I love the fact that the Great Plateau is crawling with _armored_ black Bokoblins! Almost like Ganondorf sent his best troops to assure the Shrine of Resurrection isn't used again!

it's my personal headcanon that after Botw all the shrines and towers went back into the ground, since they had fulfilled their purpose. The ancient sheikah tech was meant specifically for defeating calamity ganon, so when that happened, all that blue energy it ran on dried up, and aferwards the scientists like Purah had to figure out new ways of powering stuff.

I was floored by how *gone* all the Sheikah tech was. Like, it's like Robbie and Purah had a kill switch to dissolve all of it. The shrine of resurrection was stripped bare. I was shocked.

The Calamity is mentioned in game. So are the Divine Beasts. The Rito specifically refer to the overhang that Vah Medoh sat on as Vah Medoh's Perch.

Fun fact. A rare drop, or at least rare from the Archer Link amiibo, you can acquire “ancient blade” which basically turns your arrows into the ancient arrows from BOTW

It felt so weird not encountering Guardians anymore, I almost miss them. The constructs take the role as the new robot enemy yeah, but they just feel like reskins of normal enemies with the exception of that one block titan. Me personally, I just think they all... vanished, with the exception of the divine beasts and towers that merely stopped worked. The trails faded away in that funky blue light once the Calamity has been defeated and the Guardians merely rusted into nothing. Edit: oh, gloom hands.

So far I've only found ONE Guardian. It's still sitting atop Purah's tower in Hateno!

I really wish we had a guardian or two hidden in the world as secret minibosses and dropped some powerful shiekah fuse tech like the arrow heads you can get, although honestly without the BOTW sheikah slate skills they might be tougher to fight

FINALLY people are discussing the lore! I’ve missed these discussions :,)

What many haven't seemed to talk about? Even the DEAD guardians are gone. From everywhere. If they really broke down all the Sheikah tech, it implies they scoured every last corner of Hyrule, even the tech that would never be a threat except to some traveler.

I was speedrunning the towers and the memories before doing anything significant in the story and I did notice that the spots where shrines used to be were either empty or destroyed. I was almost relieved to see the dead Guardian on top of Purah’s tower in Hateno village, it felt weird not having anything remain other than the odd ancient arrow head or two

In my head-canon, the untouched Sheikah constructs gradually began to dissolve and collapse on their own with all the spirit orbs gathered and returned to the goddess over the course of a 100% completion of BOTW. There are implications that these constructs are powered by the prayer and dedication of the eternally-meditating monks and are (in the case of the shirnes, as shown by the master sword trials) realities created/augmented by intense concentration and willpower vs the "real world". With the spirits freed, the mission accomplished, and closure gifted to those who clung to the mortal world waiting for Link, all that collective spiritual willpower breathed a sight of relief and all that energy rejoined the goddess. As a result, all the structures retuned to basically being clay and ceramic pottery and collapsed in the ensuing years either by accelerated entropy from 10k years, or from the returning Hylian diaspora intentionally wrecking them (not knowing they were totally dead without malice or the monks willpower driving them) to prevent their return. Meanwhile, Purah and Robbie rushed to salvage and reverse-engineer what little they could. Being Sheikah descendants themselves, they may have retained the ability to energize simple constructs, but nothing on the scale of their ancestors. Regarding the discussion about the shrines: talk about them might be minimal simply because the death of the de-energized Sheikah tech would have been extremely common knowledge for Hyrule residents and would not have been a thing well-known by people returning, since the Calamity was 100 years ago and the towers and shrines began rising well after most of the kingdom was vacant. In addition to this, we can see from hints like Hudson's daughter that a considerable amount of time has passed between the two games, between 5 or even 10 years - and if we think about how everyone thought the tech was taboo during the pre-calmity times and compare that to how zeitgeist works in real-life... people were already moving past it only to have the falling ruins take center stage. Think if real-life disasters and how fast we move to the next headline. 5 or 10 years is enough to exhaust average interest, not even mentioning that the main event of BOTW was 100yr prior - then it's all overshadowed by the latest disaster. But that's all just me trying to make sense of it for myself as I enjoy the game. Nintendo is notoriously weird about Zelda continuity. ^^

I miss the ancient arrows and guardians. They were kinda huge symbols of the botw world.

