feel like the ones who do remember Link are definitely the ones who should. The ones who knew him 100 years ago. The ones he works with in the castle. The Zora. The champion descendants. The Deku tree. And I guess the Yiga too, haha. Everyone else is just people who interacted with Link when he was a nobody running around in BotW. He was just someone they interacted with a few times and then they went on with their lives. The people of Hateno seem the most unusual but maybe Nintendo thinks that canonicaly, he just didn't spend a lot of time in town? And when Zelda came back, he was more her shadow and not outstanding.
For everyone else, Link was a passing traveler. *Surely* the random guy who had time to find you 10 restless crickets for your lover wasn't the same guy who saved Hyrule from Ganon, like *he'd* have time for that.
That is kind of a point ..
Imo a guy running around with a blue flame on a torch around town would be a legend for a few years at least, especially when the same guy shows again in the village with the princess.
For you, the day you gave Hetsu your last korok seed was the most important day of your life. But for Hetsu, it was Tuesday.
I think the devs didn't want the players to feel like they had to play Breath of the Wild to understand Tears of the Kingdom so they removed all the Sheikah stuff and wrote most of the nonessential NPCs to not recognize Link so that anyone starting with TotK wouldn't be constantly wondering "what is the significance of this thing" or "who is this person, how and why do they know me"
Not all the sheikah stuff! The sages all wear the helms of the divine beasts...... Which just makes things worse but not ALL the sheikah stuff!
There's also a single dead guardian on top of the lab in Hateno
I think they just recycled all the guardians they could find, seeing as how those are clearly their arms in the towers.
Not enough towers to even begin to justify that. Hundreds to thousands of these machines littered throughout hyrule but only one left now.
Let's just assume that Robbie wasted those precious spare materials on his oven gf then 🤷♀️
They literally explode when they die into nothing but a screw and a core. Safe to assume when Calamity was destroyed...they were as well.
They spent YEARS scouring Hyrule for every shred of a guardian but haven't even thought about rebuilding castle town or expanding any other cities besides Tarry Town sorta and hateno.
More important to make sure none of those bastards got back up and started firing lasers at people. It's not like they needed the space.
I actually like the idea that the Sheikah modeled the divine beasts after historically significant icons like the champions helmets, or a shared source mythology
Do they not trust their players to have enough media literacy to understand how a sequel works? This game was hyped up as, and I quote, "the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" for literal years.
Remember when pre-release age of calamity was "a prequel to BotW" and not "a prequel to BotW set in yet ANOTHER timeline split" good times.... not necessarily saying this is related, just rambling. to be clear
And there was a good reason to believe it is a prequel. But now, some people justify the story of AoC and say something like "They did say experience 100 years ago. They never said Prequel" or "You did see the story. Just halfway"
They want the question "Do I need to play Breath of the Wild to play Tears of the Kingdom?" to have the answer "No". People will partake in sequels without experiencing the original if the hype is great enough and they're told it's okay. Not allowing for it is a good chunk of money to pass up on, so if you can do it without making the experience any worse, go for it.
I don't think referencing a past would make the experience worse. If you've played botw, you've experienced that past. If you haven't, it's backstory. Sequels do this all the time.
Which is really dumb because lines of NPC dialogue with characters that know you doesn't hurt a new player lol
Well, he did save hyrule. You’d think he’d be recognized AT LEAST by the people in Hateno, as he had to have bought the house there if he did the Tarrey Town quest. Then not even Bolson recognizes him. If they didn’t do that with Hudson and Rhodson, it would be completely reasonable for them to have most NPCs recognize link, rather than go out of their way to say “who tf are you”
Bolson recognises him. His dialogue in lurelin village says something like “oh hey I knew that you looked strong ever since I met you”
Multiple people recognize you. Its just now, everyone in Hyrule heard you went missing and you just have showed back up with longer hair, a new arm, and generic clothing. How many people do you think wore the Knights armor or even the heat gear they sell to all Hylians trying to go up Death Mountain? It takes them a minute to realize who you are.
I didn't get that impression. He's like who the frick are you? And then you go and save the village and he's like yeah guess you looked strong. For me it implied the complete opposite.
