Maybe Hyrule is a Discworld-esque flat map that rotates every couple of years and they’re now in the phase where the “map” is rotated by 180 degrees? =P

…joke aside, I’ve heard three theories about this that make a bit of sense:

1. The first setup was an accident and it was actually meant to be like in TotK right from the start, so the devs merely corrected their mistake.

2. The swap was done to make locations feel “off” and new, even the parts that weren’t actually changed much (like for example the Sanidin Park Ruins).

3. The swap was done to make the desert part easier, since now the Gerudo Highlands provide a lot of shade while the sun is north. It is already difficult enough to navigate in the Gibdo-infested sandstorm even if you’re not currently boiling to death, so the devs granted players a bit of mercy here.

None of these are in any way confirmed tho - they’re just fan theories.

The original “project” in BotW took a while to accomplish, especially since I also wanted to find out what time of the day the pictures were taken (so the shadows would be identical), and I did it more or less blind so finding the right spot wasn’t always easy either (I had the most trouble with the Eldin Canyon and Nameless Forest pictures). Took a good month of trial and error back then.

Since the locations haven’t changed between games, the “requirement” to get the weather AND time right no longer applies, and the fact that I know the BotW map by heart after playing basically nothing else for 6 years straight, the TotK version was a lot easier. Took me about a week, including the video version ;)

Oh…yeah, that does look a lot closer to it. Thanks for pointing it out ^^ I’m going to edit the post.

“Fun” Fact: that chart isn’t even a joke - it is actually, factually, pretty accurate. You can get a prison sentence of up to 3 years for that particular gesture.

Gemäß § 86a Absatz 1 und 2 StGB ist es nicht erlaubt, nationalsozialistische Symbole, Grußformeln oder Parolen zu verwenden. Der Hitlergruß wird […] mit bis zu drei Jahren Freiheitsstrafe geahndet

…on the other hand, it is a wonderful piece of irony that a joke about Germans turns out to be a non-joke in disguise, lol. German humor is no laughing matter, after all!

=P