Where did the Sheikah Tech go?

The interview (not paywalled version): kotaku.com/legend-zelda-tears...

[@T101G]

what's weird is that Purah and Robbie act like the Purah Pad is some amazing new invention when it is literally just a worse version of the sheikah slate. Not only does the sheikah slate disappearing not really make any sense, but everyone seems to have forgotten it ever existed.

[@PainoMailo]

Sounds like the Mandela Effect happened in the Zelda universe

[@DoctorpooandtheTURDIS]

IMO that does make a little bit of sense. Divine Beast Vah Ruta had shut down RIGHT after the end of BOTW, and the Purah Pad is implied to be brand-new at the beginning of TOTK, before the Upheaval which most people agree is around five-or-so years after BOTW. If we take Ruta shutting down to mean the Sheikah Tech was about to disappear in just a few moments, then there was literal years that they were going without any other bits of Sheikah Tech. It's an amazing new invention not because it's an amazing new invention, it's an amazing new invention because they'd finally managed to recreate the Sheikah Slate's functionality after so much time, on their own, without any other tools.

[@yaboihere494]

New models are always worse. Purah engages in planned obsolescence!

[@ummidk757]

On top of that even if the sheikah tech was being destroyed or something like that to “prevent a future calamity” it would’ve made no sense to destroy the very thing that had no chance of turning against them and would’ve been extremely useful too link and Zelda even more then the purah pad since it had abilities like remote bombs and stasis and they probably still would’ve been able to use it since there’s still remnants of old sheikah tech that’s still functional which implies it the sheikah slate would’ve been functional too. if they would’ve provided like a in game book explain what would happen that would’ve been nice for example “The sheikah slate was destroyed during a encounter with a bokoblin” or soemthing along those line

[@eoghanconnell1849]

I was always really disappointed with how they handled the disappearance of the Sheikah tech, made the world feel much smaller and it was such a big part of the world that it kind of ruined the point of showing us how this version of Hyrule progressed. I like your theory though, I just wish even one npc would address it in the game itself

[@Linventor]

not my idea, but I do think they should've kept around at least one or two guardian stalkers _somewhere,_ just to mess with people.

[@kahlibrown4909]

That would be both terrifying and absolutely hilarious

[@lozm4835]

Bonus points if there were gloom hands around one of them.

[@rayflyers]

Obvious question: then why didn't it all disappear 10,000 years ago when it served its purpose then?

[@MaxAutoAttack]

My first visit to the Depths was through one of the chasms in the Great Plateau. All of the Plateau's chasms stand where a Shrine once was, and I remember thinking "Oh shit! That means the depths are where the Shrine puzzle rooms were originally stored, and this chasm was the elevator shaft!" In retrospect, I realize that I was putting way more thought into it than Nintendo ever did.

[@remixtheidiot5771]

at best the gloom holes being located where they were in totk can only be at best described as a reference; a nod to the previous game... but not much else. it sucks.

[@jaxpool155]

my thought: expanding on the secret botw ending where vah ruta suddenly stopped working, and incorporating the official statement, once the calamity was over the spirits of the champions inhabiting the divine beasts likely faded as the monks in the shrines did once their challenge was met. their purpose fulfilled there was no more need for them to function. (and even guardians may have ceased similarly from malice leaving them all at once.) however, having these large hulking mechas just hanging out empty was a hazard, especially with no power or anyone to pilot them. so they were likely dismantled. and the idea of people throughout hyrule being frightened by the guardians makes sense so any of those left were probably cleaned up and dismantled too as part of zelda's work on restoring the kingdom pre-upheaval. like you mentioned, it's clear some sheikah tech/guardian parts survived to make the skyview towers, and it's possible the sheikah slate stopped working and was repurposed/reverse engineered to make the purah pad. and since its primary function is as a research tool it wouldn't need the rune functions besides the camera anymore. tl;dr, i think that post-calamity/pre-upheaval the sheikah stuff was dismantled and repurposed after the spirits that made them function faded away. funny side note: cherry was shrunken down between botw and totk. used to be a big machine at link's height but now is just a table lamp.

[@samboi123]

In addition to the tech’s poorly explained disappearance, there’s not even evidence of some things having existed to begin with where there should be. There’s not even a dent in the depths where Gerudo Tower should’ve sprouted from, and Akkala Citadel has somehow been perfectly filled in with space for caves despite the gaping hole in the middle Akkala Tower made, as we see in Age of Calamity.

[@nebulous9280]

Weren't they MODELED after the masks of the original sages? I don't recall them wearing Sheikah tech in the cutscenes.

[@samboi123]

@@nebulous9280 I’d have to check the dialogue again directly, I’ll get back to you on that. Even if they were, it’d be odd that something created by the ancient Sheikah is found both A) in locations that were never seen before the Upheaval and B) not in chests of Sheikah design

[@NeedsMoreBirds]

@@nebulous9280 That's what I think, but samboi is right - the dialogue does make that implication, which I don't think makes any sense.

[@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon]

Definitely "just" modeled after the old helmets, as the cutscenes/flashbacks to the old Champions show them wearing helmets made of Zonaite and gold (example: i.ytimg.com/vi/exqzASRxrfc/maxresdefault.jpg ) and the current helmets are made of the brownish-black guardian material. They look similar, but they're not the 1:1 same items.

[@samboi123]

@@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon aight I’ll edit that bit out for now but I’m tempted to start a new playthrough just to check the dialogue lol

[@Ephbee]

i kinda figured that it was a combination of the world at large just wanting it gone, and... a modified version of the nintendo response? the shrines and beasts etc. in my mind draw power from the lingering spirits that used them, thats why every shrine had a monk. spiritual battery. once the calamity was vanquished for sure, all the spirits were able to move on so every sheikah device was able to either power down or dissolve like the monks. salvage the guardians for screws and springs to build new hyrule, stuff the cores and all the other miscellanous sheikah stuff into the sheikah pads inventory, and then drop a large rock on it.

