As The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom‘s release comes near and with all teasers and the latest trailer that we got, many are still wondering where Tears of the Kingdom fit in the timeline of the game. So we’re going to answer some of the questions related to the Tears of the Kingdom’s timeline and how it connects with Breath of the Wild with whatever info we have so far.
First of all, Tears of the Kingdom is officially tagged as a sequel to Breath of the Wild, and so the events that happen in the game come after the events that happened in the previous game. The reason why some people think that Tears of the Kingdom may be a prequel is because of the introduction of the Sky Islands. These Sky Islands are similar to those seen in Skyward Sword which is considered to be the the game that has the earliest timeline among the rest.
Where is Tears of the Kingdom in the timeline?
As it appears in the recent trailers, Tears of the Kingdom happens some time after the events of Breath of the Wild. It’s unclear yet if how long of a period has passed between the two games, but if we’d wager a guess, it could possibly be a couple of days, months, or even years. It could have even started immediately after Link and Zelda went on a quest to investigate why Vah Ruta stopped working, as shown in the secret ending after collecting all of the memories.
Recalling the events shown in the First Look trailer back in 2019, Link and Zelda are shown to be on a journey that led them to explore an ancient structure. This structure appears to be made by the ancient civilization to seal away Ganondorf himself by keeping his body from reanimating in the hopes to break the cycle of destruction.
However, for some reason that has yet to be revealed, malice has managed to make its way back to Ganondorf, causing Ganondorf to resurrect. The trailer then ends showing the central castle of Hyrule floating to the skies which is then later shown to be taken over once more by Ganondorf as his base.
Until we get to see more from the next trailers and get to play the Tears of the Kingdom ourselves, we can only share our best speculations with the info that we have right now.
Check out this video by ZeldaMaster talking about why Tears of the Kingdom is definitely a sequel and not just an expansion:
