The Legend of Zelda
The first game in the series which first introduced us to overworld exploration and not actually having a map. The world is laid out in a 8×16 grid of "screens", each a representation of a section of the world. Well known locations on this map include a massive graveyard, a strangely "8" shaped lake, the first appearance of "Spectacle Rock" and the first naming of Death Mountain and the Lost Woods. This map almost feels like a squashed down and stretched out version of what
BotW calls the
Akkala Province. The
Akkala Citadel could be a new version of the graveyard, we have "Skull Rock", with nearby Death Mountain in the west (whereas later games keep it in the east) and even the figure "8" lake with it's two interior islands.
by Nintendo
Zelda II: Adventure of Link
Taking place a few years after the original game, Zelda II is the first game to reference another games overworld, showing Zelda I's world as an extremely small subset of the larger Hyrule. The aforementioned "Key Locations" are easily recognized, just on a smaller scale, and south of the new map. This would place locations such as the North Palace, Mido Swamp, and Royal Graveyard far to the north of the mountains on the edge of BotW's map. This is further supported by Death Mountain's more southern location and the presence of the North Palace.
Zelda 2 Map Remake by Thorn Blackstar
A Link to the Past
by Nintendo
A return to form for the series, with a top down approach to the entire world. Here, we see Hyrule Castle centered in the world, with Death Mountain to the northeast, a desert to the southwest, and the first incarnation of Kakariko Village. Additionally, the Lost Woods are more fleshed out, and we get introduced to Zora's Domain and Lake Hylia. Some have attempted to claim certain elements across the previous two games are similar here, but for the Hylian Fantasy, we assume that Zora's Domain here is actually southwest of the older maps, with the true "volcano" that is Death Mountain being further east than we have actually seen so far.
A recent revisit to this map put me on a train of thought that BotW may be taking even more inspiration from this map than originally thought!
Ocarina of Time
The first 3D offering, OoT gives us a more realistic depiction of the world of Hyrule. Areas of travel intersect, with a section of the Lost Woods having paths to both Goron City and the Zora's River. With each area being an individually loaded area, there is no ability to cross areas beyond designated "gates", but with a little imagination, free travel between areas seems plausible. In fact, falling into the river in Gerudo Canyon will drop you off in Lake Hylia. Additionally, the map here confirms locations for past and future elements of the world, though Zora's Domain will move drastically over the next 3 games.
The most important element here is the existence of Hyrule Field, which gives us a central area where the player travels between locations. Everything is accessed from traversable roadways or paths, sometimes with minor detours.
Ocarina of Time Hyrule World Atlas by Nintendo
Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons
Released for the Game Boy Color, the Oracle games were the first return to top down since Link's Awakening. Unlike all previous games, Ages and Seasons take place in the realms of Labrynna and Holodrum, respectively. Now, this may seem like it has no bearing on the mapping of Hyrule itself, but specific elements tie both these games together when played through and later games give credence to locations being connected in certain ways. Namely, Holodrum Samassa Desert may be connected to the Gerudo Desert. Additionally, Labrynna is seen as being along the sea or perhaps a large bay, with nearly a third of the map being water. Since the only areas we have previously seen a large, untraversable body of water was in the southeast of the LoZ/AoL maps, we can either try to put Labrynna in line with these locations, or search for other locations that fit. Currently, this one seems the most difficult to place, as places such as the Talus Peaks as Talus Plateau are named by BotW, but are mixing alongside areas from Holodrum, or in areas that don't make sense in the same way. The most erroneous example of these concepts is that Tarm Point in BoTW located on the southeastern point of a peninsula jutting into Lanayru Bay, but it's Holodrum namesake, the Tarm Ruins, are an inland mountain of decrepit architecture. Some theorists have begun to place Holodrum as seen in this game as being the Eastern Continent in AoL, with Labrynna being a similarly separate area. Though this could be accurate, until future games confirm these areas existence or placement, we just don't know confidently where they are.
by Nintendo/Capcom
by Nintendo/Capcom
Subrosia
Oracle of Seasons adds a secondary world called Subrosia, which exists underground. We can simply assume this subterranean area exits in some capacity all over the world, and may or may not be populated through out.