I found reference to all the shieka tech, if you go to kakariko village in Paya’s room, you can find the picture of the guardians and the divine beasts, along with the towers. So it’s very likely that they were deconstructed.

It honestly makes sense that the shrines and towers were dismantled especially when you realize there are holes into the underground where shrines used to be (remember that the shrine challenges take place under the shrines themselves)

Seeing as how in TOTK the mural in Impas hut still has the guardians and the Devine beasts, they must have just dismantled everything.

The fact that the towers used by Purah look like they are made of guardian parts might be a good clue as to where they went. When it comes down to it the divine beasts were just really big guardians.

There is a line that Rahru says from one of the 12 years that Zelda was never originally meant to be in his timeline, but was sent back for a reason. Pura says that as soon as the upheaval started, the geoglyphs appeared out of no where, and the light dragon was not in the first game. It points to a rubber-banding fix to a paradox.

In Korok Forest, one of the koroks actually makes a reference to the old shrines. So they definitely once existed and it's maybe best to assume it was all scraped for some alternative use, but it never happened thanks to the upheaval event.

I think on a technical perspective to prevent too much space and lag for the game they removed the assets to save on space.. even though they probably could have kept the Devine beasts and resurrection chamber.

My biggest issue with totk lore is the implication the zonai were rhe founders of hyrule which contradicts skyward sword so hard it feels like its gonna split the timeline again

I think the fact purah SAYS they deconstructed it so Ganon couldn't use it again if he came back is in the game leads me to think that's what happened

I wish we had a few secret guardian boss fights that just showed up after Ganondorf was defeated, maybe like 5, but they were all around the base of Hyrule Castle where the old spiars jutted out of the ground

Zelda also built a monument in the ruins of castle town with a silent princess saying “dedicated to all the souls lost during the calamity”

Simply what if the sheikah tech went to a different realm, we've seen what the ancient arrows do to animals, like zap them into nothing like it's a portal or something, we know where are other realms in Zelda, why couldn't they have just done that to shrines or the shrines do that to themselves

The ancient Shieka tech is referenced in Totk though. They quite literally name drop Van Medoh and since Purah says that they broke down all the Sheika tech in her diary I'm fairly certain that that meant all of it. Regarding why ancient furnaces are no longer required: Purah and Robbie no longer wanted to rely on the failing power source so they changed power sources.

One detail that hasn't been mentioned is that the guardian on the roof of the hateno research lab is still there, along with some pieces of guardian scouts

I don’t do much care as to getting it back or anything. But more so I want an explanation from the game. Like… seriously. They ditch the sheikah slate for the purha pad? Like… it does the same thing but less features. The slate at lest looked original too where the pad is literally a switch which kinda takes me out of it. Then there is the fact that even if all the tech rusted away… how? We saw guardian corpses eeeeverywhere that managed to last for 100 years. Now 4 years passed and everything is gone? I highly doubt they managed to clean everything up if the research gang was destroying it all. After all they had bigger things ti worry about than to make sure every small scrap was gone. Like a kingdom to rebuild. If the tech itself made itself go away after completing their purpose, you still had dead unpowered guardians that would have been left behind The new towers just feel of as to why they built them when the old towers also did the same thing. If anything they did it better since they didn’t need to launch someone into the air with a camera and just installed the data of the area. Why is it all their tech got downgraded for the stuff they replaced it with? We know the sheikah could make better versions of the stuff since purha upgraded runes and Robbie’s furnace for better equipment are clear examples of them improving on the original designs. I have so many questions as to why it’s all gone and how. And the game answers none of it in favor for the zonai replacing everything. And it’s hard to say it’s an AU because they mention the calamity after all and the champs still exist, that could only happen if there was sheikah tech

The time manipulation theory is easy to disprove, since there is a history class quest all about the calamity, also we still see impas painting of the calamity in impas house and there is still the hole in hebra mountain and so on ....

Kind of half hope we get a third game where Link is thrown into the far future of Hyrule to contend with some future evil. exploring further magitek and stuff. And we see Purah in the far future because having manipulated her age like she has, granted her some form of immortality.

I am glad that this game has merged with zonai, and sheikah

There is actually a mention of Vah Medoh that I remember clearly during one of the shrine quests in Rito village, and the tapestry that depicts the first Calamity is still present. While I do wonder where the Sheika stuff went, I don't think it was erased.