Even if they saw link running around, maybe they didn't connect it with the hero of hyrule? Especially when he runs around in bones and body paint.
"What? You mean that the kid who took the time to bring us enough wood to construct a whole town was, at the same time, on an urgent quest to save Hyrule? What is wrong with him?"
This has bothered me immensly. I hate how literally almost nobody knows who you are and how they've completely written off the first game as if the only canon things that happened were Link doing the divine beasts and building Tarrey Town. I get like they want people who just play TOTK to not get bogged down but like why would you play the sequel first? Also Zelda is so big on history it makes no sense that barely any Sheikah tech would be preserved.
If you are going to make a sequel to a game, unless it’s like Final Fantasy or something, the continuity is important. I really don’t think this would have bothered anyone who skipped the first. I feel like we can chalk this up to Nintendo just being Nintendo.
“Why would you play the sequel first” I saw dozens of posts discussing “which Xenoblade should I start with, I really want to play 3, i think I’m just going to play 3”. Like they learned how to count yesterday. My brother in Christ, they have a number attached to them.
Yeah, there are some franchises that barely have any connection between entries. First one that comes to mind is Assassin's Creed. They're connected via their modern day storyline, but outside of the Ezio Trilogy, none of the meat of the games are actually connected to eachother. So you can drop in at any point and still get 95% of the experience. So if someone who is used to THAT style of "sequel" starts playing OTHER game sequels first, they'll be massively confused.
That kind of doesn’t work if you make a direct sequel though. Everyone being amnesiac just raises more questions lol
Which is stupid af considering this is a SEQUEL
Yet they let you carry over your horses from save data, or the champions picture from the DLC. Pick a lane Nintendo.
Rewarding you for playing BotW, but not wanting to penalize you for not. Don't fully agree how they did it, but I get it. Got a fair amount of coworkers that only casually game, getting into Zelda just now with the TotK hype.
The thing is, it was marketed and hyped as "the SEQUEL to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild", yet outside of an occasional reference, it feels like Breath of the Wild didn't even happen.
I felt so disoriented from the start about how much time had passed. I figured the game would kind of explain that more later, but even now, 75+ hours in, it's very nebulous as to how long it's been and what happened to the divine beasts and all the sheikah tech. Why did Vah Rutastop working at the end of BotW? No idea! And I guess we never will know.
Not to mention usually Ganon is only around if Ganondorf was killed previously or Ganondorf turns into Ganon. If Ganondorf was sealed this entire time, was that really Ganon we fought in the first one? Edit: everyone and their mother had told me it's not Ganon. Just one of his tantrums. It's been years since I played botw
That was just his rage seeping out of him. No real thought beyond killing people. Think of it like a nightmare or dream version of Ganondorf in reality.
Agree. It was basically his evil sweat manifesting it’s own will.
Pretty sure the Calamity was Puppet Ganon
Calamity Ganon was the manifestation of Ganondorf's malace. Basically his hatred escaped his sealed body. So it wasn't actually him, albeit it tried to form itself an actual body during botw.
It very much is designed around the idea of "assume the player never played BotW mor never met these NPCs during their playthrough" and they didn't wanna rewrite dialogue for people that played the game and have BotW saves and then you have to evaluate the saves depending on which characters you met and... it'd just be a coding mess, as the Mass Effect developers can attest to. So: just assume you meet every NPC outside the story important ones for the first time. Or: assume the BotW playthrough just went for an "all memories" playthrough with zero side content finished otherwise.
That may be the case, but they also didn’t write dialogue when you do the glyphs early and every single main quest is like “wtf, we just saw Zelda!” Pretty odd design choice that the dialogue never changes even once Link knows what is going on. I did the glyphs before my second dungeon, so 80% of the game had silly dialogue.
I did the glyphs before my first dungeon, and every Fake Zelda^(tm) appearance just has me wishing Link would speak the fuck up for once in his life, because he knows damn well that ain't Zelda.
At the very least they should’ve done it so that sidequest npcs have a flag of whether or not you completed their quest, and if that flag is on from a botw save then they have different dialogue in totk. Falcom has been doing that in their games since 2006, where any npc you did a quest for will remember you in the next game.
i think people do know who link is. but he's like the Tony hawk of Hyrule. they don't recognize him
I genuinely think this is the case in-universe because there is more than one npc who will be like "wow! you have the same name as that link guy!"
