Zelda's Missing Sword | Tears of the Kingdom | Let's Talk About #65
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- Опубліковано 27 лип 2024
- This Master Sword isn't visible during the Tutorial of Tears of the Kingdom. It's time to figure out why.
Patreon:
patreon.com/PixelFusionProductions
Chapters:
0:00 The Intro
0:59 The Missing Sword Theory
7:19 The Light Dragon Model
10:43 The Invisible Sword
16:35 Closing - Ігри
This just confirms to me that they didn’t think the whole time travel aspect thoroughly. I can just imagine the programmer who coded the sword to disappear during the tutorial thinking how dumb this was but still did it because they had no other option.
I think it might have been a late game change. It's really telling that the Dragon isn't in Zeltik's footage. Personally, I think the game would have been been better to simply not show the dragon in the sky of the GSI until the end when she comes up through the clouds. Oh, and add the light trail when she does so, the light trail is pretty.
It's simply that you're not supposed to get close to the light dragon during the tutorial. It's as simple as that.
Great work on this one Pixel. I appreciate your balanced approach looking at all the options here, even the ones you're not so enthusiastic about
Thank you Capt. I do have to admit that it seems more likely they were trying to hide the sword than imply time was changed. It's a shame, it's a really interesting concept that tracks. Sadly, if this is true and time is unchangeable in the realm of BotW & TotK, then that hurts my proposed connection to SS more. That being said, and I should have brought this up in the video, Rauru does give off that one line when talking to Zelda implying that past timelines do exist.
I’ve been thinking about time paradoxes being the “explanation” for major differences between BOTW and TOTK but I wish they made it a key part of the story rather than leaving it ambiguous, but theories are fun.
I'm not sure paradox would be enough to save it. For example, what type of paradox would completely remove the interior of Akkala citadel? The cave leading into it has none of the stonework of the fortress.
@@PixelFusionProductions I agree. It just helps my head canon while playing the game, but I do have ideas about the caves. Now my basis for this is also from playing Hyrule Warriors, which I know many don’t view as canon, but it does kinda add to the confusion of this specific timeline, but in HW you play multiple levels at the Akkala citadel and you get to see the inside. My theory is after the war and due to the guardians, the interior caved in and overtime a natural cave was formed. Maybe this occurred in other locations but not a great explanation for all. The horriblons could have even helped making them what they are now. But it’s just a theory a pretty loose one at that. Huge buildings going missing could create caves and giant holes in the ground is my thought process.
I have a general theory of time travel within the Zelda franchise, and it essentially goes like this: There are no legitimate "stable time paradoxes". Instead, what we have is time travel that alters the course of events, such that information from previous iterations of loops are being erased as more time travel occurs, and over "time", stabilizes into a back and forth paradox.
Take the Song of Storms from OoT. Windmill Man teaches Link the song, and Link goes back in time and ends up teaching the Windmill Man the song after playing it in the Windmill. This appears as a stable time loop, and it might just be, but it hasn't always been that way. Link did not write the song, nor did the Windmill Man, so someone else wrote (or discovered) the song, started the loop, and their presence in instigating the loop is erased by the nature of time travel itself, leaving the result and erasing the cause. The man who travels back in time and becomes his own grandfather was not always his own grandfather, despite that loop finding a stabilized position where it shifts back and forth between two states.
Think of it like a marble being rolled into a rounded bowl. The ball enters the bowl, reaches the crest of one side, than returns to the other side, losing momentum in the process. Eventually, after crossing back and forth several times, the marble's path stabilizes, and barring a little wobble, comes essentially to a stop, where it has the least amount of potential energy.
I think time travel in Zelda works in a similar way, where, what we perceive as a relatively stable time loop, is actually not the case. Minor changes and inconsistencies in Zelda's MANY time loops seem to back this up (if we don't chalk them up to error, of course). In the Song of Storms case, a Mystery Composer (I've heard theories of MM Link being the origin of the song, but that's an entirely new can of worms) teaches the Song of Storms to either link of the Windmill Man, who then teaches it to the other ad nauseum. If this were a rhyming scheme, it might be A-B-C-B-C-B-C. The stable loop hasn't always existed, rather, the stable loop is a result of the stabilization of time paradoxes through countless cycles, eventually reaching a "low energy state", where the changes resulted in the performance of the paradox don't drastically shift the flow of time.
