Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom's Overworld Appears To Include Links To The Past

Fans are already uncovering missing links

by · Nintendo Life
Image: Nintendo

When The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom was initially revealed, there was a fair bit of speculation about the new overworld and how it possibly linked up with the map in previous entries. Now, just a week after the latest entry's release, this has seemingly been confirmed.

As highlighted on social media and elsewhere online by Zelda enthusiasts, it appears the new adventure does actually have some connections to the Super Nintendo classic A Link to the Past. This doesn't look to be a coincidence either, with many landmarks visibly lining up with the older game's map.

IGN apparently called on its in-house Zelda expert and reviewer Tom Marks - confirming various landmarks such as the "graveyard and church" were all in the right spots as well, and the house where Link lived in A Link to the Past is there, even though he resides in Suthorn Village in the latest top-down entry.

Some theories (as you can see in the social post below) also suggest Gorons, Gerudo, Zora and Deku could have lived in this same world, but just weren't accessible in A Link to the Past.

There are all sorts of other similarities between the two games, which seemingly confirms the link. These connections appear to be fueling speculation about the Zelda timeline as well and how it fits in with A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds.

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News The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom Overworld Sure Looks Familiar, But Is It?

Zelda historians are already linking the dots...

Have you spotted anything in Echoes of Wisdom that reminds you of another Zelda game? Found any other Link to the Past comparisons? Let us know in the comments.

[source x.com, via ign.com]

Related Games
   •  The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Switch)
See Also
   •  Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom Walkthrough
   •  The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Review

About Liam Doolan

Liam is a news writer and reviewer for Nintendo Life and Pure Xbox. He's been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of Mario and Master Chief. He's also got a soft spot for Sonic the Hedgehog.

Comments 30

I mean yeah, that much was apparent if you played LttP or LBW. You can literally visit the Eastern and Desert Palaces and they've either eroded or changed. There's still some significant changes made to existing areas though, such as the location of Kakariko Village, and Death Mountain changing to the Hebra Mountains. A lot of it is 1:1 though, and you can easily pinpoint where the LttP map begins and ends.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2024/06/the-legend-of-zelda-echoes-of-wisdom-overworld-sure-looks-familiar-but-is-it
This could've just been an update to this article, going into greater detail on the connections people have found...

I mean this is apparent that it was an expanded version of the Link to the Past map. Most likely far into the future of that version of Hyrule at that, given how the landmarks from Link to the Past and Link Between Worlds are pretty much run-down.

This game is clearly to be somewhere between the A Link to the Past / Link Between Worlds timeline and Breath of the Wild. Where BotW is a combination of all timelines.

Most RPG overworld maps back in the era were a collection of continents that separated the stages of the game, with the voyage between adding to the sense of scale. The Hyrule map condensed that notion with streams instead of seas. It gave Hyrule a more intimate and scalable feeling with Link walking or swimming between all sections. This also gave the world map a quadratic formula with a north (high) to south (low) orientation that they’ve basically reproduced throughout the top-down series

Is this news? You literally mentioned this fact in detail during your review of the game last week.

Thank god for including this game in the timeline. My fav zelda on switch thanks to all the additions to the lore and its story.

To me, it’s a prequel to A Link to the Past

I love when sequels expand on the previous game world by adding areas and creating the illusion that they've always been there and it's just that the player couldn't access them before à la Banjo-Tooie!
That said, in this case it's almost certainly also a version of the A Link to the Past overworld during a different time as not only that would explain the slight changes to the already existing map, but also that's how it usually works for the Zelda series - just look at A Link Between Worlds which is also based on A Link to the Past as already mentioned by others here.

No spoilers, but if anything, I'd say this game is more closely connected to Ocarina of Time than ALLTP. Some really neat callbacks I wasn't expecting.

Well, if you ask me, LttP and Link's Awakaning are all part of the same "Link" story. Awakening is pretty obviously a sequel to Past.

They are... linked if you will.

Maybe Link between Worlds and and the Oracle games too, never played those.

The only big element that doesn’t quite match is Kakariko Village. It moved further west, and its original location has a whole bunch of nothing here.

I guess they simply didn’t want to have two big towns right next to each other, with the introduction of Castle Town… which resembles the original ALttP Kakariko more than the actual Kakariko itself (the new one is somewhat modeled after the OoT location, with the windmills, a prominent well, and a goron-infested volcano to the north)

@Daniel36 while I also like to believe LA and ALttP follow the same Link (the oracle games too), nothing in game really directly suggests or implies they do. It could truly be separate Links hundreds of years apart (except the oracle games as a pair, those absolutely follow each other).

