Tears of the Kingdom – Sheikah Slate and Towers?

After spending way too much time on my initial analysis (which has received quite some updates) and also watching the excellent analysis by Zeltik, there are ton of things coming together here, where Tears of the Kingdom looks very promising and exciting, especially the prospect of the Seven Sages and the titular tears.

There is one thing that I have completely overlooked in the trailer and maybe that's because I didn't want to see it.

Link is holding a Sheikah Slate in his right hand. It is connected to a spool, which was given to him by the Guardian arms around this platform in the previous trailer.

Generally, I'm very interested in why all the shrines, towers, and Divine Beasts have disappeared since Breath of the Wild. It's a good thing they did, because it's really the identity of the previous title and having all of this again would be boring. The identity of Tears of the Kingdom is clearly the Zonai stuff.

But it looks like Nintendo couldn't let go of the tower idea after all. According to Zeltik the runes in the elevator shaft translate to "transport" (on the platform) and "tower" (on the walls). So, we very likely are looking at the inside of one of the new Sheikah Towers here, which were raised all over Hyrule in different locations. These ones received an upgrade, however, where you don't have to climb them any longer.

We also have seen the new Sheikah Slate before, which looks more like a Nintendo Switch now. It was in Zelda's artwork for the game:

It might be that Robbie and Purah have invented replacements for the things that have disappeared since Breath of the Wild, which most likely includes the old Sheikah Slate. This would explain why it all looks completely improvised.

The new Sheikah Slate might not even be capable of using any of the major runes. So, no Stasis, no Magnesis, no Cryonis, and no Bombs. But Sheikah Slate was also used for your map, a scope, and Hyrule Compendium, where we have yet to see what will replace this in Tears of the Kingdom. But maybe this will not be replaced at all?

The UI for the map, temperature, and sound in the bottom right corner still looks mostly the same, except for the added coordinates. This also indicates that Link still has a Sheikah Slate with him all this time, just an inferior model, to let him use part of these features.

This way Nintendo didn't have to come up with something that does the same things, but works with his new hand powers. It really would have been hard to explain how the Zonai magic gives him access to an interactive map. And if you simply had a map still, then this would raise the question why Link needed the Sheikah Slate in the previous game to use a map. So, I guess, this was mostly a practical decision by Nintendo.

The new Sheikah Slate might get modified to resonate with the Zonai technology, even. Those vortex stones, which most likely will be some sort of warp point, appear on the map in the same style as the Sheikah Shrines did. The new Sheikah Slate might recognize them as warp points and let you transport in the same way as in Breath of the Wild.

It's also possible that the Sheikah Slate will receive the old abilities later in the game as additional upgrades. But I personally hope that they won't go too far with this, because they should let have Breath of the Wild as many things of its own as possible. And I'm already getting OCD nightmares from the prospect of having Hyrule Compendium and Fuse in the same game...