It's also very likely that there are far, faaaaar more timeline branches than the canonical 3, and we simply haven't seen them (as far as we know).
I feel the time travel presented in TotK conflicts philosophically with what we see in past games. Rauru's statement to Zelda about being from a different future goes against everything that we see in the game.
I stand by my continued assertion that these two games are a reboot.
@@PixelFusionProductions thanks for the reply!
reboot tends to come with the connotations of invalidating the prior games, and i'd just preface that timey-wimey shenanigans resetting the timeline don't necessarily mean prior games didn't matter (not that your saying as such).
There's a thing I like to call the "higher order time", which is the only explanation for what I can only describe as a forward moving time that applies to things technically outside of time.
Story-A tells a story, then Story-B, a prequel, pulls time travel shenanigans and erases Story-A from existence, creating a new timeline that eventually leads into Story-C in the far distant future. Chronologically, these stories would have the order of B-A-C (even if A doesn't lead to C), but from a "higher order" view of the timeline, the order would be A-B-C, with A taking place first, B, despite chronologically taking place before A, didn't happen until later, when the timeline gets reset, and C eventually coming as a result of all of these changes.
If applied to the Zelda timeline, you have the original "downfall" timeline, until the past of those games gets altered by aLttP, and then again by OoT. In this sense, while aLttP takes place before the original games, it takes place "after" from a "higher order perspective of time".
This is why, at least as I see it, the release order could be taken as the "higher order" timeline.
Either way, thanks for the response!
5:44 we see this effect when Zelda goes to the past initially and the sky islands suddenly appear and begin to fall, which we see occur prior to link awakening on the sky islands.
I think them appearing isn't relayed to Zelda disappearing, bur rather, the result of Ganondorf shoving thr central stone (and castle) upward. I think he broke something that was supplying power to a zonai cloaking device.
The Stormwind Ark story strongly implies that people cannot see the sky islands, so I think technology keeps them hidden from view. Ganondorf broke the power source, and that is why they became visible, and many floating pieces previously hovering, began to fall.
If they wanted to protect people from being spoiled, they could have just remove the light trail, to do not attract people, but let the master sword. I don’t think people would have get near enough to be spoiled.
I don't know about that. I think that if they did release a demo, people would be flying out to the dragon to check her out. In hindsight, considering how much the story people were already figuring out, such as the theories of Zelda going back in time, I think there would have been some pretty strong speculation about the Light Dragon if a sword was visible in her head.
That being said, I don't agree with making the sword invisible / removing it. Doing so fractures some of the story they wrote.
Great video Pixel. I love the research and the free camera makes for some amazing shots! To me it made sense they removed the sword in the Dragon for the tutorial from a play perspective, and hiding that in pre-release footage. Lore related it messes with though.
It's the most likely solution, and I'm sad about it. It's not the first time in this game that the curtain has been pulled back for me.
My solution for the master sword being missing. from the dragon during the tutorial. Is the light dragon can move the sword to hide it. When we see the dragon with the sword visible. That's the dragon presenting the sword. So that link can take it.
When you grab the sword later on, why is she actively resisting if she is purposely presenting it to be drawn?
Related to that, the dragon seems to move basically on instinct, traveling in a broad circle geoglyph to geoglyph remembering the past. She doesn't seem in the right state of mine to consciously present or hide the sword.
I kinda feel like they were running low on enthusiasm for the game near the end
I get that. By multiple accounts, the game was done for over a year while they held off on release to optimize it on the Switch.
I have a theory of my own. I believe that even though Zelda is in the past, time is still moving forward in a linear way for both of them. While certain events seem to be set in stone like Zelda turning into the light dragon. Others need interaction from the future (Link) to trigger. Until Link sends the Master Sword to Zelda in the past, she never receives it, and until she does receive the Master Sword, it won't be shown on the Light Dragon
This is basically what I am saying in the video. When Link sent the sword back, it altered the past, and then reality changed to reflect it. That is why the sword appeared in the dragon.
Great thats exactly what Pixel said in the video. Tell me you comment before the video reached 30 sec without telling me....
@@tjeerdtrekkie1030 except that I watched it all the way through (twice actually) and then commented. And he didn't directly mention my theory. He got close once when he mentioned the Zelda In Despair timeline. But it's a slightly different approach than mine. Time travel is complicated ya know :)
Time split elements in any story need to be made with the most attention, as in many cases can be messed up.