[@binatlas6620]

in botw link weighed like 7.5 apples, in totk he weighs 10 apples. the sheikah tech is gone because link ate all of it and thats how he gained weight.

[@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon]

Conclusion: all Divine Beasts, Guardians and the giant pillars surrounding the castle had a combined weight of about 2.5 apples. Either that, or Link left some massive piles of...uh..."guardian waste" a few hours after every meal. Hey, maybe HE is the reason there isn't a single functional toilet left in Hyrule?!

[@tacitgamingfanREAL]

“wheres all the shiekah tech” i EATED it all

[@binatlas6620]

canon

[@jlco]

lore-accurate Link

[@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon]

@jlco Zelda, Purah and Robbie, chasing Link around, all yelling variations of "What are you eating right now?! Spit it out! Bad boy!" ...while Link is desperately trying to chew faster.

[@paulrance5445]

Another youtuber by the name of Ratatoskr said something that quite lines up with the unsatisfactory response from Nintendo. “They didn’t think of it, and they don’t care.”

[@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon]

Yup ..that's exactly what the interview sounded like IMHO. That was such an "IDGAF and stop asking already" answer that it's clear they didn't think about it much, and probably prefer that everyone else would just quietly ignore the issue.

[@zeromarurb4791]

Is specially weird since they took so much to develop the game, you would think they had time to at least think of a decent excuse

[@lampdisease]

My theory is that Zelda traveling to the past caused some kind of butterfly effect that made the sheikah tech not happen in the same way. It would also explain why so few people remember Link- if this is an alternate timeline, he might not have done the same things as he did in BotW. I haven’t seen anyone else saying this, but it seems like the best explanation to me. :P

[@NJunkieYT]

This makes sense, thx for the explanation!

[@Starfloofle]

...Yeah. This is about the only sane explanation. I hate that it falls down onto "Time Travel Shenanigans" but that *is* the game they set up...

[@TheCongressman1]

I'm absolutely sick of time travel in Zelda, it always ends up as the excuse for bad continuity.

[@blueskythlikesclouds]

i don't understand why they were so scared to do some continuity. players who played totk first would only get curious and want to play botw to see what it's all about. sheikah tech disappearing is as annoying as NPCs who had a big part in BOTW (like that guy who furnishes your house) not recognizing you AT ALL in TOTK, i was incredibly annoyed by these

[@ArceusDX]

Ya know that irl some guy you meet like, once isn't going to recognise you 5-6 years later right? People keep saying it makes no sense, but most of the NPCs that don't remember Link only ever met him like, once or twice in BOTW, them forgetting is not weird, that shit happens in real life :U

[@blueskythlikesclouds]

@@ArceusDX what do you mean? he stayed on my house's garden for several months, you wouldn't forget someone you did that to

[@nebulous9280]

​@@ArceusDXEspecially if that person whose garden you sat in for 2 months happened to be the legendary hero of Hyrule, wielder of the Master Sword, and assigned knight of the Princess of Hyrule, both of whom defeated the Great Calamity like, 5 or 6 years ago.

[@frostycane5134]

@@ArceusDXhe lives with the ruler of the land in her private house in town. He’s not just some nobody it’s like saying Americans wouldn’t notice Obama living in their local community . I don’t mean to offend you I understand your just try to justify their lazy writing but in the end they needed more time to realize these issues . If we noticed them the the games director would have too if he had actually played the game and spent more time with it

[@trashtrash2169]

Also, people certainly fo just remember random people from years ago ALL the time. Are you seriously going to tell me you can't think of one time somebody you don't know interacted with you a few years ago? I can! I have gone to a store, even, after a long while and still be recognized by a worker with unique information that relates to me or even my name. Do you have amnesia?

[@rayflyers]

I won't lie. Although TotK is a fun game, the lazy storytelling really hurt my enjoyment. I wanted a sequel to my favorite game, and what I got was half disconnected from the original and completely rewrote OoT's imprisooning war. Story continuity matters, Nintendo!

[@tamed4171]

Totally agreed

[@lorekun]

During the game I was expecting to find at least one sheika shrine in some decayed or "cursed" form. It would be a great cave/dungeon/chasm, already being buried and all. What a bummer.

[@soundpatriot5274]

Okay but you know what's weird. The shrine of ressurection in totk has stalagmites. Those take thousand of years to form. Not the 5 or 6 years that passed from botw to totk. Like it's fine that hyruleans stripped all ancient tech, with the calamity and all, but that just doesn't make any sense. Nintento clearly just didn't care that much.

[@pedrovictorsilvaladeira7877]

Actually, stalagmites can form in hundred years, but still, they couldn't form in 6 years. I agree with you about the shrine of resurrection, it's really weird that not even a sheika wall fragment remains. I think they could keep this cave like 50% of the original, with most of the walls but clearly decayed and with many holes

[@soundpatriot5274]

@@pedrovictorsilvaladeira7877 damn i didn't even know that! You learn something new every day haha. And it is indeed really weird. Like, it's okay if the scrapped the warp point and some terminals. They can be reused in other stuff. But the walls? Why not keep them?

