I returned to Hyrule after the Upheaval with one question burning in my chest: where did all the Sheikah technology go? I had spent years wandering the same fields in Breath of the Wild, dodging Guardians and mapping Sheikah Towers. Now, in Tears of the Kingdom, those landmarks are simply absent. The surface of Hyrule feels larger in some ways, but also eerily empty. The new Zonai devices hum with possibility, and even the Yiga Clan has bolted together its own Zonai vehicles to patrol the Depths. Master Kohga still tries to crush me with ridiculous contraptions. But the ancient Sheikah machines that once defined Hyrule's struggle against Calamity Ganon have vanished.

Not just vanished. Erased. The Ancient Shrines are gone. The Sheikah Towers are gone. The Divine Beasts—Vah Ruta, Vah Rudania, Vah Medoh, and Vah Naboris—are gone. Even the ruined Guardians that littered Hyrule after the Calamity are nowhere to be seen. I walked to Hateno Ancient Tech Lab expecting at least a workshop full of half-disassembled Guardians. Instead, I found a single deactivated Guardian mounted on the roof, staring blankly over the village, and a pile of broken Guardian Scout heads below. Robbie and Purah clearly still tinker with Sheikah tech. The Purah Pad I carry is essentially a successor to the Sheikah Slate. But the vast, world-spanning network of ancient machines has been reduced to spare parts and memories.

The shrines and towers are the easiest to explain, sort of. Maybe they receded underground once Calamity Ganon was defeated. The monks inside the shrines had already given Link their Spirit Orbs, so the shrines had no remaining purpose. The towers could have collapsed back into the earth just as dramatically as they rose. I can accept that. It feels plausible, even if nobody in the game ever tells me it happened.

The Divine Beasts are different. Those four colossal mechanical animals were excavated at great cost a century before Breath of the Wild. They were symbols of hope, weapons, tombs for the Champions who piloted them. In Tears of the Kingdom, I met the descendants of those Champions again. We fought side by side. We spoke about the Upheaval, about Ganondorf, about the sinking chasms and the new monsters. Not one of them mentioned what happened to the giant machine their ancestor once commanded. That silence is strange. I kept expecting someone in Rito Village to look up and say, "Hey, where did Vah Medoh go?" But no. There is only a rocky outcropping called Vah Medoh's Perch, and the enormous bird that once rested there has simply disappeared.

I tried to build a theory. Maybe the people of Hyrule dismantled the Divine Beasts and the Guardians after Calamity Ganon's defeat. The Guardian parts used in the Skyview Towers' survey system look suspiciously like they came from recycled Guardians. That would explain some of the smaller machines. It might even explain the lingering distrust of Guardians, since nobody wanted those corrupted spiders roaming around even after Ganon lost control. But it does not explain the Divine Beasts. Those machines had been cleansed of Ganon's influence. They had fired their lasers to help defeat the Calamity. They were not dangerous to anyone. Who would have the authority—or the engineering skill—to take apart a Divine Beast? And why would no one mention such a monumental project?

I also considered the possibility that the Divine Beasts were moved beyond Hyrule's borders. Maybe they walked away into the sea or buried themselves in the mountains. But again, there is no evidence. No NPC dialogue, no environmental storytelling, no ruined claw marks on the landscape. It is as if the Divine Beasts evaporated between the end of Breath of the Wild and the beginning of Tears of the Kingdom.

Missing Technology	My Best Guess	Evidence in TOTK
Ancient Shrines and Sheikah Towers	Receded underground after serving their purpose	No visible remains, but plausible
Guardians	Dismantled, some parts reused	Skyview Tower limbs; Hateno Lab Guardian
Divine Beasts	Unknown	Only Vah Medoh's Perch and four masks
Sheikah Slate	Replaced by Purah Pad	Purah Pad abilities, Hateno lab

As of 2026, I have to accept that the full truth may never be told. Nintendo announced that Tears of the Kingdom would receive no DLC, so no future patch or expansion will fill this gap. Supplemental books or interviews might one day offer an explanation, but right now the mystery remains. I find that both frustrating and fascinating. Hyrule's history has always been written in ruins and omissions. The Sheikah, one of the oldest peoples in Hyrule, now have their present wrapped in just as much shadow as their past. Their ancient technology saved the world and then, apparently, walked off the map without a goodbye.

Maybe that is the point. The narrative has moved on to the Zonai, to the sky islands, to the Depths beneath Hyrule. The Sheikah stepped back from the spotlight after being at the center of Breath of the Wild. But I still miss the hum of a Guardian waking up, the blue glow of a shrine, and the thunderous shadow of Vah Medoh passing over the Hebra peaks. Some mysteries in Hyrule can be solved. This one, I fear, will remain as empty as the perch where the Divine Beast once rested.