As much as the story and time split is somewhat broken in TOTK, the Master Sword’s absence on the Light Dragon in the tutorial makes the most sense, as Link had not yet sent it back in time … and this is where the time split is also broken. I think the best resolve would have been not to see the light dragon until Link sent the Master Sword back in time… or even better, after all the memories had been recalled.
As much as the story for TOTK has inconsistencies, it definitely was an amazing game. It’s possible that Nintendo ended being pressed for time and may have assumed that the majority of people would not pick up on some of the breaks in the narrative?
I think that the best case would be to either A, hide the dragons until the end of the tutorial with the Light Trail, or B, have her flying around with the light trail.
Could still be a confliction issue tho. Just because you didn't pick up the decayed sword, doesn't mean it suddenly dissapears. Its still in the room. And if the game isn't able to load 2 swords then that solves the entire problem. Removing the dragon from the demo doesn't conflict with this either since there wouldn't be 2 swords anyway.
I was standing next to the Master Sword in her head while holding the Decayed One. There isn't a conflict, it seems it was a conscious choice on part of the developers to remove the sword, or make it invisible, during the Tutorial.
If you think I'm wrong though, I invite you to get the Camera Mod and use it in your own investigations. At this point, I've moved on.
IMO they should have done all the tears like the last one, where they appear after each memory but you have to use the room in the forgotten temple to find where they are
Right. Go to the temple, talk with impa, trigger the next one, go get it.
Personally I think you have that backwards, I think the system should have been that the tears do nothing or trigger a minor image flash, but then we go to the temple and they unlock by activating it sequentially.
If we look at the central table it resembles the gatcha machine, so in theory all the game systems are there to make it a memory projector, that would let us find them out of order, but not SEE them out of order, because the machine is built to translate them only in order while it tells us where they are, this would also solve telling Impa the various stories from memories and add a canon reason for the video player.
Fantastic argument actually, I never thought of it like that!!!
I love that idea even more, thank you! :)
@@LittleMetallic ikr, it seems so obvious in hindsight I cannot help but think it was intended but dropped at some point, just like the cutscenes of ancient hero's are all exactly the same, yet each hero approach the info slightly differently, like at one point they realized each ancient hero would have a different problem with Ganondorf culturally,(and the game definitely has an order of dungeons newspapers lead you in despite claiming the choice is agnostic) but ultimately decided to voice them as if all had the same problem, so at some point developers switched tonal objectives, we just don't know which direction was chosen.
I'm still thinking the oddity is not the Master sword appearing in the dragon's head, but how the artist in the mural knew the sword was there, or would appear there. It's not just our close up view in the memory, but how far away everyone is shown to be at that moment. Any artist going purely off observation of the moment would not have added the sword. Even with the theory presented in this video, the artist would need some special knowledge. As I see the hair curls, it could very well be a precursor to the sword emerging.
Looking at the meta side, I do think the developers wanted to avoid early discovery.
I think the Chamberlain is a good way to explain it. There are implications that ancient people could see the memories from the tear,and painted the geoglyphs. If the memory shows Zelda's change. The creating the murals afterward could contain information unknown at the time.
I think meta-wise you(@pixel) are missing the obvious possibility, that this is a loading issue.
By that I mean the game could be programmed to load in the different Master swords in sequence(there can only be 1!😅), MS 01(the unbreakable version), 02(decayed), 03(in the dragon), 04(cutscene version), 05(the one we are supposed to use). By that logic it won't load 03 because you didn't destroy or remove 02 from play, however the alternative possibility is that it would only do so with hitting a loading trigger where the game scrubs 02 from the game(that cutscene)
Edit: we know the game does something similar with the Champions weapons, allowing us only ONE at a time.
@@PixelFusionProductions And, the blade placement in the mural would just be a spot on educated guess, being the location of the third eye. Shown to be very important by Rauru's (mechanical looking) third eye.
@@michaellane5381 I think the timing if the stream of light is more telling than possible model programing.
@@RyuuKageDesu the timing of that is definitely intentional, but consider we can summon these sword versions through console commands and to my understanding no model emits the 🌈... Though that could indicate that the rainbow effect is set to indicate a sword is present.
I never thought of the present events altering the past theory in this game. The dragon emerging from the clouds, from what sounds like in pain, the moment the sword is sent back makes total sense.