If you go to where the ancient hateno tech lab is you can find a deactivated guardian on top of the tower along with several guardian heads. So it’s implied that purah and Robbie took the sheikah tech apart

YES!!!! Thank you for doing a video on this!! It was one of the first thing I noticed. After some of my own searching, I noticed an old in tact FULL guardian strapped to the top of the old lab in Hateno. I ALSO noticed the full scroll of the guardian attack (the four beasts in the corners) - it's in the bedroom of the main building in Kakariko!!!

I think the simplest answer possible is that Nintendo didn't want to clutter the world with useless objects and confuse new players who didn't play BOTW. Characters don't mention this stuff because for new players its irrelevant and for old players its also irrelevant because they already know it. Zelda changing the past doesn't make sense because based off of Ganondorf's dialogue in the intro prior to Zelda going into the past it suggests that the time loop already happened.

Why doesn’t Hestu seem to recognize or remember Link and is surprised Link can see him. I think this is an alternate timeline where some calamity happened, but it wasn’t calamity Ganon, Link never slept for 100 years and the guardians were never built. Maybe BotW is a fallen timeline where Rauru failed and the Sheikah had to imprison Ganon.

Melted - there is more than one memorial from Zelda. Also, the mural from BotW is in Paya’s room.. so no, this is not a retcon. In fact, if I recall, the tech cannot be seen anywhere in the BotW ending, like it’s been washed clear of the landscape. And considering that it all just popped up from the ground, it’s pretty safe to say it just … went back after it’s purpose had been served. Or hey- maybe they got destroyed when the Upheaval happened? But a retcon? Nah. That’s really silly

Well they actually teach the history of the Calamity in the school in Hateno. So it definitely did happen. I think they just deconstructed and decommissioned everything Sheikah related so the calamity would not happen again.

I’m more of the opinion that the game is taking place in a closed time loop. When reading the character profiles for some of the characters, it mentions certain characters helping link during the Calamity. Not only that but if no sheikah tech existed, then Link would not be 100 years after the Calamity. My thoughts are Zelda went back in time, inadvertently influenced the Zonai shrines existing which inspired the sheikah. The Sheikah then made their tech based off those shrines and the divine beasts after the sages, and the goal was to push back and seal Ganon until the time came for the Demon King to be vanquished. So, the Sheikah shrines wouldn’t have existed without Zelda. The other reason I think this since it wasn’t confirmed, is why did Rauru make the shrines if he personally did not need them?

Like I’m HOPING?? They do a dlc with Shieka tech.. But I never ever understood how they never mentioned calamity Ganon being the demon king. Like wasn’t Ganon’s malice form just gloom or his hatred seeping out? I’m so confused by the lore. And if Skyward Sword is in the mix too, how does Sonia fit in to the Hylia cycle. Or.. ughh my brain.

I would say that the shieka trials after testing the hero, desintegrated or just whent down and crumbled. The 4 trials on the great platoe are now chasms. Almost as if malice sweped in trough the holes left by the shrine elevators. And the shrine of resurection has a pool of healing water wich shows there is still remaining power on that place. I would say its a mix between being desintegrated ( trials) and diamantled with some tech being burried. Maybe the lack of power made the tech start to rust faster and faster. And some parts were salvaged and used to reconstruct tech and adapt to other power sources. And it will be payed dlc. Fans want shieka tech too much, they need to ad some of it back in the dlc and offer a bether explanation

Vah Megoh's ( bird megazord) perch still has its name in Rito Village in Tears of the Kingdom. Idk what happened to all the sheikah tech, but the events of BotW still took place.

Theory. Local villagers knocked down a tower in an act of gratuitous vengeance, and to Purah and Robbie's surprise, this knocked out the local guardians when their network went down. The shrines lost their connections to the extra dimension their innards occupied in the same event, and thus underwent a rapid disassembly when they dismantled the rest of the network. The divine beasts were most likely cannibalised for their parts, Ruta living on as an irrigation project somewhere in the gerudo desert for example.

Honestly between the Sheikah Slates ability to store a lot of things and being able to teleport things it's not hard to imagine that Link was tasked with going around Hyrule at some point to store as much guardian scrap he could find, the shrines sunk into the ground since they no longer serve a purpose, towers were obviously scrapped and repurposed with the new ones. Watch the DLC show us that Purah is just storing all four Divine Beasts in a Sheikah Slate until they can figure out what to do with them.