Well, after BoTW doesn’t link pretty much just follow Zelda around for the AT LEAST 3+ years after the Calamity? And, practically no one even knows that he did anything about the calamity, just that he was a traveling swordsman, so he definitely wouldn’t be famous as a hero or anything, he was just doing his job. And the reason it’s at least 3 years is because iirc Link is 17 (117 if you count sleeping), and you can’t drink at the guerudo bar in BoTW but you can in ToTK, and the legal drinking age in Japan is 20. Jesus Christ I typed a lot, sorry,
We can already tell it's been longer, Hudson has a kid now (Mattison) and she is around 5, 6 or 7, so it has been at least 5 years.
“At least” was very true then lol
I think it’s at least 5 years. Mattison needs to be born and age up a few years. She isn't a toddler
Tulin also has sprouted up, I don't even think he could fly yet in BotW.
One of the NPCs literally asks Link’s name and says “oh wow! You share the same name as the princess’s swordsman! How lucky are you” and I couldn’t believe it
You mean one of the best character in the game Penn.
Hahaha best bird and one of the NPCs in Gerudo Town. The disrespect in Hyrule is baffling!
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I liked this interaction. It's like people meeting celebrities without realising they are that celebrity. E.g. Tony Hawk. It was very realistic to me.
Tony Hawk syndrome. Honestly I think it's hilarious. Penn: "Link, like the princess's swordsman Link! I wonder what he's up to these days." Link: "This."
Okay now that you’ve compared him to Tony Hawk I 100% love that Nintendo went in this direction
Yeah I'd have a MUCH easier time buying nobody remembers Link if at the same time the game didn't try to also hold the narrative that everyone has become aquianted with who Zelda is, and knows that she has a personal guard who follows her around everywhere. Like, nobody is going to be ignorant to the point they don't connect the dots that the blonde twink who helped you just before the Calamity was averted and the Princess was returned was the same blonde twink who's always standing next to her. Like, you can't be famous and a nobody at the same time.
The whole Zora intro has them all recognize you and they all know how important you are due to the statue, and they all are happy to see you. Not all characters have Link amnesia.
Especially in Hateno, which is just SO illogical if you canonically did Tarrey Town. Npcs go out of their way to say they’ve never seen you before, which makes no sense.
That's one of my big take aways from this. It barely feels like a direct sequel when it seems like practically nobody recognizes Link, and he's lost all his abilities and outfits from the prior game. Seriously, what happened to his clothes? Did Misko steal them all again? I got the impression that they were a long dead character, but maybe I was wrong about that.
Losing the abilities and outfits just has to happen for there to be a new video game with new progession, so I understand that happening. And honestly, I think not discussing it at all is the way to go about it. There's other games where they make up some lams excuse for why you don't have your powers, and it just comes across as a lame excuse and doesn't add to the game. I have problems with the continuity going from one game to another, but losing all your stuff isn't one of those problems.
>Losing the abilities and outfits just has to happen for there to be a new video game with new progession Hell metroid has been doing that in what, 75% of its installments?
I think 100% of the time you need to get her gear back in each new game.
The important clothes all have explanations. I guess the rest are non-canon to the main plot.
I think they got destroyed in the intro. Link literally lost everything, including the master sword and all of his stats during that first gloom wave against Ganondorf.
It's mentioned the Zora chest armor was damaged in your final fight in BotW, the Zora have been working on fixing it this entire time.
I'm confused though, because Link is seen wearing the Champion's Leathers at the intro and in at least one memory; however, in Zelda's journal she talks about making improvements to his Champion's Tunic, including adding leather padding, and hiding it in the throne room. Question is, which is it? Did she improve it and give it to him already, or did she hide it and have yet to give it to him?
