Is Hyrule getting bigger due to magic or is it just players' perception?

[HyruleEwel]

I noticed that especially in the 3D games, Hyrule seems to get a little bigger with each game with the exception of Skyward Sword. In Skyward Sword's case, there were a ton of islands in the sky in addition to the land on the ground, so that might just be due to development time. In BOTW and TOTK Hyrule just exploded in size to where it's absolutely massive compared to the games that came before it.

Even in the 2D games now, after decades of the geography remaining relatively stable, in Echoes of Wisdom Hyrule seems to have done the same thing as the 3D games and just grown to dwarf all the 2D games before it. That's where my question and the title of this thread comes in. Do you think it's just the players' perception or could it be the magic of the goddesses/the Triforce that's doing this? I figure a topic like this belonged in the Zelda theory board.

 

[Commander_Has]

I think it's the same size, It just appears different due to real world preferences.

 

[Ryuu Kage Desu]

I think the world itself is quite stable, and that different adventures take place in different chunks of the world. Some stories just take place over larger arias.

 

[Angopik]

For the most part, it's all the same piece of land. As time has gone by, less of it is left to the player's imagination

 

[Commander_Has]

I genuenly thing it's just that the disk couldn't hold a bigger world in the past. that is my guess.

 

[Prince Sidon]

I genuenly thing it's just that the disk couldn't hold a bigger world in the past. that is my guess.

They mean in game reason

 

[Commander_Has]

Not all things can be explained within the bounds of mortal reasoning, neither in this world, or hyrue.

 

[HyruleEwel]

They mean in game reason

I'm actually a man, so I use male pronouns. I just couldn't find where to put my gender when signing up. Edit: never mind found it.

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

Even in the 2D games now, after decades of the geography remaining relatively stable, in Echoes of Wisdom Hyrule seems to have done the same thing as the 3D games and just grown to dwarf all the 2D games before it. That's where my question and the title of this thread comes in. Do you think it's just the players' perception or could it be the magic of the goddesses/the Triforce that's doing this? I figure a topic like this belonged in the Zelda theory board.

Hyrule in Echoes of Wisdom is the same map as A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds, just expanded out to include some new regions that we can assume were always there in the past. Just because some games focus in on one particular area doesn't mean there is nothing beyond it.

In the case of 3D Zelda games though, it's a matter of the developers wanting to always reimagine new iterations of Hyrule that are bigger than they were previously (Skyward Sword being the exception to this, of course). They don't take any care to explain it, so there really isn't any in game logic that we can use to explain it either besides some real life logic. The games often take place multiple hundreds or thousands of years apart. In reality, during Antiquity, cities could end up being destroyed and rebuilt numerous times, sometimes those cities may end up being never being rebuilt, instead new cities grow in entirely different areas. Sometimes in locations of old cities, newer cities with entirely different construction methods and layouts are built on top. Often archeologists dig beneath established cities to find layers containing remnants of cities/towns/villages from different historical periods.

 

[Commander_Has]

I like this theory.

 

[Daku Rinku]

I think the developere are just expanding ehat is already there, in Ocarina everything was rather close but by Botw is spaced out because of what distance the consoles could achieve. At least that is my theory.

 

[RuMbLePaKk]

I believe its really made for the players perception, the style of game play, and the platform its being played on. BOTW/TOKT Hyrule is far more massive then lets say, TP.. But for lore sake, probably the same or similar size

 

[Dio]

There is no in game reason because Hyrule is the the same size canonically within the story of Zelda. The 2D game worlds are obviously a lot smaller than the 3D ones in game yet they portray the same place. Technology has just advanced more to portray a more realistic sized world on the big consoles now.

 

[Saint Ravenboo]

Even if they are getting bigger or smaller it could easily be down to gaining territory and land from nearby countries, people in history has done it all the time, just look at the US, we weren't always from coast to coast.