In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a very large portion of the game involved reconnecting with the long-gone champions that Link had teamed up with 100 years prior. They were the pilots of the four Divine Beasts and lent their special abilities to Link to use in the open world. Now that Tears of the Kingdom is here, can you expect to see them appear again?
Are Breath of the Wild’s champions in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom?
Unfortunately, as of this writing, we can not confirm with absolute certainty if the champions from Breath of the Wild will return in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. That being said, we would guess that they are not present, given that you worked to free their souls from the clutches of Calamity Ganon within the Divine Beasts in Breath of the Wild. The ending cutscene after defeating the Calamity shows the souls of them and King Rhombus disappearing.
If you went through all of the memories in Breath of the Wild, you would learn that Link had built a unique relationship with each of the champions. Mipha was the Zora princess, and she and Link had a close relationship. Urbosa was the Gerudo leader, who felt very protective of Princess Zelda. Daruk the Goron was a friendly face that everyone could look to. Finally, Revali the Rito had positioned himself as a friendly rival to our protagonist.
While it is certainly possible for the champion spirits to appear in Tears of the Kingdom, we would guess that this game will be more focused on establishing the next generation of champions, which are returning from the previous game and are (mostly) confirmed to be in the new game. Riju, Sidon, and Tulin are for sure going to fight alongside Link. The Goron representative, Yunobo, hasn’t been seen as of this writing, but we expect him to help at some point. These four look to step into the roles that the former champions held a century ago.