Maybe BotW and TotK are the only ones that are canon, and all of the older games are myths within that world. Like our myths, they include actual events that were explained to the best of the writer’s ability. That could explain why events from different timelines are directly mentioned in BotW. The previous Zelda games could all just be stories passed through the generations, like fables or religions, and it was the Calamity 100 years before BotW that finally exposed Ganon as an actual entity. The myths were based on some truth, but no one knows that truth. They only know the mythology.

They do kinda mention the calamity when Zelda talk to Rauru or minaru when Zelda talks about link being an appointment knight that was supposed to protect her, she mentions him saving hyrule and carrying the sword that seals the darkness

i really like the game a the story (even if the story might conflict with the lore). One of the issues i have with it is it seems the Triforce doesn't matter anymore. In TOTK its the powerful Secret Stones instead of the Triforce. As a average Zelda fan when i think of the Legend of Zelda games i think of the Master Sword, Zelda, Link, and the Triforce. the other issue i have is the Imprisoning War. does that mean BOTW and TOTK are in the downfall timeline? some things this game's story shows doesn't match up with the Imprisoning War the Zelda books talk about. So that make me wonder if Nintendo is following the Marvel path. You know how Marvel has a multiverse? Like the new movie Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse which shows different spiderman's from different universes. Maybe the BOTW and TOTK are not part of the Zelda timeline we know from the books. maybe BOTW and TOTK have their own timeline in a different universe. Does that make sense? Or maybe they are just going to retcon the entire Zelda franchise.

What is also weird is...why is Ganondorf appearing back during the founding of Hyrule? If the imprisoning war Zelda mentioned in the beginning could be the same from A link to the past, why is it stating that it took place at the founding of Hyrule? Hyrule was already established, and had a castle during the downfall timeline, unless it's a different imprisoning's war.

I like your theory on alternative time lines, I haven’t thought of that angel yet… and it makes the most sense when trying to put the time line together

Here is what I have an issue with: (SPOILER ALERT) The Sword of Evil's Bane, the sword that evil can never touch, gets completely destroyed by evil. And this creates a massive plothole. If the entire game has Zelda going back in time to repair said sword, what's stopping Ganondorf from destroying the sword again using the same method? It makes no sense to me.

Once you complete the dragon's tears quest and the 5th sage quest Impa goes back to Kakariko and when you talk to her she does mention the calamity and Symin in Hateno village also does a lesson on the calamity with his students

I hate how abrupt the whole disappearance of the Sheikah tech was in Totk since it played such a significant role in Botw.

I felt like nintendo could be setting up an expansion that relate to all the missing ancient sheikah tech, but I'm more interested in the lore implication of the tribe and how it relates to the zonai since both have advance technology I wonder if they are related or not.

Great video! I hope I'll be able to play TOTK sometime this summer :)

Hey. It's true that totk is almost completely stripped of the Sheikah stuff BUT there is a guardian's body sitting on top of the lab in Hateno. So they did exist.

From a technical standpoint, I think Nintendo simply didn't want to scatter the already cramped landscape with 120 now defunct shrines, towers and stuff. They would simply confuse new players and old players already know where everything is/was. In game I think it simply stopped working and dissolved after the calamity was defeated. The shrines and towers especially were designed to help link regain his memory and power after 100 years and thus no longer needed after the events of BotW. And the rest was probably disassembled and repurposed into the new towers and the Purapad by Purah and Robbie. The "Zelda changed the past" theory can be disproved by Ganondorf recognizing Zelda and Link at the start of the game, meaning he must have already encountered Zelda in the past, thus the time loop already existed.

I like the idea that the towers and shrines went back into the ground and all weapon type tech was disassembled and used to create new things Pura and Robbie may have needed to use more of it than the ancient sheka as the ancient sheka may have had help from the zonie or at least had more of their technology and manuscripts available to use in creating the original sheka tech

The tapestry that shows the first calamity has the digine beasts on it. Its in Payas bedroom.

there is a reference to the divine beast where if you pick up a certain shrine quest in rito village the person mentions the top of rito village as “vah medohs perch”

My Theory about the Sheikah tech gone missing is being repurposed as seen with the towers, they salvaged the arms of the guardians and training units to reverse engineer in to something more controllable and easy to use, while retaining there few redesigned forms, like the legs and teleport pads, robbie old tech lab in Akkala, there still one unused guardian on the roof, there are few others but cant remember, I still new to the game despite I got so far in to it, anyway I don't think they forget about it, I believe they want to forget the past that killed many people because is terrifying, so much had died, so they are now using zonai tech to replace what was now gone to dust forever.

