Breath of the Wild BotW's mysterious overworld mysteries

[Spirit]

Theres still so much we dont know about the characters, story and overworld in this game. There are questions we really want answered that we'll have to wait for.

The story may be brimming with mysteries but i think the overworld has the edge for the moment.

So this is a thread to list which overworld mysteries you think are most intriguing.

For example, i want to know about...

3. What the thick clouds are hiding on some summits

2. The black spot on the map

1. The floating island!!

 

[Balzier]

I just want to know why it's in the state it's in. Why it's so overrun with "wild" things.

 

[Nicolai]

This image of spectacle rock looks so empty... there's probably a dungeon in there! And even if there is, I can't imagine that climbing up to the top of that left rock means nothing. Maybe that's an arena for a boss?

Also, there's supposedly an entire coastline, and we haven't seen any of it! At least, not from anything but a ridiculous distance. It's probably really peaceful there.

 

[Dio]

There is the floating land which is rather intriguing. I suspect it could be city in the sky due to the TPHD Easter egg in the form of an oocca carving combined with Aounuma's statement about the connection to TP. Having the city return could be part of that connection.

Also, there's supposedly an entire coastline, and we haven't seen any of it! At least, not from anything but a ridiculous distance. It's probably really peaceful there.

Or it could be a dangerous place full of Gyorgs, Octoroks and Seahats.

 

[Nicolai]

Or it could be a dangerous place full of Gyorgs, Octoroks and Seahats.

I mean after you clear off space for a beach towel and parasol. It's a perfect place for Link to try out his new Sheikah-style swim suit!

 

[BoxTar]

Good question! I was thinking this myself, honestly.

I just wonder how many environments there are gonna be. We know there's a lush forested area, a rocky/desert crag area, and a tall snowy mountain peak, and apparently also a coastline. But what else could there be? I'd like to see a ruins site, like an old castle town or kakariko, or perhaps even a town still being built! It'd be even cooler if it continued being built throughout the whole game, like more and more structures got completed along your journey. Due to the game's non-linear form, however, I dunno if that would be possible, but it'd sure be neat to see.

How about a swamp? Sky islands? A rainforest? I really wanna see how many environments can be packed into this one game, and really see them fleshed out.

2. The black spot on the map

That's another interesting thought! Could be a lake or even a crater, or hell, a bottomless pit or a trench. Either way its very intriguing!

 

[Aku]

I'd love it if we could explore parts of the ocean too. Maybe the devs could troll us hardcore by having the ocean contain parts of WW's flood-wrecked Hyrule, throwing us something completely out of left field and laughing while a million Zelda fans' heads explode like something out of Scanners.

'Flooded Hyrule, where a million carefully crafted theories go to die.'

 

[Nicolai]

I'd love it if we could explore parts of the ocean too. Maybe the devs could troll us hardcore by having the ocean contain parts of WW's flood-wrecked Hyrule, throwing us something completely out of left field and laughing while a million Zelda fans' heads explode like something out of Scanners.

'Flooded Hyrule, where a million carefully crafted theories go to die.'

Honestly, I would love it if that happened. I never cared for having a continuous timeline in the Zelda series, so it would be awesome if Breath of the Wild somehow had a ruined Hyrule and a sunken Hyrule , with Skyloft still floating around in the North East, the Bridge of Eldin still hanging around, and Ravio's shop established in Termina's Deku Palace in the south, where Malladus teams up with Vaati and Majora to take down calamity Ganon for their own selfish gains. CD-i references are all over Clock Town.

Then, we get the enjoyment of timeline theorist trying their best to piece it all together before Nintendo officially announces a work-around involving two new timeline splits, a fourth spacial dimension, and Tingle having God-like control over time and space.

Boy did I get carried away...

 

[Aku]

Me either. Plus it ends up attempting to make the 'Legend' be a literal history rather then what a legend is, an embellished story or folktale that gets passed through generations that may or may not have some truth to it. I like thinking of LoZ being akin to Cinderella or Aladdin's Lamp, stories that have been around for a long time but that also have a thousand different details, depending on the storyteller.

Another thing that would absolutely tickle me pink is if the CG creature in the trailers didn't turn out to be Ganondorf at all. That would be another thing sending some people into a major piss fit, because people seem to be totally dead set insistent on this thing being nobody and nothing but Ganondorf so help me God, despite Aonuma's statement of a new nemesis and Link, and OM's calling CG 'it,' and how honestly convention unbreaking that would totally be. I get annoyed by some folks' insistence that this or that absolutely will remain the same, and that a reinvention or reinterpretation (even to the point of making it a mostly new character) somehow cannot happen or exist as a thought process in the devs' brain synapses.

That's what I think the CG is. That's what I think the addition of all these curious new things like the Koroks (and who knows what else) out of their 'proper' timeline are. It's why I hope they leave it ambiguous where it sits on the timeline (shame it has to be on it at all.) Will it make some people run to their safe places and suck on their binkies? Who cares, because Zelda is interesting again!

 

[Nicolai]

Another thing that would absolutely tickle me pink is if the CG creature in the trailers didn't turn out to be Ganondorf at all. That would be another thing sending some people into a major piss fit, because people seem to be totally dead set insistent on this thing being nobody and nothing but Ganondorf so help me God, despite Aonuma's statement of a new nemesis and Link, and OM's calling CG 'it,' and how honestly convention unbreaking that would totally be. I get annoyed by some folks' insistence that this or that absolutely will remain the same, and that a reinvention or reinterpretation (even to the point of making it a mostly new character) somehow cannot happen or exist as a thought process in the devs' brain synapses.

You can't really blame people for assuming the Calamity Ganon is Ganon, can you? I mean, it's literally called Calamity Ganon. It's got a boar-like shape to it.

I suppose Calamity Ganon could be a misnomer given by the old man because he assumed it was Ganon, but that seems like a stretch.

 

[Aku]

You can't really blame people for assuming the Calamity Ganon is Ganon, can you? I mean, it's literally called Calamity Ganon. It's got a boar-like shape to it.

I suppose Calamity Ganon could be a misnomer given by the old man because he assumed it was Ganon, but that seems like a stretch.

I'm not saying it couldn't be a Ganon, just not Ganondorf. What I mean is that they might have reinterpreted or reinvented the idea of Ganon, but instead of rewriting/retconning Ganon(dorf)'s whole character, they made a new one instead and gave it the first name 'Calamity' to distinguish it. In a way it would be going back to the series' very oldest roots if they did this, because in the first two games Ganon was mainly a pig monster and not some guy who got turned into one, until they decided sometime in the middle of making ALTTP that he had once been a human thief.

Now the only way I can think of turning this on it's head (if it's not a seperate entity) is if they borrowed the idea from HW in that Ganon is actually Ganondorf's true form, not his human self. And that he always wants to return to it via the TriForce (maybe the gods had forcibly incarnated him into a human (and a round-eared human at that) to make him mortal and to nerf his demonic powers) and he couldn't stay that way for long because it strained his mortal body. He only is able to purge this humanity completely in the Downfall timeline, where as it is said "nothing of 'Ganondorf' remains." This thing would be Ganon without his humanity, what he might have looked like before he got incarnated. In this way, he'd be the total mirror of Hylia-turned-Zelda, in that he's Ganon-turned-Ganondorf.

But this would go against this being 'a new nemesis.'