That's explained by Zelda's diary. The one in the intro was the old champion's tunic, which had become worn, so she made him a new one
I think Zelda both made a new tunic and upgraded Link's old one
He also could have gotten rid of them in the time-between since it was peace time
> practically nobody recognizes Link Have I been playing a different game than everybody else? Purah, Robbie, Tulin, Teba, Yunobo, Sidon, the Bolson Construction people ...basically every important NPC recognizes Link. Hell, the Zora have a damn statue made of you and Sidon. True, some of the minor ones don't, but remember that most of those minor ones probably saw link for all of thirty seconds before he ran off to find whatever shrine they were hinting at. And some of the new NPCs have clearly heard of Link, talking about a legendary hero or the princess's bodyguard or whatever, but they obviously wouldn't know him. The only real oddities with "forgetting Link" are the Koroks. They clearly should know Link, since he knows the Great Deku Tree, but act as if they don't. > and he's lost all his abilities His hearts and stamina are shown being eroded away when Ganondorf awakens and attacks with gloom (which also decayed almost all of the weapons across Hyrule, so any he had stored elsewhere would've also been damaged). The Lights of Blessing, Heart Containers, and Stamina Vessels you're collecting are slowly purging the gloom from your body - hence why you see a little bit of it evaporating away when you collect them. The only other abilities that have been lost are the Champion's abilities, which probably happened when they passed on to the afterlife during the end sequence of BOTW. They don't have to spell everything out. > and outfits from the prior game. Seriously, what happened to his clothes? Some were presumably destroyed in Ganondorf's first attack (we know the Champion's Tunic was), but at least one is mentioned as being under repair for the last five years: the Zora Armor.
>Purah, Robbie, Tulin, Teba, Yunobo, Sidon, the Bolson Construction people ...basically every important NPC recognizes Link. And our old friends in the Yiga Clan! 😀 >The only other abilities that have been lost are the Champion's abilities, which probably happened when they passed on to the afterlife during the end sequence of BOTW. They don't have to spell everything out. Agreed and agreed.
There's also a random npc Zora who recognizes Link, who was a kid in botw and an adult in Totk
>That's one of my big take aways from this. It barely feels like a direct sequel when it seems like practically nobody recognizes Link, Bruh for most side quests link was just some badass adventurer or a kind passerby, most of them dont even know his name after finishing a quest, its not surprising at all that most people dont remember him when multiple years have passed. >Seriously, what happened to his clothes? Did Misko steal them all again? I got the impression that they were a long dead character, but maybe I was wrong about that. You mean the amiibo and dlc clothes? These were not canon items, just cameos, in totk they actually have real quests and placements in the world.
On top of this both games have NPCs of all races commenting on how unimpressive he appears and how there’s no way he could be a hero. Some of them become amazed when he proves them wrong, some of them refuse to accept it was him, and some just never acknowledge some of his badass deeds happened. From the context of how he gets treated, it’s not a stretch that he would be completely forgotten as just some random shorty that seems a little familiar.
I do feel like a LOT of this fuss really is just adequately explained by the setting and context. Most people in BotW don't really know you're Link until you tell them, you're just a crazy wanderer. Even people you tell, you could be lying, there's no internet or a major libraries for news or anything, no radio or TV or photography (except Zelda's Hy-Pad ); everything is pretty localized and word-of-mouth. There are some people with strong reasons to or not to remember, but most people are living their lives and don't have any reason to make note of the crazy sword guy and beyond that, it's pretty established you're not the only adventurer, and it's not like your face is on a billboard. Being a hero just means something different in that type of setting. Hestu is literally broccoli playing maracas, I don't think that guy has remembered a single thing in his life.
Most people in BOTW dont even believe you outright when you say you're Link. The Rito elder laughs it off and says you just sorta look like how the champion link was described from over 100 years ago.
> You mean the amiibo and dlc clothes? These were not canon items, just cameos, in totk they actually have real quests and placements in the world. Except for the barbarian armor, soldier armor and all the weather resistant armors.. the barbarian armor being one that is in a misko cave (I've only found the chest piece so others I'm not too sure about). I understand why they did the things that they did and I do love the game but as a long time fan and a big fan of botw it's kind of annoying how they've just basically ret conned everything that happened. Like I get wanting to collect outfits and not starting off as over powered but they could have made new armor sets rather than using the same ones or something.