It bothers me so much that the champions aren’t mention by name much at all. All I’ve found is Mipha’s court, the sculpture of Daruk in goron city and each weapon wielded by the champions

Time manipulation is not an option because there is still a decayed guardian in top of the hateno lab, and in impa’s house in kakariko there is still the calamity war mural from 10,000 years ago

I miss the Guardians. They were so fun to fight, and the added random adrenaline when exploring created such unique encounters that we dont get in TOTK

I think that they will release a dlc that will hopefully go over some of that information of why a lack of shika tech and guardian bodies and maybe even have some rouge guardians that are uber powered by collecting malice over the years between games. They usually good about attempting appeasing the fans that or we will get another hyrul warrior game to go over all that or make alternate reality again.

Hello, i am here to spread a theory i did not make but i saw somewhere Sheikah tech can be downloaded and teleported as seen in aoc, so they just turned the shrines and towers into data to be repurposed later, the chasms below the shrines originated from poor stability after the underground shrines were stored, same with the guardians, all for fear of them turning against them again

the first time i saw the trailer time alteration is the only thing i could ever think of. now knowing ganon is back in his actual form, i believe the time where zelda and link explored the castle ruins and awaken ganon that sets in the events of totk and reinvent a new timeline, and some kind of paradox.

It seems the position of many of the sheikah shrines and towers have now become chasms, making it look very much like the tech used to be there

Easy after the events of BOTW they made went back into the ground and the remaining tech was used to build the new towers and new style furnace. Like the one used in the beginning of the game when they turn it on they took the furnace and turn it into a boiler style. Because if you look at the switch it connects to a furnace style boiler ?

there’s a rundown guardian sitting on top of the hateno ancient tech lab, and the school side quest in hateno goes over the calamity in excruciating detail, including the fact that the beasts and everything were built by the sheikah.

It would be so nice if there somewhere is a dump of guardians. The pile at Robbie’s lab is covered over, which makes sense. It would also be great if there is a shrine that’s broken open. Every shrine have this giant room under them and it wouldn’t really do anything if you just destroyed the building above ground. The upheaval caused all of these chasms to open up, so there must be some shrines that was affected by it.

Impa talks about the calamity at the tapestry and wants you to go to school to talk about the calamity. As well as purah's tech lab has photos and drawing of the sheikah tech as well as deconstructed guardians. so I imagined that they decided to disassemble the sheikah tech like you would after a war. Gotta recycle that stuff. I am sad they don't reference it more but Maybe everyone has PTSD about it

What about the fact that theres a guardian tied to the top of Robbies Lab?

I’m fine with the idea that they just dismantled and cannibalized all the tech, I just wish that given such a drastic change to the world that leaves a lot of unanswered questions that they’d have changed more things about the world outside of that. It would’ve been cool if they’d expanded on a lot of the settlements, adding a bunch of features that utilize a bunch of repurposed Sheikah tech, and just in general had things rebuilt in the time between games like imagine if castle town had started to be rebuilt instead of just having lookout landing. Like imply that things have started to return to a state of normalcy prior to the upheaval instead of basically being the same broken world with this one major glaring change

I just miss the ancient weapons you used to get from Robbie. That 2 handed ancient saw weapon we got was awesome! Really hope they bring guardians and the weapons back for DLC.

i feel like point 1 makes the most sense, point 2 is pretty much denied by the game itself as purah has 4 more diarys around hyrule which talk about how she finished off her ageing rune for her sheika skate and used it one herself.

Hateno village has a school which has a side quest which is a history lesson for the students there. said history lesson talks about the calamity and basically just retells the story of botw. now I don't remember the phraseing exactly and don't know if he mentioned the sheika, but at least everything else of the calamity seams to have happened.