I've always considered the past set in stone, and no matter the events of the present, it'll never alter the past.... but this just swayed my opinion.
As far as the missing sword... probably just lazy animation sadly. But maybe we can just infer the awesome lore perspective. I like that better.
Great Video again!
It's an elegant explanation of what is likely an error or oversight with the sword being removed. I really like it, and it feeds into my idea of SS making a break by leaving the Master Sword back in time. The Sword is the key.
Also, if you skip the title dive event, zelda just fails to ever spawn, not even for the final tear, the game just gets stuck waiting for her (the demon dragon fight is the exception because that's a different object)
It makes sense that if you skip event triggers, other dependent functions will fail. I'm not really chasing that stuff though, in this case I skipped grabbing the decayed sword simply to verify that the sword wasn't triggering a visual bug with the dragon and light trail.
@@PixelFusionProductions I'm just surprised there isn't another trigger to spawn the light dragon, even just as a failsafe
@@PixelFusionProductionsI feel you missed the possibility is the trigger could be removing the DMS from existence rather than simply not carrying it.
@@michaellane5381 In my research, I skipped grabbing the DMS to test this. Even after I go and pick it back up after the tutorial, the light trail persist.
Zelda is desperately clutching the Master Sword to her chest very tightly when she transforms into the dragon, so it would make sense it wouldn't suddenly be embedded in her head when she finished transforming, seconds later. My guess would be the sword's decayed remains were somehow (magically) absorbed into her body, and over time, when it was restored to an actual sword, emerged from her head.
So... why is the sword depicted in the mural?
@@PixelFusionProductions Well, the murals were obviously created after the fact, maybe years, decades, centuries or even more later. By that time the sword could have visibly appeared. We don't even know who made the murals. Their creators could possibly only have heard of the tale of how a desparate sage holding a mysterious sword turned herself into a dragon, and based the murals on these descriptions. The murals aren't 1:1 depictions of real life anyway, like how the sages don't wear their iconic masks in them, another clue as to how the murals' creators likely weren't first-hand witnesses to the events, and there's lots of details like that.
Yup, it was a cheesy way to hide the sword. Unfortunately many things in this game were cheesy.
This one feels like a late development adjustment to me. There is clearly no lore in the game to establish why the sword wouldn't be visible.
I’m thinking that this looping plot hole is a little week and there is something far greater or not as far greater that we currently haven’t noticed and don’t even understand yet like we’re not even looking in the right places or not even knowing where to look And how I theorize about it with the sword on the light dragon which might not be a very great one but it could be possible that somehow the sword was capable of moving or something moving the sword while it remained on the light dragon so that it can be hidden Until it is ready to be obtained like it not being visible could’ve been just just hidden very well on the light dragon the reason as to how it would be moving to remain very well hidden while remaining on the light dragon I’m not really sure
The problem with the Sword or Dragon "choosing to hide it" idea, is that the mural clearly depicts the sword in its head. When I originally presented this idea in the Mystery video, some made similar arguments to what you are saying, but ultimately failed to explain how the mural art could be accurate. My solution here explains the mural.
@@PixelFusionProductions I know but I at least did my best and I mean by the sword moving to remain hidden while remaining on the dragon what I meant by that is that the sword still remaining on its head but it could also be possible that at some point in the ancient past that someone or the ancient sages casted some kind of spell on it that would only make it visible when the hero is ready to pull it out
@@shadowgamer-vq8fc The "Hidden Sword" theory could work...
I might actually be willing to accept the idea that the Spirit of the Master Sword is purposely hiding herself until after Link sends the decayed version back in time. That being said, I would really like to see something in the game to support this line of logic.
@@PixelFusionProductionsyes the mural shows the sword but the actual scene of it happening doesn’t… so it could’ve at some point moved spots.
the invisible sword cutscene also kinda exists in botw (that one glitch where you place a campfire next to it)
Yeah, but that's clearly unintended behavior. This situation with the dragon is intentional.
3:42 I don't know if someone already told you this (because your video has been around for 3 months) but the Master Sword is already in the the Dragon's head during the tutorial, I managed to reach her with speedrun glitch and I still had the broken sword too. Also you have some moments where you can reach her with Glider and you see the Sword is there
I've taken the camera to her during the tutorial, and show this in the video. The sword of not visible, and it only becomes visible after the final cut scene during it.
@@PixelFusionProductions yeah mb I remembered it wrong the hair pedestal is right there but they didn't place the MS in it
BotW and Totk is a time split with two stable time loops - one where Zelda travels back and the second with the transfer of the sword to the past.
Past, Presence and Future are the fundamental cosmological concept, even in Zelda games.
For cosmos logic to work, there has to be a linear timeline that is progressing undisturbed from past presence to future and there are forces to balance things back.
The canon future outcome of the Zelda series are the original games: The Legend of Zelda and the Adventure of Link. This is the original timeline outcome and should be since creation by the three goddesses and also from statements of the developers of the game series back in the days.
Normally everything that happens, every game should lead up to these two games in that linear progression.
But it doesn’t. We have splits and time loops. Yikes.
OoT made the original timeline split into two creating, one the Adult Timeline and the other the Child Timeline, in both instances Link traveled through time (with maybe even a mini time loop regarding the song of storms origin as another paradoxon on top). Those two infamous splits are a threat to linear time and thus became separated from the original time line, never leading to tLoZ or AoL.
You see my point is, the third timeline, the Downfall Timeline, removes the time traveller Link, by his defeat, from the equation eventually, thus getting rid of the time traveler paradoxons caused by Link‘s existence and returning to the original timeline. It's bittersweet, but Link had to die, to balance the timeline back to its more original form.
Ah, but the full details of the Hero's "Defeat" is unknown at this time. Perhaps that defeat happened because of something related to the Master Sword?
I don't claim to have all the answers, but I'm excellent at poking holes and connecting dots.
@@PixelFusionProductions❤ I am very thankful for your reply. I really love everything you do and you have a great understanding and knowledge and theories 😍 I do not have all the answers either. I am no time travlling expert, but I consume a lot of time traveling media, books, mangas, movies etc. Fundamental laws are always about dead cannot come back to life, time flows linearly etc. Regarding the Downfall and death of Link: My thoughts come from the movie Donny Darko. ( I don’t want to spoil..so read with caution) He and everyone around him was caught in a time loop and only with him dying it was resolved.
There are no definitive answers to all theories out there. But some come still very close to the truth and that I find to be exceptionally interesting.
When examining the Zelda games, there are many layers to take into account … like the design itself, texts of dialogue, npcs, the console limitations, even cultural backgrounds ouf the developers etc and common knowledge about topics in other media that is thematically similar.
@@yugotuber I am a fan of Donnie Darko, and the director cut makes it a bit more clear of what is going on in that movie. I will say, I am not a fan of their time travel presented, as the concept of the manipulated dead and collapse of space time due to the distortion is a bit beyond what I was willing to swallow.
Up until this point (BotW), Time Travel in the series has been fairly consistent. Yeah, Skyward Sword messed up, but I was willing to overlook it some until recently. TotK seems like they were really trying to tighten this time loop up, and I commend them for that. However, their attempt to hide the Master Sword like this merely opens up the possibility that the time travel mechanics presented in the game are wrong, which further lays doubt on BotW / TotK being part of the original timeline.
@@PixelFusionProductions oh
@@yugotuber I truly hate the idea that they would discard the old games because they didn't want to do their research to keep it straight. Nintendo should take a que from Sega, and hire a Lore Master like they did for Sonic.
I'll more about this later, for now I'm moving on to my next video.
They always could have had the light dragon fly away after the intro sequence, till Link sends the sword back in time. It could have faded out like a divine beast, so you couldn’t see details from far away. Something seems off with the sword not being on the dragon in the tutorial
I was actually curious about what happened to her when the trigger is met for the orb to appear. It is specifically when the Door opens. Taking the Camera over to her, you can see her despawn from the sky, nothing fancy, she just disappears. Then obviously, in the following cutscene, she comes up through the clouds.
Your thumbnail made me too curious. To think I’d be 6 hours too early
Hope you can join the premiere. I gotta get a little sleep in before then.
Great video as always! nice to have a free camera tool, game looks formidable and very visually interesting
isnt the Master Sword capable of time traveling? I can see it being left at the past in SS to make a "save point" at that time, and then it just time travels to Link's back again.
I always felt we dont have enough Master Sword rules figured out yet... Piccori Sword is also a puzzle to me haha
Thank you. More amazing shots coming in the future.