[@myyoutubeaccountgotsuspend8666]

Ah I get it, just like weapons have limited durability, things in the BotW Hyrule actually just vanish when they exist for too long In all seriousness I bet this would make for good crack theory fodder

[@laytonjr6601]

The Sheika tech was built to fight calamity ganon, so on the surface the argument that they dissapeared when calamity was defeated makes sense. However, Calamity is just leakage from Ganondorf's power. Every time it's destroyed, it comes back later because Ganondorf is still leaking malice (something the sheika noticed and build the guardians for). The technology should remain ready because another calamity will appear (I guess people didn't notice it was a new calamity every single time because their lifespans are too short). Because Ganondorf accumulated power for 10,000 years, he managed to take over all the Sheika technology. Therefore it dissapeared, not because its job was over, but because it had become *unable* to do its job anymore. Why is there still more? No idea, maybe the tech in the labs was spared because their Bluetooth transmitters had been removed for experimentation. The ancient arrows in random chests make even less sense because there weren't any in botw (as far as I know)

[@DoctorpooandtheTURDIS]

Whole-ass islands were appearing after the Upheaval, so little chests aren't out of the question. But the ancient arrows in the chests CAN make sense. Any metal box can act as a Faraday Cage, which blocks the radiation used for wireless signals. And if I remember right, the ancient arrows only really appear inside the metal chests.

[@az-kalaak6215]

@@DoctorpooandtheTURDIS there is a sonau droid that can simply give you unlimited ancient arrow for sonium... which is strange considering sonau are supposed to be well before the first calamity ganon

[@MrFoxInc]

I really like this interpretation, I'll go with that. It was so frustrating that the Zonai were basically the Sheikah 2.0, at the cost of the Sheikah pretty much just becoming "whatever" as any relevance they had was completely removed except for Purah - and the official explanation for all of it is "Don't worry about it :))" I've seen a bunch of theories of another split timeline between TotK and BotW and I can honestly see why people would see that as reasonable, because everything else just makes so little sense. Why couldn't they put a little more effort into this major factor of the game to make it feel more meaningful?!

[@rGGdom]

Man I love these little silent videos where you try to explain, in-game, some of the questions we may had. Is like a voice (or non voice in thise case) of reason in the middle of the crazyness that is the Zelda canon - timeline. Your takes are always on-point, and I think you have a good understanding of what we prefer to be canon. Yes, I do agree that logical, in-game explanations do have a greater hierarchy when it comes to the canon. Keep it up!

[@its_adam9466]

It's simply annoying that it was removed as there are so many better things they could have done to phase out or "rust" the Sheikah Tech. But eh, what are we gonna do. I'll just take your genius idea of a disintegrating minus a few special exceptions.

[@lichofthewoods1132]

I've had a personal theory for why this happened for a while. [SPOILERS FOR TOTK BELOW THE READMORE] I always assumed that the reason the Sheikah tech was gone was because of Zelda going back in time. Like, something about her being there during the Imprisoning War retconned the whole timeline and made it so that the Sheikah's tech, as it exists in botw, never existed? Or maybe it was all destroyed somehow? Zelda's presence changed a lot, so it's not too unlikely to believe that it would have changed the Sheikah. This also explains why no one seems to remember; as of the moment Zelda appears in the past, the timeline is retconned so that the lack of Sheikah tech is the way it's always been. Maybe the reason the Purah Pad is seen as such a big development is because the tiny fragments of Sheikah stuff that have been found are just barely enough to construct something like that, so it genuinely is an accomplishment. It doesn't make *sense*, per se, but it makes more sense than just saying it all disappeared.

[@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon]

It definitely makes more sense than the official explanation either way. ;)

[@TruffleSeeker54]

With all the new researchers we're introduced to, I'm actually surprised nobody cares about the disappearance of Sheikah tech, especially Purah and Robbie who have studied it for over 100 years. Seems almost like a slap in the face to not even consider the consequences of removing it. If I'm forced to come up with my own theory I'd go with this. When Guardians are killed by Link, they mostly disappear, leaving only a few parts behind. Some Guardians died without disappearing, but they have some sort of kill switch inside so that when they die, their tech can't be stolen by monsters/Yiga clan. The dead Guardians who are still there after the Calamity make up a small number with a faulty kill switch, or were killed in a way that damaged the switch, and it's these ones that are harvested for their tech. Since the Divine Beasts were powered by spirits, and shrines possibly powered by the Sheikah monks, after fulfilling their purpose and the monks/spirits pass on, the Sheikah tech gradually loses energy over time until it finally activates the kill switch, so that evil forces won't take hold of them. In TotK, pretty much any leftover Sheikah tech is collected and used by Robbie and Purah to build the Skyview towers and other things, with some minor exceptions that they didn't manage to find.

[@quantheory]

I feel like the philosophy that BotW took towards previous Zelda games was: Reference the previous games' stories and aesthetics for nostalgia, and to make it feel more like a Zelda game, but outside of the setting and a few main elements/characters, don't incorporate any of the previous games' plots. Kind of a soft reboot, justified by the fact that BotW is set very far in the future. It wasn't totally satisfactory, but you could kind of just view BotW as its own, new thing. One issue with TotK is it sort of seems like they tried to use the same formula again, referencing elements of the previous story without directly incorporating any of the main plot. But it's supposed to be a direct sequel! And unlike with OoT vs. MM, the setting is not an alternate world with characters that look the same, but rather the same people in the same setting. So it becomes this weird hodge-podge where most traces of the Calamity have been completely erased from the world, except for a few main characters in each region who have to acknowledge it because it would just be *too* weird if they acted like it never happened. It's part of why Sidon seems like *such* a huge Link fanboy. You would kind of expect monuments to Link to be all over the place given the circumstances, but only Sidon actually made it happen.

[@victormeyer6626]

My headcanon is: the Sheikah tech went offline after the calamity. Purah and Robbie promptly started disassembling and repurposing everything they could, so what they dismantled was not “recognized” as sheikah tech and was not affected by the purge that followed.

[@Not_a_mii_maker]

5:10 wait what?! You can look throught the telescope?!

