Fans think they've worked out the time gap between Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a sequel to 2017's Breath of the Wild, and even before the game was released we knew some time had passed between the two.

How much time? That remains something of a mystery - and something Nintendo itself has shied away from providing any official timeline for.

However, I - and other fans - think we may have sussed it. Please note, there are some minor Tears of the Kingdom spoilers below.

Perhaps most interesting, or at least most amusing to me, is that Link is now considered "all grown up" in the eyes of the Gerudo - and able to unwind at the end of the day with a presumably alcoholic beverage.

Cast your mind back to Breath of the Wild, and you will recall a shrine quest known as The Perfect Drink. To complete the quest, players had to ensure bartender Furosa had the ice she needed to prepare a refreshing cup of "Noble Pursuit" for an exhausted Gerudo named Pokki.

Once Link delivers the ice and tells Pokki her drink is ready for her, he can return to the bar and try and order a drink for himself. However, Furosa tells Link to come back when he is "all grown up" and that she will give him a Noble Pursuit to celebrate. This suggests that Link is not at the legal drinking age in Hyrule.

However, in Tears of the Kingdom, Link can finally get his hands on the Gerudo's most refreshing and fruity beverage, and order a "Noble Pursuit" from the Gerudo Town bar.

As a side note, in Tears of the Kingdom you can whip up a glass of Noble Pursuit at a cooking pot with a combination of Hydromelons, Palm Fruit, Voltfruit, and Rock Salt (which in my mind goes around the rim like a margarita).

I went back and had a look to see what would happen if I cooked all these ingredients together in Breath of the Wild, and the answer is simply a plate of Simmering Fruit. I'm not sure how the fermentation process works in the world of Zelda, but that is a question for another day.

But while we know Link is now at a legal age to drink, how many years have actually passed since Breath of the Wild?

The most obvious clue here is how certain characters have aged between the two games. For example, the young Rito warrior Tulin, who accompanies Link on his adventures around the Hebra region, is the son of Teba, your Rito pal from Breath of the Wild.

In Breath of the Wild, Tulin is significantly younger. I would place him at around eight, tops. In Tears of the Kingdom, however, he is more likely in his pre-teens, around 12 or 13. Roughly, it feels there is around five years between the two games.

Other notably aged characters are Purah (although this is somewhat uncertain, given all of her experiments and such) and Mattison.

Mattison is the child of Breath of the Wild's Hudson and Rhondson, and she wasn't present during Breath of the Wild at all. However, in Tears of the Kingdom, players can complete a sidequest known as Mattison's Independence, which sees Link helping the family prepare for a trip to Gerudo Town (where Rhondson hails from).

According to Zelda lore, any Gerudo born outside of Gerudo Town are to be brought to their town once they turn four. This all means at least four years and nine months have passed between games, assuming Rhondson was not pregnant at the end of Breath of the Wild (and pregnancies in The Legend of Zelda series follow the same gestational time frame as ours).

Again, this would mean roughly five years have passed since Breath of the Wild.

If we say Link is the same age as Zelda in Breath of the Wild (she turned 17 around the time the Calamity began, as shown in the game's various memories), using the earlier clues we can guess Link is around 22/23 in Tears of the Kingdom. This makes Tears of the Kingdom's version of Link one of the oldest ones yet.

This is also the general consensus online, with many on Reddit agreeing that Tears of the Kingdom seems to take place roughly five to six years after the events of Breath of the Wild.

"If I had to guess probably like six or seven years based on the apparent age of Hudson's daughter," one user suggested. "A Gerudo mentions that Gerudo age up very quickly, I think people generally agree it's maybe been group years or so," said another.

This debate has also made the rounds on Twitter, and again people seem to be leaning towards the (approximately) five-year gap between games.

I also quite like the idea this almost ties with our real-world wait between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

Whatever the timings may be, we can be sure Link is legally able to drink in Hyrule now - as well as here in the UK, Japan and the USA. Cheers, buddy - after all these years, you've earned it!