The best fan theories about Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

For some fans of The Legend of Zelda, there’s just as much fun in theorizing and analyzing the world as there is in playing the games. So, when Nintendo released the first trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, YouTubers and other fans didn’t waste time getting to work analyzing the trailer and dissecting its every detail.

There’s a lot to dive into this time around. Princess Zelda will be the playable hero of the story for the first time and wields an entirely new weapon, the Tri Rod — and the fact that Echoes of Wisdom could have connections to previous versions of Hyrule and the series at large has already introduced ample opportunities for people to theorize. There are loads of posts on Reddit with observations, and YouTube is filled with videos analyzing the trailer. It can all be a lot, so Polygon rounded up some of the best theories we’ve seen about The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.

It takes place in the same world as The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

A Reddit post that sparked a conversation on a Zelda subreddit made a convincing argument that the world in Echoes of Wisdom could be connected to A Link to the Past. The post includes a screenshot from the trailer, which shows a panoramic vista of Hyrule in Echoes of Wisdom. In it, you can see environments like a forest in the northwestern corner of the map, mountains in the north, and Hyrule Castle in the center. The user argues these locations and the arrangement look similar to those in A Link to the Past, so it could mean it takes place in the same or a similar version of Hyrule.

The Sheikah will be back in the game

Zeltik, a popular theory crafter within the Zelda community, highlighted a moment where the Sheikah appear to return in Echoes of Wisdom in two separate instances. The first shows a clip where a character resembling Impa, Zelda’s Sheikah nursemaid in other games, like Ocarina of Time and Oracle of Seasons, attacks soldiers in Hyrule Castle. The appearance of Impa wouldn’t be all that remarkable given she’s in so many games, but then there’s another fun treat: The trailer shows a house that appears to be a workshop or place for research. The room contains glowing orange signs that could be Sheikah symbols, and the character looks a lot like Robbie from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

There will be two kinds of Zora in the game

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo

This is a small detail, but a fun one: There have always been different designs for the Zora in various Zelda games. The Zora in the original A Link to the Past had a colorful, almost dragonlike look, whereas the Zora we see in more recent games like Ocarina of Time have a sleeker and silvery fishlike look. In another section from Zeltik’s trailer analysis, he shows a clip from the trailer where we can see Zelda standing between both kinds of Zora. He hypothesized that there could be a conflict between the two and that the princess might play a role in mediating tensions between the two groups.

Those are some of the fun theories we’ve found so far, but we will update the article as we get more information about the game. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom will be released on Nintendo Switch on Sept. 26.