[@oldmetalhippyoldmetalhippy1971]

Awesome point about the BotW end credits, the Sheikah tech certainly did not just disappear. Would have been cool to have a stray guardian or two still roaming around. could be a more mundane reason like limited available computing resources on the Switch. That's why they cut and paste buildings and rocks. The towers and shrines all rose up out of the ground, they could say they just went back into the ground. that would have answered for many but not all missing Sheikah tech. Looks like the skyview towers reuse some old tech plus the dead guardian at Robbie's old lab. so not all disappeared. Maybe they thought after seven years we'd forget, LOL! Cool Video!!!

[@REDFRLegend]

I headcanon that the two games take place in different timelines. -TotK takes place in a timeline where Link only did Divine Beasts, Master Sword and Tarrey Town before he went to Hyrule Castle. They dismantled the Shiekah tech and then forgot about it because they thought "Random stone statue is cooler than the literal blue glowing bird that can fly!" -BotW takes place in a timeline where Link did everything. His achievement for that is after beating the calamity, remember headcanon, the champions come back to life. Ruta being offline is just the Shiekah tech turning off for a moment so that it can restart with full power to rid itself of the last bit of malice -AoC takes place in a timeline where BotW happened and Riju, Teba, Yunobo and Sidon went back in time right after the defeat of Calamity Ganon, which came with a big sacrifice, to prevent it from happening

[@adamstanton5313]

BURY THEM IN THE CAVES. Zelda would be able to monitor them via the P Pad and they would exist here still. Plus, they couldn’t be scared if the tech was trapped. So maybe buried.

[@adamhall6914]

A large amount of the locations of the shrines in BotW are now chasms in TotK...but not all. That would have been so cool if all the old shrine locations were the entrances to the depths

[@harleyhollis]

from what I've been told, it's been around 7-8 years since the events of botw, which funnily enough correlates with the release date of the 2 games

[@mjuno2909]

I think they idea that most of the sheikah tech got decommissioned for safety due to their role in the calamity would have been such an easy solution. And then given all the wreckage created from Ganondorf's reemergence they could have had that destroyed the rest of the tech, like the sheikah towers. Just a few throw away lines and some old guardian parts lying around could have done this. Piggy backing on that (though this wouldve been more of a stretch) I really wish that there had been some deteriorated guardian enemies. They were such an iconic part of BOTW, and TOTK doesn't really have any equivalent enemies. Having a few escape decommission and be wondering around broken (maybe like the playable guardian in AoC) would have been really fun, and a great way to tie back to BOTW

[@phxcake4012]

iirc totk was actually outsourced writing wise (twitter thread- i can get it if need be!!). it explains why the npcs are so different + the tech is just. Not mentioned. theres also depths spots where botw shrines used to be, but otherwise nothing. but playing the game and seeing everything change without explanation… its kind of eerie! anyways yeah i can see that. still though, the divine beasts being gone is Super weird. i like to think its just termina but worse for mental health if that makes sense. neat video!!

[@Alchemyst326]

I figure a combination of the official explanation and yours makes the most sense: the Sheikah tech all vanished a little while after Calamity Ganon's defeat, but only the FUNCTIONAL Sheikah tech. All the Sheikah tech may have had a built-in self destruct functionality; as was mentioned, the Sheikah faced a great deal of fear in the early days of hyrule due to their advanced tech, so the ones that stayed with the kingdom would likely have wanted to limit how their tech could be used once its function was complete. So, much like the monks in the various shrines, the rest of the Shiekah tech could just vanish once it had done what it needed to do. In some cases, maybe this happened in stages, explaining how Vah Ruta would first stop working before it vanished entirely. However, if the self-destruct function was built into the technology, then the guardians that had stopped working wouldn't activate it. The broken down stuff, like Robbie's pile and the dead guardians outside Fort Hateno, would have remained behind, if still broken. Then, given that all of the other tech, including the Slate, had been destroyed, Robbie and Purah would likely have had the remaining ancient scrap gathered up and salvaged, and from that material, built the Sheikah tech remaining in ToTK, like the Purah Pad and the Skyview Towers. As for the ancient tech from BotW that remained behind, like Cherry, I believe that can be explained by them not being true ancient tech, but being original creations by Robbie or Purah that, while made with ancient parts, were not Sheikah tech themselves, and therefore had no built-in self-destruct. All that said, even if all of this happened years ago, you would think at least a few people would mention it. While ToTK was an incredible game with a lot of amazing mechanics, the story and writing were definitely the weakest part. Pretty much everything outside of the Dragon Tears backstory was very samey and not terribly compelling, when it seems like it could have been very easy to add some variety. I get that they wanted to make so that you could technically do the main quests in any order, they did that just fine in BotW without making all of the characters have similar stories.

[@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon]

Oh there was definitely a lot of the "samey" stuff ... I am normally able to totally immerse myself in a story like this, but hearing the same story of the "Secret Stones" for the eighth time in a row with little to no variation was a bummer. And it would have been so easy to add a little variety even to that: Instead of all 5 champions, Rauru and Zelda explaining the same thing in the same manner over and over again, they could have: * ...made the Goron Champion fangirl about how awesome it is that STONES of all things were the key to sealing Ganon away back then, but do not have him mention why it was necessary in the first place or what they had to sacrifice or where the stones came from. Just let him tell the stones made them all powerful. * ...let the Rito champion explain that Rauru sacrificed himself. Rito are a dang proud race and that ultimate sacrifice for the greater good is something a Rito would definitely honor. Do not let him explain why the sacrifice was necessary or mention the secret stones at all. * .. let the Gerudo champion explain that Ganon needed to be destroyed or sealed but that he was way too powerful for them to handle back then. Gerudo are fierce warriors, so this big loss would have stung a lot, and be the most important part of her story, especially as a direct warning to Riju to not underestimate their opponent. Don't mention Rauru or the stones. * ... let Mineru explain what the stones are and that they were necessary to amplify the powers of the old Champions. As the only Zonai in the group she is the prime NPC for that explanation, since she should have known best. * ... let the Zora champion explain that they were defeated the first time, and desparately needed something stronger in order to win. Especially since Sidon is the only main character to have directly lost a close relative during the main story, it would have easily been his prime concern to make sure noone else dies, so continuing the theme of the threat of imminent death would fit his story. That way, each of the Champions would have had something different to contribute to the various cutscenes instead of repeating the same dialogue almost 1:1 each time, and it would not have been THAT hard to piece together the cutscenes into a coherent story.

