Warning: This blog will contain spoilers to Breath of the Wild.

First: The Journey Of Discovery

After playing through this game on regular mode(around one month following the games release) I wanted to know how the other overworld maps from previous Zelda games would fit into this new expansive world, and see if there were any lingering clues/landmarks in BotW that supported the alignment of previous overworld maps to BotW. I found some remarkable supportive evidence from Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess. I recently shared my findings with my brother who really insisted I share this information online. I figured other people had already done the same work and the information was already out there. After doing some searching I didn't find any similiar conclusions, and I decided to make a post.

While creating the visuals to present to you the reader, I discovered my original alignment was a little bit off, and after correcting the alignments even more things fell into place and tells a completely different story to the land of Hyrule in BotW. There's a lot to showcase and I'll do my best to present it all.

BotW Game Developers Are Keeping A Secret From Everyone

I know it's best to reveal the most spectacular secret at the end of the blog, but I'm going to lead with it instead.

The Temple of Time in BotW Isn't The Same One From OoT, but the Shrine of Resurrection Is!

See for yourself...

Ocarina of Time Map

Twilight Princess Map

(Things might not line up precisely which could be because of my own error to line it up, or the game developers accounted for how the land can change in 10,000 years)

If you line up BotW Temple of Time with the Forest Temple in TP, you'll see the Pedestal of Time from TP lines up with the Shrine of Resurrection in BotW.

I shifted the OoT map so that the Temple of Time was over the Shrine of Resurrection and found it made Jabu-Jabu line up (amongst other things) with some similiar looking ruins in BotW. Here are some maps to better see the ruins and what exists there now in Breath of the 1Wild.

The Shrine of Resurrection being the original Temple of Time makes sense too. In BotW, Link has to use the Sheika Slate to exit the chamber he's in, then travel through a corridor before exiting outside. That's how the Temple of Time is structured in OoT. In BotW you begin your Hero's Journey where the Master Sword once stood.

Before we go any further let me explain why the OoT map is flipped upside down.

It's the only way the Temple of Time and the rest of the OoT map fits over both the Tp & BotW maps.

Why this is? My theories are

-The Hyrule Castle is always shown as the top of the Map; so when they rebuilt it after OoT, new maps were redrawn to show the new castle as being at the top of map again.

- Zelda games were originally told as passed down stories that may contain some misinterpretaion, and that when Link left the Kokiri Forest and traveled up to Hyrule Castle, it was incorrectly believed that traveling up to the castle meant traveling North to where the castle currently stands.

Or...

-A calamitous event caused the literal poles of the planet to switch sometime between Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess.

Interesting Discoveries when overlaying the upside-down OoT map.

The Thundra Plateau ligns up with where the Great Deku Tree once stood.

This makes sense as natural electricity seems to be the elemental representation of Courage.

(I also believe you find a korok in a spot that represents Link's house from OoT)

The Deku Tree, and Korok Forest, in BotW stands where Lake Hylia once existed.

The Goron City in BotW is where the Spirit Temple (and Old Kakariko Village from TP) once existed.

Lord Jabu-Jabu existed near where the Kat-Noh Shrine is in BotW

Lake Hylia in BotW is the ruined remains of Ganondorf's Tower in OoT.

I believe the rocks on the Western part of the lake are the weather eroded ruins of Ganondorf's Tower.

The original Lon Lon Ranch is where the Sacred Ground Ruins are in BotW.

Kakariko Village in OoT is where the Dah Kaso Shrine is in BotW.

EDIT:

I forgot to mention that by using the upside down OoT map, the rock color in the area in BotW matches the same rock color of the Death Mountain/Goron area in OoT.

Interesting Discoveries When Overlaying the Map From Twilight Princess

The Zoras in BotW live where the Gorons did in Twilight Princess.

Maybe that shimmering stones in Zora's Domain are the demagnetized remains of what allowed Link to walk upside down in TP.

This isn't a new concept as in Wind Waker the evolved Zora's (aka the Rito) inhabited the Gorons' old home and called it Roost Island.

The Rucco Maag Shrine is very close to where the Kakariko Graveyard is in TP.

Zora's Fountain in TP is where the Qaza Tokki Shrine is in BotW.

Ordon Village is underwater.

Snowpeak Ruins in TP is the area in which the Rito live in BotW.

And I believe the Mogg Latan Shrine is the same location as Fyer's Cannon in Twilight Princess.

In Conclusion

I believe the reason why things are mislabeled in BotW (like the Arbiter's Grounds), buildings are redesigned (Forest Temple from TP is the Temple of Time in BotW), and the Ranch Ruins look like the Lon Lon Ranch in Ocarina of Time is that 10,000 years have passed. People in that time have guessed locations from times passed, built new structures over the remains of old ones, and created memorial sites over where they believed originals once stood. Real humans have been doing the same things (and making the same mistakes) for centuries. I believe the game developers had this in mind when designing the world in BotW.

So what do you guys think? Are there any other areas that match up pretty well that I left out? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. I will leave you guys with the cutout maps from OoT and TP if you want to overlay them over the BotW map to see what you can find as well. And as always, thank you for taking the time to read this blog.