They could have left shrines and a few guardians scattered in some of the most remote regions at least, on some mountain top, in caves or something

there a quest in heteno village in the school where it litterty tells you about the events of btow so the fact they same to forget or is a diffrent time or universe cant be

There is a place where we can see a decayed gardian and decayed guardian parts, the Hateno Laboratory near Purah's room.

The only mention so far out of my play through is that in the hateno village school. The guy mentions he wants to teach the kids about THE CALAMITY. I guess it must’ve happened at some point in the timeline still.

Seems like Zeltik got some competition now. Love this video

My theory regarding that is yes the survivors took their time over the 5 years to disassemble the ruin guards and all the other shiekah tech. Some of the shiekah towers are in spots now occupied by sky island structures and or made in chasms themselves so i think in practice even the Sheikah towers benign as they were (to link) were just smashed by the upheavel. As for the Sheikah shrines some of those shrines are straight replaced by the new shrines near by while others also got the twist treatment of either being disassembled by the hylians themselves or crushed under a stone

7:17 It's actually explained as part of the whole paradox with Zelda. In the memory where Zelda meets Rauru's sister. Mineru asks to see the Purah pad and flat out says she'd like to try to reverse-engineer the teleport functionality. She manages this somewhere between then and Ganondorf's ascent to Demon King, and it's the primary reason anyone was able to escape after Sonia's death. It even keeps the same blue light in that cutscene that it's always been using. So going by that, even if there wasn't nearly enough Shiekah tech to study, there'd be the travel gates stationed outside the Zonai shrines to experiment with.

yeah, that "stylized third eye" you mention...it's an eye. apparently the zonai have 3 eyes. scared the crud out of me in another cutscene

Purah talks about it in her journal she still has her anti aging runes and Robbie has his bag still

But in the castle town ruins there is a stone that says something like "I dedicate this to anyone who lost their lives to the calamity

There's a villager (i'm not sure who) in the rito village who mentions the name of the huge rock in the centre of their town, and they call it "vah medohs perch" so it had to have existed

I havent completed the game yet, but i think it Would be cool to find a opperational or wreckage of a gaurdian stalker somewhere

Isn't the whole point of Zelda's power that she always went back in time and always regenerated the Master Sword?

A few days late since this video has been out for a while but I just discovered that there is a character in the game in rito village named Lasissa, Who makes mention of Va Medio, When she's talking about finding a cave, After length has been to the sky temple And ended the blizzard. So obviously the time travel argument doesn't hold complete grounds to why no one seems to remember them because it's 1 character does mention Is the name of the divine beast

my personal head cannon is that the sheikah dismatled all the dangourus stuff but all the tow ers/shrines went back underground as they serverd their pourpose and/or its some kind of defense mode

So im not the only that thinks that BotW could be somehow in 2 seperate Timelines? As if the entire OG timeline has Botw at both? basically BotW in the TotK timeline would have Zonai tech while the game we got in whatever timeline is got Shiekah tech. Era of Myth is the OG timeline but a parallel reality timeline. Like Lorule and Hyrule. Great video, really glad im not dumb thinking that too lmao

3:25 Actually, this has probably already been mentioned in the comments but, in Rito Village, they still call Vah Medoh’s Perch, well, Vah Medoh’s Perch.

i think a separate time line makes sense just got to find the where and the why that separates the time lines

Dude I’m with you. Preach. I don’t feel crazy now. ❤

The way I see it, Calamity Ganon was build-up energy stocked into Hyrule Castle's basement to develop and supply Sheika tech with energy. With time the accumulated said energy became sentient.This is why he was able to hijack guardians and divine beasts. Then when Ganon was defeated, all Sheika tech went obsolete. They then dissolved the way the Sheikahs inside the temple did. Just not sure if it disappeared because "mission accomplished" or because it shared the same essence as the Calamity. The main hole in this theory is how the furnace comes in the story, but I find it quite pertinent.

But theres a guardian still on the Hateno Lab? I wouldn't say they were erased from the timeline

It really is fascinating when you compare Sheikah and zonai tech Sheikah tech is fully based on technology but the zonai seem to use a mixture of tech and magic with there stuff.

Adding AoC to the mix, and you can see even more paradoxical theories about things

Ok, I’m hooked. I hope you gain all the followers and therefore the financial independence required to put out more content. Great ideas here and I enjoy your narration quite a bit