Breath of the Wild: SOLVING the Great Plateau Mystery?

Thanks for the mention! I hope this theory gets you all hyped up for DLC 2! Perhaps we will uncover some more secrets within Hyrule.

Every few generations, the gorons move entire landscapes of hyrule as a display of power, which is why its never the same.

"WE SHOUD TAKE THE ENTIRE LOST WOODS, AND PUSH IT SOMEWHERE ELSE"

“Link is in the description” Description: hyah!

It got swapped because the lost woods got lost

This could explain the castle lifting in the botw 2 trailer

watching years later after Nintendo confirmed that they swapped both of those locations during development

I just think they said "okay, so the player starts, wakes up link, steps outside and sees mountains and the castle right on their doorstep" "Well if we swap it with the forest it will be more central and the player would step out to see the castle in the difference, pushing out the scale of the world" Basically I think they were swapped for gameplay reasons hence why they fit so well

A small rock in a corner of botw map: exist The whole zelda community: is that a ocarina of time reference?

I think the statement “Now that I’ve proven that these two locations were switched” is a little presumptuous

The Old Man says the Great Plateau was the birthplace of the kingdom of Hyrule, NOT Hyrule Castle itself. This would imply that this is where the goddess Statue from Skyward Sword descended into the land below allowing it's residence to begin settling the kingdom. This would also explain the Plateau's unnatural shape and placement, as well as it's spiritual significance.

Nintendoblackcrisis: “the great plateau and the lost woods both have four shrines” Champions ballad: exists Nintendoblackcrisis:

"Now that I've proved the land masses were switched.." You really didn't tho

Is it not more likely they swapped locations to hide LINK? To put the hero way up on a plateau and further away from Ganon?

Personally I think it's the foundation of what was once Skyloft. If it rose once, it can presumably rise again and move. It would explain why it looks so unnatural sticking out the ground like that, since it is basically an island on top of more land. After SS, it likely became the place where OOT's Castle and Town was built, since it was the homeland of the original Hylians. At some point, it was risen again for whatever reason and ended up falling to where it was in BOTW. The Lost Woods of BOTW grew in the hole it left behind. The Master Sword is put in the forest rather than the Temple of Time, simply because that's where the Sacred Realm entrance still is, and it basically needs to always be put in that spot.

1:34 Bokoblin look behind you! Oh no he can't hear us he has airpods in!

Really really loved this theory when I first saw it a year ago. But after playing the game, I think the simplest answer is the whole map was retconned, possibly to give veteran fans all too familiar with past maps of Hyrule a sense that exploring Hyrule for the first time by switching things up a little. That or it was a compromise between OoT's location for the Temple of Time and Skyward's Sword's Sealed Temple so they retconned Castle Town's location more south to cement the connection between the two iterations. I imagine canonically we're supposed to believe that Castle Town was always south, close to the entrance to Gerudo Desert, and that kinda makes more sense to have a fortified major city of commerce between Hyrule and the people of the desert. And it's still central enough to be easily accessed by other regions of Hyrule.

I've always found the map of BOTW to be much closer to the Link to the Past Map. They've both got Hyrule Castle smack in the middle, Lake Hylia in the South-East, Death Mountain in the North-east and the Lost Woods in the north. Also, I have to disagree with the idea that they've swapped. There is a road leading out of the Great Plateau, approaching Lon Lon Ranch, rather similar to the road in Ocarina of Time. I simply believe that the Great Plateau was just risen up. Interesting theory, though.

The developers are probably watching this and asking “wtf is this guy talking about”

So now that we've seen botw2 and the rising castle, gotta wonder if that game is gonna have more "landscaping remodeling" explanations and giving a reason why the plateau and Lost Woods moved.