Tears of the Kingdom Fans Think They’ve Figured Out What Happened to Breath of the Wild’s Shrines

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for key gameplay elements of Tears of the Kingdom. Turn back now if you want to discover it all for yourself.

What happened to the Seeker technology in The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom of Tears? was sprinkled in, but it’s basically not present in the Zelda sequels at all.

Traces of Seeker technology have appeared in several places, including the new Skyview Tower and Pura Pad, but that spot in the limelight has been usurped by Tears of the Kingdom’s shiny new Zonai Gear. Because of this, many Tears of the Kingdom players are wondering what happened to the Towers, Guardians, and Temples of Breath of the Wild.

On Reddit, u/Xanavoi I posted my observation that most of Tears of the Kingdom’s chasms are co-located with Breath of the Wild’s temples. They posted an image of the Great Plateau for reference. There you’ll find his four Shrinelink visits at the beginning of Breath of the Wild replaced with an entrance to The Depths.

This theory makes a lot of sense, as you may remember Seeker’s shrines and towers emerging from underground during the events of Breath of the Wild. Perhaps a cataclysm destroyed the temple and left the chasm in its place?

somewhere else Reddit threaduser iridisss theorized that the tower was demolished and recycled because Hyrule does not have the ability to produce new Seeker materials.

After finishing Tears of the Kingdom, IGN’s Brendan Graeber has come up with his own theory.

“I think the real answer is simple. All of the Seeker techs were created specifically for one purpose: to help the protagonist defeat Calamity Ganon. They’re what Link used as its first platform.” It only happened when I activated it, and if Calamity Ganon is destroyed, I think it’s all destroyed.” went back underground and the Seeker Lithograph became inert, so Pura/Robbie did their own reverse engineering. I was. All remaining technology was reused in the construction of the Skyview Tower. So it has a Guardian hand, a pedestal and the same elevator. ’” Brendan wrote.

Or maybe no one knows. Tears of the Kingdom is so massive yet so new, perhaps Nintendo is hiding an answer to the fading Seeker tech somewhere in the game that we haven’t found yet. I can’t.

If the sheer scale of Tears of the Kingdom intimidates you, there’s a lot we can do to help. Be sure to check out our Tears of the Kingdom walkthrough and guide on how to get through Hyrule. In fact, you can start here.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over 7 years of experience in the games industry and has written byline articles for IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.