[@Axecon1]

My theory is that Link ate it. The man has quite the appetite and can eat dubious food made up of ancient sheikah material. Hyrule needs something cheap and easy to feed the world's craziest hero. Also it's a better explanation than what Nintendo gave, I'm sure the tech would probably last another 10,000 years until the "next" calamity and the successor champions would probably pilot them.

[@David23Howe]

I like to believe that Zelda going back in time Butterfly effected it all away and that's why no one remembers it. It's a whole new timeline or some shit.

[@yaboihere494]

I'll say it again: THERE WAS A TIMELINE SHIFT. It's really the only way to explain the discrepancies between games--when Zelda travelled to the past, she necessitated that Zonai tech persist so it could help Link to defeat Ganondorf. Similarly, Shiekah tech had already served its purpose after defeating Calamity Ganon and allowing for Zelda to time travel in the first place. After she does so, she completes/removes the purpose of Shiekah tech, thus mostly removing it from the world aside from the scientists who are most attached to it. Of course, there would have to be some sort of Mandela effect Kingdom Hearts consciousness transplant of old Hyruleans into a new Hyrule, from the old timeline to the new overwritten one .

[@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon]

So like a type of butterfly effect, yes? That would have been a neat explanation as well, especially since it leaves a lot of room for explanations of other "weird" things as well, for example why Ganon still exists. As it is now, the general consensus seems to be that the giant floating half-sentient malice cloud and the giant malice boar that were destroyed/sealed/banned by the end of BotW were just a projection of Ganon's consciousness or something like that, and that his body had been under the castle the entire time, but undiscovered. But in that case, the Sheikah tech disappearing "because it had fulfilled its purpose" would make even less sense, since it ... well .. just didn't. But if Zelda travelling back in time and (unintentionally) rewriting history retroactively changed something that resulted in Sheikah Tech never being built in the first place, then there would have been no Divine Beasts in the first place, nothing that actually attacked and destroyed Ganon, so of course he's still "alive" (or rather undead but you know what I mean).

[@Lavendelaura]

I would also like to point out that, following the logic that Sheikah technology was able to "sense" that the calamity was sealed and its job was finished, it very well should've disappeared after the battle 10.000 years ago.

[@MxCorvid]

This makes a lot of sense - you know that Robbie and Purah would never have let them take down their Sheikah decorations either. I have to say the part of me that really enjoyed the abandoned aesthetics of BOTW was disappointed that there was basically no Sheikah tech left - not a single living guardian, even in Depths gloom form. It also would have been really cool to see the old abandoned towers alongside the new ones. I wonder if they dismantled the DLC shrines...? Supposing, at least, that those shrines exist in the world even if you don't do the DLC and make them rise above ground.

[@BackflipBrickfilms]

Lovely watch! My own theory was how the Sheikah tech appears to be a more corruptible copy of the Zonai stuff. One of the early kings (Might have been Rauru?) had that banned because it was far more destructive than the Zonai things we see in TotK, but after the last Zonai vanished the Sheikah started making it again. Maybe as a failsafe, they had a line of code somewhere saying "If sighted: "Construct" DELETE: [ALL]", and then all the tech would self-destruct to avoid the returned Zonai punishing them for it's existence. When that was triggered, only already-non functional stuff was spared, and Purah only deactivated the function on a few select pieces.

[@nebulous9280]

Not bad, but remember that the Zonai only descended after Link and Zelda found Ganondorf under Hyrule Castle. By this time, Zelda already had the Purah Pad. How, then, do we explain the disappearance of the Sheikah Slate? Better yet, if the Sheikah Tech had been functioning up until the Zonai had descended, why does NO ONE in Hyrule care about it suddenly disappearing? And why bother repurposing the Sheikah Towers into Skyview Towers in the first place, too? None of it lines up.

[@Hanakothemizumiko]

Rauru's time is eons before botw, like, enough time for calamity Ganon's return to be recognized as a pattern. The banishment of the sheikah tech is from 10k years ago, by that time the hyrulean royal family are hylians and the zonai are no more. They didn't develop tech in secret either, they just stopped because they do everything the royal family asks, this is established throughout the games, while the origin of the tech is told *twice* in botw

[@BackflipBrickfilms]

Thanks for the critiques, guys! Yeah, this was just a band-aid theory I made not long after the game came out.

[@zraxisx8670]

I was pretty sure one of the NPCs talked about how the towers are made out of the shrines and such, so I thought the lore was purah went around and dismantled all of it. I cant remember who said that though.

[@lukestarkiller1470]

My theory is that the time travel shenanigans in TOTK messed up everything that happened in BOTW and now the calamity either never happened or just happened completely differently. No one in TOTK seems to remember anything that happened in BOTW. Even a lot of the NPCs that you personally helped and bonded with in the last game don’t remember who you are in this one. It’s like the events of BOTW were just completely wiped from history. And I feel like Zelda being sent back in time and messing with the past could definitely have caused enough of a butterfly effect to alter the present day to that degree.

[@psuedonym9999]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet, so I will. I remember seeing somewhere that Purah's explaination for why the Sheikah tech is missing isn't present in the English localization. Turns out, they *did* dismantle all of it (or most of it).

[@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon]

For real? This is interesting! Is that info from the Japanese version only, or does it appear in other languages as well? Since the translation team had already taken a LOT of liberties with the English localization in BotW, I wouldn't be surprised if that applied to TotK as well.

[@hastyshinx6380]

i just dont understand why they didnt use both sheikah AND zonai tech in conjunction. like. have zonai be exclusive to sky & depth, while sheikah tech remains on the surface? make sheikah weapons common but brittle, and unable to fuse with zonai because of technological differences as cool early game weapons? or have rare mini boss guardian encounters that drop powerful fuse items? im just spitballing but anything would be better than the complete denial of the tears of the kingdoms own backstory and context. its why totk really let me down, it felt like the story it wanted to tell was antithetical to the world it was in and overwrote botw in almost all aspects. its like they werent sure if the game would sell as a standalone so they hastily tacked it onto botw. i just think the interplay between these two technologies couldve been interesting and shown some worldbuilding between the sheikah & zonai and what these people prioritised. maybe the zonai had a lot of tech that was useful for travel and exploration, while the sheikah has a lot of combat focused tech. it could show where both societies failed and prevailed; the zonai were ill-equipped to deal with large scale battle so they were forced into a corner to deal with adversaries, while the sheikahs over preparedness obviously came back to bite them. and though link Fusing these two peoples tech its symbolically showing how together they couldve overcome things. its not subtle but zelda isnt the most subtle series anyway. anything is better than "actually we Love the divine right of kings yayyyy"

[@ayathedoggo]

I believe the people of Hyrule rioted in the streets to get rid of all the Sheikah tech that they saw as evil because it had been weaponized, and the government (Zelda, Link, Purah, etc) decided to repurpose and rebrand the tech. Everyone takes it for granted that it's just gone now and wants to rewrite and repress history because of the majorly traumatic era that was for the people. It was a massive clean-up job. The Divine Beasts were dissected and analyzed for the first three years or so, then neatly packed into boxes somewhere (even though they're nowhere in-game :((()

[@frostycane5134]

I like your explanation but if that’s the case someone I’m universe should say something (ANYTHING) in passing about how the tech was dismantled because people feared it or Zelda should’ve written about in journal

[@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon]

Exactly this. Even just one single NPC saying something like "Oh, like the old Guardians and Divine Beasts? Lets NEVER talk about this ever again!" would have been enough to prove that everyone does remember but quietly decided to not talk about it, and/or that the theme itself has become a taboo. But as it is now, BotW may as well not have even happened in the first place, which is a bit of a bummer.

[@ayathedoggo]

ToTK is a master class in gaslighting. I wish there was a way to read into some dialogue, but Nintendo did so good at making my headcanon have a gaping pitfall@@frostycane5134 If only Purah introduced the Purah Plate and View-Sky Pillars with a "We took some inspiration from the old Sheikah designs when making this", I would be happy

[@ayathedoggo]

​@@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon And what about the people with BotW fresh in their minds? The ones who binged BoTW, then the "sequel" pretends it never happened in the first place.

[@PaulFisher]

The explanation that the developers gave seemed very much like Simpsons gag where Lucy Lawless answers “a wizard did it” in response to questions about minor continuity errors in Xena: Warrior Princess. The “it all just kind of vanished” explanation strikes me as the same-a response to a question they don’t really want to answer, but they know if they don’t they will get hounded for it in the future. I wish they had been a little more forthright, saying something like “you can tell your own story about what happened,” and it’s how I’m choosing to interpret their answer. I feel like they were concerned that some of their audience wants an exhibit voice from on high about What Is Truly Canon, and maybe rightfully so-video game fans can be attached to the games they love, sometimes to an unhealthy and entitled degree.

[@snowyarticuno]

I don't have a problem with thinking the Sheikah tech is just slowly fading away (slowly turning off at different arbitrary rates then probably fading in a bit of blue light) but it really is fascinating how little they cared to even handwave the sheikah stuff in game. Like why NOT have even one single character talk about how it all just started fading away; even a single line or something wouldn't even have to make it a quest.

[@samwoodley1653]

My guess is Skeikah can remotely deactivate and disassemble tech when it's not under ganons control. So once the divine beasts were done, they were made to go away like how Link teleports, so it's easy and leaves no trace. Same for the guardians and stuff. It's not automatic which is why some things are left alone and are still present, and as for how it's so wide reaching and pretty absolute (not a single guardian anywhere except on the tech lab roof) is because whatever method they use to make them go poof just... hits a wide area or something. The reason nobody else cares or mentions it is because everyone knows and the answer is simple. We just never got to actually see it so we're the only ones left seeing it as a big mystery.

[@frostycane5134]

First off I hope you don’t get hate for this. It seems that saying negative things about totk seems to really offend people even though it’s usually people who love the game that suggest ways it could be better Second I had a really cool idea I wish they used . All guardian and sheika tech should have found it’s way to the depths. Imagine you go to where a divine beast was in botw only to find a giant chasm . You fall down it and see that it’s fallen into decay. These could even house those dlc helms . Any place that had a tower should have been replaced with a chasm and when you jump down it the destroyed tower should’ve been down their

[@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon]

ohh I like the idea! Imagine stumbling around in the total darkness for the very first time, already a little scared of what's lurking out there, and suddenly there is a laser aimed at you and you hear the Guardian music playing ... NGL, I would probably have had a heart attack right then and there, but it would've been awesome nonetheless ^^

[@MARSHLAND_YT]

i am the 290th viewer and im here within 2 hrs! :D love your channel

[@az-kalaak6215]