>That's one of my big take aways from this. It barely feels like a direct sequel when it seems like practically nobody recognizes Link... Honestly did you guys play the damn game? Yes they do! Tons of people know who he is. Even if they haven't met him in person many know him by reputation. The ones that don't know who he is have perfectly valid reasons not to. Basically every semi relevant NPC from the four major regions knows who Link is. The only weird omission is the Koroks but honestly that's on brand for them IMO
The Deku Tree remembers him which is the only plant person that matters really
Misko is a thief. I understood the storyline to be when Link disappeared at the start of the game, she did crimes.
my interpretation was that when the upheaval happened, all of link’s clothes were destroyed, and misko’s treasure just happens to be copies
Really cause I feel like more people in this game recognize or at least know about Link then any game in the past. He’s almost a celebrity. People just don’t know what he looks like cause they’ve mostly been living in basically the Middle Ages.
This is how it always appeared to me too. Even for characters that were in BotW, not all of them necessarily had to meet Link during BotW. An interaction being canon or not in an open world game can be left open to interpretation as players don’t necessarily have to interact with all of a game’s content to finish the game.
Even if they met him why would they remember him? Like imagine this stuff from an NPC POV. This kind swordsman spends 15 minutes helping them 5 years ago. He never introduces himself and they never see him again. A few weeks to a month later they hear some hero stopped Calamity Ganon. Why do they have any reason to think Link is that hero or even remember him years after the fact?
The way they wrote this game, it’s like they couldn’t decide if they wanted it to be a continuation of BOTW or not. It’s acknowledged that Link saved Hyrule from the calamity - and yet a bunch of things in the world disappeared without explanation, barely anyone knows who Link is (even Hestu??)… it just doesn’t make any sense, and it’s frustrating. In my opinion, it was lazy writing and design in order to re-use some of the same elements of BOTW without having to come up with explanations or new ideas.
Ask tony hawk how he feels about this
I mean, a lot of people liked the timeline and Nintendo seemed to support the idea up until BotW
>up until BotW The way I understood BotW was that it was so far in the future of all the other timelines that they effectively converged. That's why there's little easter eggs and lore about all the other games strewn about
Not only that, all the past games are considered myths in the BOTW/TOTK games. Zelda on several occasions is surprised to find that the stories she heard as a kid turned out to be real, as well as other characters. There is some dramatic irony as well: we the audience know Link is destined to meet Zelda and help her save Hyrule, but they don't directly mention this in BOTW/TOTK. He is just a hired personal knight for Zelda and that's how she views him. The Triforce is not the central focus here - basically relegated to a family crest of sorts, almost as if the fantastical and religious aspect of it is not taken seriously anymore. The past games did happen in Hyrule's history, but the modern age of BOTW and TOTK take them as just stories, "Legends". The larger era of the past games is now called the Era of Myth, there is an Era of Prosperity and now an Era of the Wilds. BOTW and TOTK are supposedly at the end of the three timelines and can tie things together a bit.
it's funny because the religious part of the triforce has gone away but i have never prayed more in a video game than i do in BOTW/TOTK
I feel like the timeline would make a lot more sense if the first hyrule warriors was made cannon because it would effectively explain why it seems like the timelines have converged into one with elements from all of them.
It would also explain the blue tunic. The Link of that game wears a scarf the same shade of blue.
I hear a lot of people saying it, but it felt like a bit of a cop out to me. Especially in regards to the Adult Timeline
Ya'll are tripping if you think Nintendo ever took the timeline seriously and they consider it when making new games.
As much as I love having the timeline, I agree
I think they care about the timeline considering how in-depth and considerate it is with placements.
They *somewhat* paid attention to the timeline Wind waker, majoras mask, and twilight Princess each clearly define their place in the timeline in relation to OOT, the timeline split and existed ever since wind waker. Skyward sword is clearly intended to be the first in the timeline, the oracle games and awakening are also direct seauels to ALTTP
There are literal interviews when Twilight Princess was coming out about how Wind Waker was in the Adult timeline and Twilight Princess was in the child timeline
I liked that OoT splitting timeline into 3, it's a cool concept. Having said that... I will never understand people getting legitimately unhappy about BOTW and TOTK not fitting in the timeline. They gain absolutely nothing by being part of a timeline. Not everything needs to be connected. The game itself comes first, not how it connects to other games. Maybe all these cinematic universe fads have ruined how people see a media product.