ALBW is definitely out of the equation there though. Its similarities with ALttP are ironically what makes it impossible for both games to share a main character. Kinda like how this new one is obviously set in the same Hyrule as both, but it clearly can’t be directly connected to either.

A bit of a weird article. It's extremely obvious to anyone who played ALTTP, and other people probably won't care.

I'd be more interested in a list of speculations on the timeline (not just one per article!)

"Fans are already uncovering missing links"

I mean, isn't that more or less the whole main quest?

So what your saying is a LTTP remake in the style of this/LA wouldn’t be hugely difficult?

Well, I mean, OF COURSE!! I knew from the very beginning that it was the same map, but amplified. We didn't need any "fan" to tell us something so obvious XD. The places are the same, the structure is the same (but way bigger)... Hasn't Nintendolife played the game to review it? Lol.

@MicroMatscenes It can't be a prequel, the world is devastated. Everything from ALttP looks like it's in ruins, like remains of the glory past days.

Eh. LttP, OoA/S, and LA form a sort of trilogy by their beginnings and endings. Example, in OoA/S, Link starts by placing the triforce on a set of pedestals, and at the end, he leaves via ship. Definitely a continuity there.

What bothers me about the EoW map vs LttP is, the forest was moved from to the left of the mountains, to directly in the middle. Idk how that can naturally occur. The whole downfal timeline is the only one where the map is inconsistent with the orientation of key areas in the other games.

Just another reminder of how disappointing TOTKs reused map was.

@batmanbud2 what? The surface landscape is totally ripped up with so many new features like caves, wells etc. then there’s a whole new massive map in the depths with insane verticality. And then the sky islands to boot (again insane verticality). BoTW’s map was pretty much 2D. Therefore once you add that up, ToTK’s map is nearly x3 the size and tbh is actually quite daunting.

@WheresWaveRace If I'm being blunt, none of those added areas impressed me except a few of the sky island portions. Pretty much every cave, well, and the underground area as a whole quickly lost their novelty when their repetitive nature was made apparent. It's not "daunting" to me, it was just tedious and boring.

Going from the Light World in LttP to the Dark World and suddenly seeing 7 whole new dungeons that I needed to complete when I originally thought I was halfway done after 3 dungeons? Now that's daunting. TotK by comparison just felt pointlessly long and overstayed its welcome, on top of a map that we'd already thoroughly explored in a previous game. Supremely overrated game.

This is cool for timeline enthusiast. For me though, its a bit of fan service and nice easter egg. I do like it when developers put in the work for the fans.

@Liam_Doolan Good Game. lol I saw this article earlier and I thought "This is already common knowledge.
Then re-read it just now and I saw the pun. "Links to the Past."
Nice! xD

I think the whole Zelda / Link timeline thing was unintended and largely created by fans. Which Nintendo have later partially adopted.

Probably for future games Nintendo will make some kind of effort to fit every game into Zelda lore since they have started publishing books about it. But often as an after thought.

But it's a bit like Mario games. They are pretty much just stand alone games to work with whatever hardware / concepts are being released at the time.

The irony is when TOTK was released it was the first time a mainline console game used the exact same map, and fans complained because they felt bored exploring the same world. So it's like timeline enthusiasts want the world of Hyrule to change with every iteration but the story to stay the same.

So hopefully they can release a new Link to the Past then with same art style as Echoes. Maybe even also HD port over Link Between Worlds.

Very nice to know that the world in A Link to the Past is bigger than I thought. I also wonder what the dark world versions of those outer lands would look like or the Lorule versions of those. This also reminds me of the Golden Sun/The Lost Age, Donkey Kong 94, Super Metroid, Tales of Symphonia/Phantasia, and Pokemon Gold and Silver situation where more of the same world open up and you can even see or revisit the same locations from the previous game though highly updated, in ruin, or inaccessible.

...I mean, besides being pretty obvious to those who have already played ALttP/ALBW, wasn't there a recent article or something about this already?

@Not_Soos The landscape is literally lttp but expanded.

....This isn't news...I saw this the moment I started playing...lol
Also...@Oracles_fanboi, wait, you can enter the Sand Palace? It looked like it was completely blocked off.

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