I even wondered if that game was really a sequel or not. no one talks about calamity ganon, no one talks about sheika stuff (yet some parts exists), and the part that I think is the weirdest, every single sanctuary have been dismantled. even the ones that were not reachable by human means. I can understand the guardians dissapearing, I mean, in my tin foil theory between 4 and 10 years happened between the two games, but still. too much things vanished. the only thing i'm really happy about is that zelda lives in link's house, where there's still the old stuff, but there are (if I recall properly) 2 sets of dishes on the table, and the picture of the champions next to the only bed of the house. for me, zelink confirmed in totk and I don't even wanna hear anything else u.u

[@Falleax69]

I also hate how hardly anybody even acknowledges the events of BOTW. Not even Ganondorf himself can bother, to the point where I half believe TOTK Ganon and Calamity Ganon are two entirely separate entities with Calamity being the final result of all the older Ganons in the classic games and TOTK Ganon is just some guy who coincidentally happened to be named Ganon and be an evil wizard. Nintendo really dropped the ball on the story, it's frustrating that speculating about the story before the game came out was more interesting than what we got.

[@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon]

Yeah, that too. It's a tad weird that, when Zelda saw Ganondorf, she was all like "OMH who are you and why do you know our names?!" when she had literally spent an entire century fighting that same guy and also spent her actual entire life before that trying to unlock the power to specifically fight him. ... and then she can't put two and two together somehow. That's an extreme brain fart for someone supposed to be the bearer of the Triforce of Wisdom. I like Totk as a whole and I think it is a really fun game, but all in all it feels a bit more like a fanmade mod or spinoff instead of a direct sequel.

[@LucasHaddad313]

I always had the question in the back of my mind while playing it. Good video though!

[@will4not]

I spent too much time thinking somewhere in the corner of the Depths there would be some super Gloom Guardian that I would have to fight to get some armor. But I guess not. BoTW is very much past centric, and ToTK seems very future-oriented, as if no one wants to really talk about the past (even the very recent past) because they all are suffering from PTSD or something. But maybe Nintendo just wanted to do something fun in the same world and didn't put too much into the plot.

[@CrystalFlames]

Wolf Link = canon

[@MARSHLAND_YT]

rip sheikah tech 2017-2023 lmao

[@arcticdino1650]

I ate it all. Tasted like metal

[@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon]

That has to be an effective way to combat iron deficiency anemia =P

[@pkthunder416]

I'm begging theory and cross section channels to post SOME kind of audio track. I listen to videos at work and can't look at the screen 😢

[@trashtrash2169]

Why didn't they make the blue glowy things the same green as Zonai energy? Even the shrine icons on the map are blue when the shrines are green... What? Is that just laziness? Some things do get a green glowy effect, but others do not? Even when they're Zonai?

[@PDTopGun]

This is about the only issue I have with TOTK, but unfortunately it's a significant one. It was so frustrating to see everyone in the world completely ignoring the existence of this massive technology that played such a pivotal role in both the Calamity and BOTW, even the main characters who were directly involved with it. TOTK barely feels like a sequel to BOTW as a result, and while I'm 100% fine with both games largely ignoring the previous timeline nonsense and doing their own things, I'm not okay with a direct follow-up not acknowledging what just happened a few years ago in-story. Honestly I almost buy Nintendo not putting much thought into it, because their development mantra has always been "gameplay first, everything else second," and they don't have much experience crafting these sorts of big open-world narratives over multiple games. You can see that a bit with the Dragon's Tears too, which copied the memory format from BOTW but feel like a much more awkward way to deliver the backstory here. Other than that, I consider TOTK to be the greatest game I've ever played. I just wish Nintendo spent that bit of extra effort to make it perfect.

[@MxShadow8]

Sorry I was hungry and ate it all

[@thorwhoisacat]

The best answer: Both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are so expansive in gameplay and innovation that they hardly had the time or money to flesh out the story of BotW, and just stopped caring by the point of TotK. And honestly, that kinda pisses me off, because they didn't HAVE to get rid of all the Sheikah tech. The Shrines and Towers retreating into the ground makes sense, and those are the only things that have a reason to go. So why not just leave everything else? And especially, why act like BotW never happened?

[@Clozent]

I think it's a symptom of Nintendo giving up on a timeline. They just don't seem to care anymore. I mean, why else would they basically retcon the entire canon? The new "Imprisoning War" doesn't even make sense when considering _just_ BotW, since we are told that 10,000 years before the game, a bunch of Sheikah technology was used to seal Calamity Ganon away. Where are the Sheikah technology and Calamity Ganon in TotK's memories? TotK even has a reference to the "ancient hero", and the Sheikah mural, so it means they didn't just forget about everything. I'm so mad at Nintendo for this. They made an amazing game, and then decided to use it to spit on all of the previous games' legacies. Edit: I have been corrected in the replies, TotK does, in fact, make sense to Breath of the Wild

[@trashtrash2169]

You have to care about the timeline of the previous game when making a DIRECT SEQUEL!!!

[@Hanakothemizumiko]

Dude, totk's memories are *eons* before botw: totk's memories -> however many 10k years needed for the sheikah to notice a pattern on calamity Ganon -> the building of sheikah tech and furry Link's time -> botw's memories -> botw -> totk Criticize the game all you want but at least get the facts straight

[@Clozent]

@@Hanakothemizumiko Whoops, right

[@DoctorpooandtheTURDIS]