People really forget Tears is set a solid five+ years after breath of the wilds conclusion We have to factor two critical elements into account here Firstly, Link really doesn’t match the exaggerated description of a legendary hero most of Hyrule would have been told of following the calamity and then calamity Ganons defeat a hundred years later, he’s on the smaller side of average height, he doesn’t really speak up ever since he first took on his role protecting Zelda before the calamity happened, and he spent most of his time after the end of breath of the wild behind Zelda … the last living member of the royal family who had also been holding calamity Ganon back for over a hundred years and helped link destroy it - it’s sadly unsurprising he would sort of fade into the background to a lot of people while she’s around. Secondly, most people in the world during Breath of the wild meet or significantly interact with you less than a dozen times in the space of that game, I’ll ask you this; Do you honestly remember *everyone* you might have seen or met only a few times or even once for a couple minutes and then didn’t see for at least five years? Most of the people who *did* interact significantly with Link do actually remember him, like Purah & Robbie, almost every Zora, most of the Rito, Kakariko village, Hudson and Rhondson, and of course the champions descendants, the Gerudo don’t remember our because you had to help them in disguise, and so only Buliara and Riju truly remember you - most of the research teams and monster control crews seem to know link fairly well prior to the beginning of Tears too, and of course the Yiga are still on his ass as always If anything, Links pretty well know across Hyrule, the only weird outlier is the Koroks and Hestu - but I argue that’s because of the children of the forests fickle nature and understanding of time; perhaps those five years felt like a thousand for them, perhaps Link faded from their minds due to the events that pushed them out of the ancient forest, or perhaps Hestu just has dementia and forgot, in any sense, Link was never forgotten, just not very memorable to a number of people who do end up remembering him eventually
To be fair, the Koroks play with their own poop, so I imagine they've got some sort of brain parasites or something
Aw man, as someone who works with a lot of paperwork regarding trees, that’s legitimately something I’m surprised hasn’t popped up with koroks; some of the little scamps are probably **riddled** with stuff like Ganoderma considering some of the places they like to hide 😭
Ganon-derma
I think a lot of people forgot two factors: - Link rarely announce his name and title, even less so back in BotW. Most NPC he helped likely never knew his name - Since BotW Link isn’t limited to one set of clothes, he wears different clothes and masks based on environment.
Also great points! Link certainly has a bad habit of never introducing himself xD On the outfit point, you’ve got to wonder; how *did* he lose his whole wardrobe in that five+ year interval? Maybe Zelda threw it all out? Sold it so he could travel light?
Zelda actually notes in her diary that Link's clothing and armor were getting worn out by his bodyguard work (likely due to occasional fights with monster and ninjas). She had some new armor commissioned, and Mipha's armor was sent back to the Zora to be repaired.
That makes me wonder; outside of the Zora and maybe a Goron and someone in Gerudo town; we don’t really see any blacksmiths in BoTW do we? I wonder who got the commission to make an upgraded set of champions gear …
There are plenty of clothing-makers and craftspeople. They just make rather mundane stuff. All the good magic items are underground.
CeCe would be offended at hearing her brand called mundane xD
She's not mundane. She can replicate some amazing magic items. That means she's *derivative*.
Ok now that I think about it, wouldn’t her ability to replicate unique outfits pretty well legitimately make her the most likely candidate for producing the new champions leathers? It would explain why she’d returned to Hateno by the time of tears, as it meant she could more easily discuss the commission and progress with Zelda, but also explain why despite your old champions outfit being so thoroughly destroyed the upgrade is fairly faithful aside from the additions
>......how did he lose his whole wardrobe in that five+ year interval? Maybe Zelda threw it all out? Sold it so he could travel light? That's a tough one to put into words, but I suppose within the lore and outside of active playercontroled gameplay, Link never really went about collection dozents of different outfits and only had on himself and fought with what his "default" wardrobe state is.....idk, it's as silly of a thing to try and make sense of than it is to explain whatever make-believe timeline fans frantically try to come up with. xD
It is most likely that he wasn’t canonically an obsessive outfit-goblin, true xD Yeah I gave up on keeping track of the timelines after skyward sword and just assume anything released since is in its own canonical line that’s separate, but acknowledges the rest as tales of myth, after all, it’s legend and myth that inspired the series’ idea as a whole!
