17 Things You Might Not Know About Zelda: Breath Of The Wild

Oh, you think you know everything about Zelda, don’t you? Name the six sages.

Juuuuust just kidding, we’re not (time) keepers here – but we’ve got a bunch of facts for you on breath of the wild, which is sort of a game that just keeps on giving. Not a week goes by that we don’t learn Something about Nintendo’s open world to the Zelda canon, whether it’s a new glitch to save time in speedruns or a secret chest hidden in a truly dark place.

In preparation for the long-awaited 2023 sequel, tears of the kingdomwe’ve compiled just 17 of our favorite Breath of the Wild discoveries — how many do you already know?

17 Zelda: Breath of the Wild Secrets

Link opens chests like an idiot

You all know the classic Link-opening-a-chest animations, which are usually steeped in awe as the young man pushes open the lid and scoops up the treasure inside, before showing it to the audience as a toddler with a toy. But Breath of the Wild allows the boy to be in a number of positions – crouching, sideways, naked – and each of them has its own animation.

The side is probably the most common non-traditional opening, and Link kicks the chest open. Hey, as long as it works, mate. However, if Link isn’t wearing shoes, kicking the chest will hurt his toes. We could have told you, silly.

Similarly, if Link is crouched and sideways on the chest, he should punch to open it, which – again – hurts his hand. This is your hero? This guy ???

There is a reference to Ocarina of Time in the endgame

Head to Hyrule Castle and you’ll find this neat little reference to Ocarina of time — the notes from Zelda’s Lullaby, arranged in a circle around the Triforce.

Doing all those Tears of the Kingdom trailer breakdowns has conditioned us to speculate what it means – why Zelda’s Lullaby instead of the more traditional Hyrulian Crest? What does it mean that it’s in the room where the final battle with Ganon begins? And why isn’t there an ocarina or any other type of musical instrument for Link to play in Breath of the Wild? Same Twilight Princess had playable weed!!

You can speed up the bread

It’s called Bread%, it was invented by a speedrunner called The Bread Pirate, and the current world record holder is Cephla, with a time of 16m 27s. The race involves you finding the ingredients for bread and then making bread. That’s it! No Ganon, tiny Zelda, but who needs that when you have good bread?

The Zoras are secretly musical

Many Zora domain names are derived from musical terminology. You’ve got Bazz, Trello, Keye, Cleff, and Laflat, among a bunch of other names we couldn’t tie to anything musical, like, uh, “Fronk.”

There are also a few references to Majora’s Mask, which tells the story of the Indigo-Gos, a dead bassist, and tadpoles serving as musical notes. It turns out that the Japanese word for “tadpoles”, オタマジャクシ, is also the word for “musical note”, hence the musical theme for the Zora people – and there’s a bridge in the Zora estate called Inogo Bridge, a reference to Indigo-Allez.

But it goes further than that. The Zora royal family, from King Dorephan and Prince Sidon to the sadly deceased Mipha, has its own themes – and they even bear their name. You’ve probably heard of music theory, even if you don’t know it’s called: it’s the do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do scale. You know, from The Sound of Music.

Sidon is si-do—Japanese music theory uses “si” rather than “ti”—and you can hear those notes in its theme. Same thing with Mipha, or mi-fa, and Dorephan, do-re-fa. You could even say that Zora is so-la in Japanese!

Kakariko villagers are secretly fruit

It’s not as exciting or deep as the Zora naming convention, but many villagers in Kakariko Village are named after fruits. You have Cado for avocado, Nanna for banana, Koko for coconut, Mellie for melon, Steen for mangosteen, Paya for papaya, and Dorian for durian.

There are also less obvious ones – Olkin is meant to be a reference to pumpkins, and he’s called Tiron in French – short for potiron, the French word for pumpkin. Rola is named after a cherrola tomato, Lasli is named after raspberry, Trissa is a type of citrus fruit, Ollie is olive, Cottla is apricot, and Claree is cranberry. Many of these nouns are more obvious in French!

The divine beasts have an ancient secret

Did you discover the thread here? Many things in Breath of the Wild are named after other things! It makes sense for a game with then many things to name.

The names of divine beasts are no exception to this rule:

• Vah Medoh = Medli of Wind Waker, the Rito Sage of Earth
• Van Rudania = Darunia from Ocarina of Time, the Sage Goron of Fire
• Vah Naboris = Nabooru from Ocarina of Time, the Sage Gerudo of the Spirit
• Vah Ruta = Ruto from Ocarina of Time, the Water Sage Zora

Never Forget Tingle (and his brothers)

Ok, one last fact “did you know this thing is named after this thing”. You might have figured out that Tingel Island in the Akkala Highlands is named after everyone’s favorite spandex-wearing fairy, but did you notice that all the other islands are named after his brothers ?

Tingle’s brothers were featured in Wind Waker: Ankle, David Jr., and Knuckle are all dressed in different (but still skin-tight) outfits, and they reappear again in The Minish Cap, where they can help Link obtain the Magical Boomerang .

Here are the names of the islands – you can probably figure out which is which:

• Tingel Island
• Ankel Island
• Davdi Island
• Knuckel Island

Hylia Bridge wants you to look ugly

It’s a secret that we actually discovered on our own – and it certainly wasn’t intentional!

Breath of the Wild’s art style is on the border between realism and cel-shaded, and you might not even realize that the characters’ appearance is due to a special rendering effect superimposed on the 3D models. That is, unless you go to a very specific spot on Hylia’s Bridge, where for some reason there’s a little corner that takes away the effect and makes Link look… very apartment. And brilliant.

Modders have even managed to apply this shiny look to the entire game, which you can see here!