Granted, people had thrown the theory that the tech vanished out there before that interview came out and as a writer, it's easy to assume that the audience can bridge the gaps of logic without needing to be explicitly told. The Sheikah could make near-indestructible blocks of ice form from nothing but a shallow puddle, freeze objects in place and make them release all their pent-up kinetic energy at once, and materialize matter from nothing. Making all the tech that was undamaged/unmodified enough that wasn't just hunks of metal vanish, repairing the landscape behind them, while setting a time delay to make sure there was REALLY no sign of Ganon still around is... yeah. It makes sense. Stuff like the Divine Beast Helms and Ancient Blades - they've been in chests, and if I recall correctly, they're all found in metal chests; boxes that act as Faraday Cages, blocking any wireless communications from getting through. This is by no means me trying to be That Guy and telling you "You're wrong, stop having fun!" And the theory of 'Hylians are scared, so they stripped down the rest of the Sheikah Tech' is still a good one. My headcanon is a mix both because it explains how post-Calamity Hylians managed to disassemble ALL the Shrines, AND the Guardians, AND the Divine Beasts, AND the Towers, AND- look, you get the idea. All the stuff that was intact and unmodified vanished, stuff that couldn't receive the signals didn't, and the husks of Guardians still around were cannibalized to provide raw materials for things like the Skyview Towers, and the Purah Pad, and the Travel Medallions. Which is also why Robbie and Purah act so prideful about stuff they really had no claim to being the 'inventors' of. They just succeeded in recreating technology entirely from research notes after the rest of it vanished.

[@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon]

Good point about the chests. And I like the overall idea, especially since it would have been easy to implement in-game. I just don't get why they seemingly didn't even try to come up with an explanation when there are so many different explanations they could have used. Even a single NPC mentioning in a single line of dialogue that the Guardians in front of Fort Hateno had started to evaporate or something like that, would have been enough to acknowledge that these things formerly existed. As it is now, it rather feels like they wanted to pretend Guardian / Divine Beast Tech had never existed in the first place and forgot to remove some traces of it before the game released. It's just not an elegant way to handle this IMHO, and 90% of all fan theories make way more sense than the official explanation.

[@gladiolusdragon4218]

omg im glad im not the only one who's noticed how lazy and inconsistent these are especially after age of calamity which does indeed give some context and weight to botw, it hurts that it all got shafted and forgotten like not even a slight hint back to the sheikah technology or heck, even any old plot points in botw (like sidon. do you still care about mipha?)

[@kurji847]

Woohoo

[@timothymenard1750]

It could also be that Purah and Robbie jailbroke the Sheikah tech they had in the labs and stopped them from disintegrating, after all Purah uses some modified sheikah tech to upgrade your sheikah slate in Botw, it still doesn't explain why some stuff like the arrowheads didn't disappear. I will say though that the reason given by Totk's director does line up with lore from Botw, the ancient Sheikah who built the guardians and Divine Beasts rejected their technology after defeating Calamity Ganon the first time due to the people of Hyrule being understandably afraid of the super powerful murder robots, so them setting all the shrines, guardians and divine beasts to disappear after Calamity Ganon is defeated for good makes sense given they themselves abandoned the tech for fear of it being too powerful to be trusted in the hands of ordinary people, It also lines up with how heavily inspired by Ghibli films Botw and Totk are (particularly Laputa, Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke). It was probably also done along with the sparse mentions of Botw events to make it easier for new players who haven't played Botw to get into the story without feeling like they've missed out on the first half of the story, they even did the same thing with OoT and Majora's Mask, MM requires zero knowledge of OoT to enjoy and get into and it doesn't make frequent references to the events of OoT, this is so they can work more as Standalone games rather than Sequels. I am still disappointed that the reason isn't explained In-Game and doesn't make total sense and I was a little bummed when Totk first came out that guardians and stuff weren't in Totk, but given how the game turned out i totally understand why they removed the sheikah stuff in order to do something new, it also helps make both Botw and Totk more distinct from each other and be equals rather than Totk being just Botw 2.

[@WolfLink_justlookingfordragon]

To be fair, OoT and MM do not take place in the same "world". Link had left Hyrule, travelled far, and eventually ended up in Termina, whether or not it is a fictional or real world (well, in-game-real .. I hope you know what I mean). A completely new region with an unknown backstory is easier to accept as a sequel, rather than reusing the exact same map but inexplicably and quietly alter key elements and expect people to just accept that the missing pieces have never existed. Don't get me wrong - I love both games. But TotK feels a little more like a fanmade mod rather than a direct sequel, at least in that regard.

[@Kurea47]

5:15 The Last Guardian, ladies and gents! :D Okay, I'm done. *cough* DLC potential Nintendo!! *cough* Or if they're hard-up on ideas... Breath of the Tears of the Wild Kingdom 1.5!! Okay Nintendo you can take a page from Edna "I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now." Mode but something as central as Sheikah Tech can't be handwaved away without causing a few contradictions! That's why we wanna know how many years have passed between Breath of the Wild and the sequel so we can maybe reconcile a few discrepancies Nintendo! I like the fandom explanations like Hyruleans tearing down Sheikah tech and repurposing it to rebuild and power their settlements/so Ganon can't corrupt them ever again, alternate timeline caused by Zelda going to the past, Link had a big BBQ and tried making the biggest pile of Dubious Food ever, and so on. New theory from watching this video: Purah deleted all the runes for real this time and then, sent Link and Zelda on a fetch quest to retrieve all Guardian parts/Sheikah tech as part of her grand master plan to clean up Hyrule. On the way they discover the Shrine of Resurrection is compromised, thus they make haste lest the Yiga Clan steal more for their own nefarious purposes. It then took all the old Sheikah tech to produce Zelda's rebranded Sheikah Slate after much trial and error. And then she declared, "We never speak of this again." And then she used the rest of the Sheikah tech she secretly horded away in her secret laboratory to build new towers and stuff while Link was asleep for X years.

[@chooongusbug724]

Maybe, if yall didnt want Nintendo to get rid of the Sheikah tech, yall shouldnt have complained about it so much to where they felt no one wanted it. The complaints ive seen about BotW/TotK are such nothing complaints, and i feel the Zelda "fandom" still adheres very stictly to the Zleda cycle, thats a shame