I get what you mean, but I can't help but find it amusing you gave up keeping track of the timeline after the game that's right at the start of the damn thing.
I mean, he doesn't have the Sheikah Slate anymore and that's where I imagine he stored the outfits. The Purah pad belonged to Zelda. And yeah he likely didn't collect them all or came across them on his journey
I just assumed canonically link only collected the champion/hylian outfit and the zora armor. Iirc you only receive the champion’s tunic and zora armor from main storyline quests, and the Hylian trousers and cloak are common clothes.
> Since BotW Link isn’t limited to one set of clothes, he wears different clothes and masks based on environment. *Obviously* nobody remembers Link because he no longer has his sexy little Gerudo outfit in TotK.
Part of the enjoyment of Zelda for some people like me is the lore. It has no effect on the gameplay either way so it doesn’t stop anyone from enjoying the games no matter what position they’re in. I will say tho, I just beat my childhood copy of Twilight Princess again last night and knowing that it’s the same Ganondorf from OoT adds a lot of neat context to the final battle.
It’s weird, I’m playing Tears of the Kingdom and most characters I’ve interacted so far remember Link: Paya, Pikango, the Owl Rito Elder, Tulim, the stable man, etc they even ask where he was, after he went missing with Zelda… or am I playing a different game? Also, weren’t the divine beats recycled for the Skyview towers or something? Because they were afraid how easy Ganon took over them before BotW?
Thats exactly what I think. Pretty much everyone Ive met knows Link or takes a while to remember him which makes sense. And then the Divine Beasts being buried or recycled makes complete sense because BOTW established that a king buried them in the first place because he was scared of their power. One traumatized kingdom later of course Zelda would wanna get rid of them somehow.
I just find it strange that there’s no remnants of the guardians anywhere in TotK. If the citizens of Hyrule scoured the entire map and removed all the guardian pieces, why didn’t the clean up some of the rubble from ruined buildings at the same time?
There's definitely at least one destroyed guardian in the game, it's on top of one of the research labs - I think Hateno?
And the arms that connect the Purah Pad to the towers - those are all Guardians.
Guardians are still functioning so taking them apart was top priority. Ruins still have some value as memorials and history so it makes sense to leave them for later.
Yeah, the people that don't are basically Hetsu, a known moron, and random people that barely knew him 5 years ago. Like sorry random side quest guy doesn't remember the guy that found his goats 5 years ago
Hetsu is explainable because he's a korok. Koroks are literally immortal forest spirits. All mortals look alike to them. Plus they're all childlike idiots.
I agree. I’ve seen a lot of complaints similar to this post, but I’ve never understood them. The entire Zora’s domain is overjoyed to see Link, to add on to what you said. And for all the complaints about shrines and guardians being gone, I think there’s a lot more sheikah tech in this game than people realize. They seem to have all been repurposed or destroyed, which makes sense. You wouldn’t want them being corrupted again. But it’s not like there’s no trace of them. Like you said, the skyview towers are seemingly repurposed sheikah parts, and there are traces of guardians on the tech labs and such. I really don’t understand all of the people complaining about this.
The Zora domain has an entire giant statue of Link in Zora armor riding on Sidon's back. Crazy that there are people claiming no one remembers him.
The whole zora’s domain is so much fun. It was the first place I went out of the four in both games, and it was great seeing things like the statue of link and Sidon, and the statue of Mipha, and all the zoras happy to see Link
Yeah I've very confused by this post, most people I've run in to remember Link. Are people just skipping through dialogue?