Minish Cap
Another top down, 2D title, MC gives us a smaller Hyrule, again focused on the Castle in the center of the map. The initial size is overcome by having the player able to shrink down to a tiny size, but this is of no consequence for geographic positioning. New areas, like the Crenal Hills and Royal Valley, as well as our first visit to the "sky world" expand the overall map and can complicate some placement, but generally it can be understood that this map simply adds to our existing map of the world, while removing parts that were not important for this story. Overall, this map simply focuses on the area around Hyrule Castle, instead of the areas around Hyrule Field, making for a more intimate representation of the world fitting for the ability to shrink down.
by Nintendo/Capcom
Four Swords
by Nintendo/Capcom
This small Game Boy Advance extra included in the A Link to the Past port only contains four major locations: The Sea of Trees, Talus Cave, Death Mountain, and Vaati's Palace in the sky. The map is extremely simplistic as such and gives little to help us place anything, except possibly the location of Labrynna with the Talus Peak/Cave connection. Of course, this map also puts Death Mountain in the northeast, as opposed to northwest, with a body of water to the east of the landscape.
Four Swords Adventures
A spiritual sequel to Four Swords, this map mimics elements from various older games while also being based on the overworld from ALttP. The only out of place location is Frozen Hyrule, situated in the middle-south of the map, smack dab between the Desert of Doubt and Eastern Hyrule. This games timeline placement and visuals confirm a key aspect of Hyrule: Its similarities across games are more correct than its differences. This Hyrule that looks and operates like the one form ALttP exists after the events of Twilight Princess, a game which takes place on a separate timeline branch. Speaking of...
by Nintendo
Twilight Princess
by Nintendo
For all intents and purposes, TP is a thematic and visual revisiting of the Hyrule from OoT, just expanded upon in size and detail. Here, Zora's Domain has shifted further north and west of Death Mountain, while also having a pass that leads to the icy Snowpeak mountain even further northwest. Again, Death Mountain is in the northeast of the overall map, with Hyrule Castle centered in the map. An additional new concept of Provinces has been added as well, with Lanayru, Faron, and Eldin being known areas that we are already familiar with, but now we are given the southern region of Ordon, which in this game appears to be a vassel-like state to Hyrule proper.
Skyward Sword
The earliest game in the series timeline, Skyward Sword creates some unique issues with naming of places, but does expand upon the world by adding elements such as the Lanayru Sand Sea and Lake Floria. With the Sand Sea, we can again revisit the concept of the Samassa Desert being connected due to the presence of pirates in both locations. Further, Lake Floria in game appears to look out over a massive body of water, which sits to the southeast. Hyrule has not had a visible open body of water since AoL, so this gives us a good basis to say that there is a sea or ocean in this direction.
A fun viewpoint is that Skyloft, the starting area of this game, seems to match the layout of the Great Plaetau in [I]Breath of the Wild. In addition SS reuses the concept of Provinces, though it does cause confusion with the Lanayru Province extending west and including what would obviously become the Gerudo Desert.
by Nintendo
Triforce Heroes
by Nintendo
Only the third game in this discussion to rake place outside of Hyrule proper, Triforce Heroes takes place in the Kingdom of Hytopia and the surrounding Drablands. Officially, the Drablands are stated in The Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia to be situated north of Hyrule. This can be a touch confusing as certain areas don't seem to be common in match, though having the Desert, Forest, and Water areas on the south of this map means we can assume their location as being approximations of the worlds reality. This is further plausible as the game itself is a story written by a character the players run into, meaning we can really twist this map to for game or geographical needs as we wish.
Breath of the Wild
This section may contain spoilers for Breath of the Wild!
Finally, we can take a look at Hyrule as it appears in the newest, canon, home console game. This is important, since a lot of my geographical placement of locations in the Hylian Fantasy rely on this map as the base.
A major point to note between all these maps is that every location in
ALttP is present in
BotW and near accurate to their original location. The Forest of Mystery returns west of Death Mountain and North of Hyrule Castle, the river goes around the Castle, with a bridge heading south to Lake Hylia. Fort Hateno stands in for the Eastern Palace area and Zora's Domain is north of this. Lastly, the Desert of Mystery is easily the Gerudo Desert in the south west. The only missing element is the Tower of Hera, which could be connected to Akkala Citadel due to it's close proximity to the volcano. Kakariko Village is in the wrong area, but it's never appeared in the same spot exactly twice. The argument could be made that it is actually any of the ruined villages across Central Hyrule.
All maps considered, I see no reason to assume that Hyrule changes too drastically game to game, outside of gameplay/design reasons for the time period they were made.
Comments
Author's Notes
I'm really excited about some of the things this Reddit post and how it connects some of the Japanese names of locations together between BotW and MC.