Tears of the Kingdom director finally sheds light on a mystery linked to Breath of the Wild, and fans couldn't be more disappointed

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Zelda — (Image credit: Nintendo)

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's director has finally shed light on a mystery linked to Breath of the Wild, but it isn't what fans wanted to hear.

From the towers and shrines to the mighty Guardians stalking the landscape, Breath of the Wild was teeming with Sheikah tech, but in Tears of the Kingdom, which takes place in the same Hyrule, there's not a shred of it left. Given how central it was to Link's previous adventure, its mysterious absence has been bugging players since the follow-up launched earlier this year.

Now, in an interview with The Telegraph, Tears of the Kingdom's director, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, has revealed what happened to all that Sheikah tech, explaining that it simply ceased to exist after carrying out its function.

"[The Sheikah tech] disappeared after the Calamity was defeated (sealed). Fujibayashi explains. "All of the people of Hyrule also witnessed this, but there is no one who knows the mechanism or reason why they disappeared, and it is considered a mystery. It is believed that since the Calamity disappeared, they also disappeared as their role had been fulfilled."

Fujibayashi goes on to say that as "mysterious events and strange phenomena" are common occurrences in Hyrule, the people didn't take much notice when the tech did a vanishing act.

"People have simply assumed the reason behind the disappearance to likely be related to ancient Sheikah technology and it seems there is no one who has tried to explore the matter further," he says. "The main civilizations in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are completely different, so we thought about the game based on concepts that match each of these civilizations."

While it is an explanation, Zelda fans haven't found it to be a very satisfying one. On Twitter, one fan writes, "I'll accept that the shrines vanished. It seems strange for the towers to vanish, given their size. But the Divine Beasts? Come on. What did they do? Walk off together into the horizon?" Another says, "It would've been so cool to see huge rusty, decayed pieces of the beasts being repurposed by creatures, or with moss and lichens growing on them."

Fans on the Tears of the Kingdom subreddit are equally unimpressed. "I would have much preferred that they dismantled everything to build the new towers or something..." writes user Sledgehammer617. SkyarrowGamer comments "The fact that they took the biggest parts of the previous game and just erased it like nothing happened is just so stupid."

An equally peeved LonelyCarrot62 says, "This is just lazy writing. This explanation makes no sense whatsoever. How could the tech disappear while still having plenty of tech still existing in Hyrule? How did all of the guardians vanish except for a few like the one on the Hateno lab and the ones used for the Skyview towers? I really wish BOTW and TOTK weren't so disconnected."

Many are also questioning why Tears of the Kingdom is a sequel at all when there's so little that connects the two games. Stormhunter6 says, "At that point, there's no need to make TOTK a sequel, why not just make it a parallel story with a similar but different version of Hyrule."

Where the series goes next is another mystery as, back in September, Nintendo revealed it won't be releasing any DLC to bolster Link's latest adventure.

Elsewhere, Zelda Tears of the Kingdom engineer makes surprising breakthrough: Cows are OP.

Originally from Ireland, I moved to the UK in 2014 to pursue a Games Journalism and PR degree at Staffordshire University. Following that, I've freelanced for GamesMaster, Games TM, Official PlayStation Magazine and, more recently, Play and GamesRadar+. My love of gaming sprang from successfully defeating that first Goomba in Super Mario Bros on the NES. These days, PlayStation is my jam. When not gaming or writing, I can usually be found scouring the internet for anything Tomb Raider related to add to my out of control memorabilia collection.