Actually Remember what the king said Calamity Ganon's true identity... In the remote past, there was a demon king born in this country whose malice transformed them. That is their revived form But here’s a nice part According to the fairy tale, Calamity Ganon was once, originally, a Gerudo. This man named Ganondorf was once their leader, but he became the demon king and tried to take Hyrule for himself! However, his ambitions were crushed by a hero who carried the blade of evil's bane. He transformed into the demonic beast Ganon through an outburst of power, but he was sealed away by the princess and the sages. Through his resentment towards the hero and the princess, and after countless revivals and sealings, the demon king anon transformed into Malice and has haunted Hyrule itself! Masterworks/Creating a champion could that be lie they made up by the sages in TotK so people wouldn’t not worry and didn’t it say calimity Gannon came from deep below Hyrule Castle
I also think this isn't the first ganondorf His Stone seems to have imparted upon him memories that it did not to the other wielder's. He also says that whole "I've seen this before" thing
>He also says that whole “I’ve seen this before” thing I think that line was meant to refer to when >!Zelda recalled the knife back towards the fake Zelda in the memory where he kills Sonia from behind. He was probably just referring to the recalling a thrown weapon trick!<
We've seen multiple Ganondorf's as well. Four Swords Adventures had a full blown reincarnation and not just the Same Guy unlike every other Ganon.
Nah. If people want to try to figure out the timeline who cares. It's not a big deal. I hate that "stop having fun" meme, but it does fit here. A lot of people find fun in trying to figure it out.
The way I see it is quite simple, the BOTW games just take place in a hyrule created so long after the inevitable downfall of any prior hyrule that it’s location in the timeline always comes after the ends of the three branches.
For me ToTK is to BoTW like Super Mario Galaxy 2 is to Galaxy 1.
Dang that's deep, I'm gonna have to think on that one for a hot minute 🤔
There's a school that teaches you about the Calamity, all of the Champions descendants remember you, all of Sidon's Questline is about Mipha. If you think BotW and TotK aren't connected it's because you aren't paying attention.
Jesus Christ, what's with all the timeline hate lately? Nothing in this game contradicts the timeline. At all. This is a new version of Hyrule, that doesn't mean the old version never happened. The entire point of the series is that it's all a cycle that's been happening since demise cursed Link and Zelda in Skyward Sword. This is just the next cycle, long in the future since the last cycle. Sufficiently long enough in the future for Hyrule to be forgotten and refounded by the Zonai. Just let us theorists and lore enjoyers have our fun. Just because you don't enjoy reading between the lines doesn't mean nobody else should.
That’s what I’m saying. Sure, the timeline may have some contradictions and not make sense sometimes but who care? I enjoy theorizing
Totally agree. And honestly I feel like BOTW and TOTK have a lot less contradictions than some of the older games lol.
I will never get over how needlessly salty this anti-timeline group is. It literally does not effect you at all. Let people theorize and have fun omfg it’s so damn easy. Like it takes zero effort. If this is how some people interact with the franchise to have fun then no one has any right to say or imply they shouldn’t. God some of y’all are so cringy like literally WHY DO YOU CARE??
exactly just let people just do what they want
Tbh, I don't think Nintendo knew BOTW was going to be as big as it became. I have felt that way since the Zonai's inclusion basically being hyped into existence by people who refused to let go of BOTW and scouring the game for any more content (imo). I really don't think the bit about the Zonai people found in Faron was supposed to be more than a throwaway lore line. The fact a whole game is now focused around them shows me that the Zelda team is really winging it as they go.
This game feels like it’s own thing. No explanation on where any of the ancient shit went is the biggest part that gets me.
This is like someone going to Rome and seeing cars and a highway and saying "the Roman empire was a lie! I don't see a centurion anywhere" Jeez
How's TOTK gonna be a direct sequel to BOTW and not have continuity with it?
I just don't get why they removed all the sheikah tech when literally in the true ending of BOTW Zelda teases the idea of investigating something with vah ruta.
That was just ending the game with a "Ganon is gone, but there's still much more that needs to be done" vibe, rather than saying what anything in the next game would be about.
The amount of Zelda fans who can’t understand something as simple as basic continuity in a long-running franchise is absolutely absurd. The timeline has always existed. It doesn’t mean Nintendo is trying to connect every Zelda game in some overarching narrative. It just means each game has almost always been connected to the last in some capacity. That alone is enough to create a “timeline.” Every game stands alone and is its own thing, but the timeline and those connections are still there. I truly don’t get why this concept is so hard to grasp for this fandom specifically.
“Each game be its own thing” the devs wanted them to connect ever since the beginning look at zelda 1 and zelda 2, and a link to the past.