Tears of the Kingdom

SSome time after Breath of the Wild, Gloom seeping up from beneath Hyrule Castle is making people sick. Link and Zelda follow it into the caverns, where murals tell of the Imprisoning War. They find a withered body held down by a glowing arm. The seal breaks, the castle rises into the sky, Zelda vanishes and the Master Sword decays in Link's hand. Link wakes on the Great Sky Island with a new arm. Across Hyrule islands now float in the sky and chasms open into the Depths.

Its history goes back to the founding of the kingdom. The Zonai, a people said to be descended from the gods, founded Hyrule in the age of the gods, when the Zonai Rauru and the Hylian priestess Sonia became its first king and queen. Ganondorf, king of the Gerudo, became the Demon King. After the Imprisoning War against him, Rauru sealed him beneath what is now Hyrule Castle. Zonai ruins already stood in the Faron region in Breath of the Wild.

Some names reach back to other games. The founding king shares his name with Rauru, the Sage of Light in Ocarina of Time. The war shares its name with the Imprisoning War of A Link to the Past, though each belongs to its own history. Link is helped by Tulin of the Rito, Yunobo of the Gorons, Sidon of the Zora and Riju of the Gerudo.

It is the direct sequel to Breath of the Wild. In Nintendo's chronicle the two make up one era, from the founding of Hyrule by the Zonai through the Great Calamity to the Demon King's awakening in the Upheaval.