One of the mysteries of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been answered, as Nintendo has finally explained why the Guardians have vanished from Hyrule. The answer probably won’t be that satisfying to longtime fans, but at least the developers have acknowledged why they were cut from the game.
The Guardians were massive machines dotted around Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. They were notable for being incredibly powerful foes, with an awesome theme song that rivals Sonic’s drowning music in how much fear it instills in players. The Guardians could annihilate an unwary player due to their powerful laser attacks that can one-shot Link, which means that a lot of people gave them a wide berth.
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The Guardians Vanished From Hyrule In Tears Of The Kingdom, And No One Bothered To Find Out Why
When Tears of the Kingdom finally launched, fans quickly noticed that the Guardians were absent from Hyrule. This is never addressed in-game, but it has now been discussed in an interview with The Telegraph. Tears of the Kingdom developers Eiji Aonuma and Hidemaro Fujibayashi have talked about the fate of the Guardians in Tears of the Kingdom.
“They disappeared after the Calamity was defeated (sealed),” Fujibayashi explains. “All of the people of Hyrule also witnessed this, but there is no one who knows the mechanism or reason why they disappeared, and it is considered a mystery. It is believed that since the Calamity disappeared, they also disappeared as their role had been fulfilled.
“It is, anyway, commonplace for mysterious events and strange phenomena to occur in Hyrule,” he offers, mischievously. “Thus, people have simply assumed the reason behind the disappearance to likely be related to ancient Sheikah technology and it seems there is no one who has tried to explore the matter further. The main civilizations in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are completely different, so we thought about the game based on concepts that match each of these civilizations.”
So, yeah. The Guardians and the Sheikah Towers vanished due to the Calamity ending. No one in Hyrule seems particularly interested in why they disappeared, but then again, if you lived near an army of killer robots, you probably wouldn’t be too curious about where they have gone. You’d just be happy that they have finally left.
It would have been cool if the developers had kept a couple of Guardians as secret bosses, maybe in The Deep, but it’s clear that they wanted a clean break from some of the concepts from Breath of the Wild. As Tears of the Kingdom won’t receive any DLC, the Guardians are officially done in the game.
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It’s a shame that the Guardians didn’t stick around in Tears of the Kingdom, but, understandably, Nintendo would want the sequel game to have its own identity. Tears of the Kingdom is all about fresh foes connected to even more ancient technology than what was seen in Breath of the Wild, so the Guardians had to take a break to let the new concepts shine.
