With the vague time difference from Breath of the Wild to Tears of the Kingdom, it’s hard to decipher character ages. The new sequel gives us some context clues to figure it out ourselves. But sadly, we’re not exactly sure how long it’s been between the two games. Still, we can speculate how old Link is in Tears of the Kingdom, as we try to answer that below!
Related: What does Sage’s Will do in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom? by AOTF
Link’s age in Tears of the Kingdom
To figure out how old Link is in Tears of the Kingdom, we have to look back to Breath of the Wild. Just like when we speculated how old Zelda is in Tears of the Kingdom, the predecessor has some key clues.
All the right clues comes from the flashbacks from memories in Breath of the Wild. We knew that Zelda had her 17th birthday very close to the Calamity. But what about Link? Well, it’s very likely that Link and Zelda share a similar age. This is because in one of the flashbacks, we learn that he climbed Mount Lanayru. Zelda notes in another memory that to do so, you must be 17 years old. So our guess is that Link was probably also 17 years old.
Screenshot by PC Invasion
Then, after the Calamity, Link wakes up 100 years later, meaning he was technically 117. But otherwise, his body was still one of a 17 year old. What about Tears of the Kingdom, though? Well, many of the NPCs from the first game now appear much older in the sequel. Take Tulin, for example. We originally met him when he was just a young child, whereas, in the latest Zelda game, he looks to be an older child, perhaps a teenager.
This tells us, also according to our article deciphering the time gap between both games, that 3-5 years have passed. So, with this knowledge in mind, we can speculate that Link is probably 20-22 years old in Tears of the Kingdom. Although, we’re not sure how much time passed between the Upheaval and Link awakening on Great Sky Island. It doesn’t seem like he was asleep for that long though, maybe a few days, or a week.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available on the Nintendo Switch.
