Warning, this article contains mild spoilers for the story of Zelda TotK and BotW.
If there’s one thing we’ve known since the announcement of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, it’s that it takes place after Breath of the Wild. A direct sequel to the opus released in 2017 on Nintendo Switch, the chronology is however not very clear. Between Zelda who
go back in time
and Link facing a completely changed kingdom of Hyrule, it’s hard to say exactly how many years have passed between the two games. We still don’t have an official answer, but here are some food for thought and theories.
Village Piaf Babble
While it’s hard to see how much Sidon from Zora’s Domain or Yunobo from Goron Village have aged, we can definitely see that little Babil has grown up, just like Riju who has aged a few years. The Gerudo warrior, who was about 12 in BotW, now looks more like a young woman of 17 or 18. Babil, a simple chick in the first game, is now strong and big, and seems to be at least 10 or 11 years old.
Tinieh, the daughter of Grosaillieh
This is probably the most important element we have at the moment. In TotK, it is explained that Tinieh has reached “the age of reason” and must leave her parents to go to Gerudo City to follow her training. At the end of Breath of the Wild, we saw Kornuieh and Grosaillieh getting married. Giving them time to conceive a child. If we do not know Tinieh’s exact age, we can estimate that she is at least 4 or 5 years (an age where one is finally able to speak correctly and is endowed with reason), suggesting that TotK takes place at least 5 or 6 years after BotW.
About the ingenious Pru’hashe literally seems to have invented immortality to not age. The fact that she is taller (in size) in TotK simply means that she managed to reverse the side effect of her rejuvenation process that made her look like a child in BotW. Aged over 100 years old, Pru’ha explains in one of her notebooks that she did indeed finally obtain the right elixir and regained the body she had at 20. However, there is unfortunately no temporal data: how long did it take her to get there?
What if the gap was simply one of expectation between the two games?
Despite being postponed to Nintendo Switch, it is very likely that the years between the two games will be the same as between the two releases: or about 5 years since TotK was originally supposed to be released in 2022. And if we put together all the available information about Babil, Tinieh, Riju and the other characters who grew up between the two games, it’s quite logical to estimate a gap of between 5 and 7 years.
This would make Link, aged 17 in BotW (or 117 if we respect the lore), the oldest version of the green-suited hero ever developed. In TotK, he would then be around 22 years old.