I don't think the sword is capable of it on it's own. It varies depending on the game. SS for example, used time gates.
what if the master sword not being present is to prevent a paradox perhaps if the two master swords got to close to each other they would resonate with each other and gain knowledge from the other explaining the problem in skyward sword as well and could also give reason for the amber to not be present when zelda went back in time again at the end of the game
Clearly in TotK, the Master Sword is supposed to be in the dragon from the very start. The Mural depicts the sword in her head at the time of rising into the sky. If for some reason it mysteriously vanished, there should be indications of that, otherwise, it is bad writing. The indication however is that it was always there because it always happened, it is a stable time loop.
I presented a theory that could explain involving the Master Sword changing the past, and that theory stands strongly. If you are aiming to dispute it, then please present to me where my logic is faulty.
@@PixelFusionProductions there is no lore that says the master sword has power over time in ocarina of time the method of time travel is not the sword but rather the gate of time same as in skyward sword
@@darkdagger5237 You are wrong.
Sheik:
"Past, present, future... The Master Sword is a ship with which you can sail upstream and downstream through time's river... The port for that ship is the Temple of Time..."
and...
"As long as you hold the Ocarina of Time and the Master Sword, you hold time itself in your hands... Link, we shall meet again!"
I am done dealing with you tonight. Please respect my wishes and move on.
@@PixelFusionProductions they were explaining how to operate that gate of time that one used the master sword as a key to its mechanisms
I asked you to respect my wishes and move on. I will not ask again.
Couldn’t it also just be that the developers didn’t want you to know where the master sword was within the first 5 min of gameplay? I would pick that over lore any day tbh.
I bring up this possibility in the video. While it is certainly a possibility, it would clearly be a mistake in the time travel logic they present. That is the point of me bringing this up, that they either made a mistake, or there is something far more complicated going on.
@@PixelFusionProductions I'm not sure of what constitutes a mistake. I'd call that a compromise like many others, however if we focus on the intent of what's presented and you don't find that compromise satisfying, I don't think that gleaning details from an unintended perspective (glitched camera) is a strong indication of the intent. Same by inferring decisions at different stages of development, at least in this case I don't think it'll help reach a more satisfying answer. The idea that the sword would manifest itself only as Link did what he had to do first seems like the simpler and sufficient explanation to me, no matter what it looks like on a model we're not supposed to see.
@@mkjjoe I recorded footage of the Light Dragon in the tutorial up close without the use of a camera mod. The light trail is missing, and the hair curls are visible. I did this by flying out to her, and while she is beyond the void out plane of the area, the detail can be made out. I also show footage of this in my video.
This isn't me interpreting context by use of a camera mod or "glitched camera" as you put it, I merely used the mod to be able to see something with clarity that was already visible. As such, I can evaluate their intent, which seems to be that they were trying to hide the sword.
I again repeat what I said in the video. They could have easily removed the hair curls, but didn't.
@@PixelFusionProductions You have good perception looking for these things but at 9:09 I wouldn't call it a detail meant to be spotted, and I would definitely lean towards devs thinking what they had was just good with no risk to spoil anything. I can't conceive that as a first time player, even if I did manage to somehow spot the hair curls and focused on that, I would assume a specific plot item was supposed to be there. But that's just me who knows, they could have had countless iterations of what to tell and how to present things, I just like the simpler explanation especially looking at how they hide and swap assets out of sight and out of bounds.
@@mkjjoe So, here is a counter question for you. Why remove the sword and light trail from the tutorial at all? Do you really think it is because they thought the sword wouldn't reveal itself until later for Link to claim, or do you think they were trying to hide the sword during the tutorial to not spoil the surprise?
Basically, was the sword removed for an in story reason, or a meta reason?
If it's a meta reason, that's bad story telling and worthy of criticism.
Is this why people forget Link??? Lol but for real is it?
I don't think time being altered is why Link is strangely "new" to some people. I think that is, sadly, just a case of bad writing.
People forgot Link because they wanted Tears of The Kingdom to be able to perform well on its own. Nintendo knew that Tears of The Kingdom would be bringing in a lot of new and old returning fans to the series and that many of them never played Breath of The Wild. So they didn't want to confuse anyone by Link getting recognized by random NPCs they've never seen before
There's also the possibility that Link simply didn't canonically meet everyone the player could talk to in BotW.