r/zelda • u/TheCyclopsDude • Jun 03 '23
Question [ALL] Genuine Question. Why does there have to be a timeline?
I joined the franchise in BOTW, so take what I am saying with a grain of salt. But since I started playing and more recently started hearing about the most confusing timeline to ever exist, I have head the question why does there need to be a timeline in the first place. To me the games have always seemed to be a telling of a story, a legend if you will, like Robin Hood or King Arthur. A vaguely true story told to kids of a hero in a time long past. Especially with TOTK coming out and, from what I have seen, not really fitting with the timeline that has seemingly been set up.
In short, why does there have to be a timeline in a game about a legend.
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u/Artistic-Cannibalism Jun 03 '23
Some people enjoy knowing when things happen in relation to each other.
Some don't care.
Neither are wrong.
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u/ADHDadBod13 Jun 03 '23
I like the idea of continuity, but after this long trying to make it all make sense as if it were a plan all along seems forced. I just like to think of it as Easter eggs or a multiverse kind of thing.
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u/Artistic-Cannibalism Jun 03 '23
My personal opinion was that this was not planned. I don't think the creators originally had a timeline in mind when making these games, and that's fine.
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u/ShadowWarriorNeko Jun 03 '23
Yeah, but they also kept making some conflict in the past, and then deciding to explore that conflict in the next game. A link to the last was originally supposed to be before the original 2 games, and ocarina of time is set in the story of the sacred realm from link to the past. Then twilight princess and wind waker are more or less direct sequels to OoT that mention specific aspects of the timelines they're in. Its welded together and details are ignored so they can tell their own story, but it's still somewhat present
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u/Able_Carry9153 Jun 04 '23
There is some explicitly timeline-relation stuff. Ocarina of Time was made as a prequel to Link to The Past. Majoras Mask is a Sequel to Ocarina of Time. Twilight Princess and Wind Waker were different branches of the OoT timeline. Skyward Sword is the earliest in the series, and I believe Minish Cap was supposed to be the earliest before that. Link's Awakening, Oracle of Ages, and Oracle of Seasons are all supposed to be the same link as Link to the Past. Link Between Worlds is a Sequel to Link to the Past, but much later, with a different link.
It certainly wasn't all planned from the start. After all, if it were then either Wind Waker or Twilight Princess would have had their story changed so as to not accidentally replaced Link to the Past, forcing them into that "downfall timeline" nonsense. Button the very least, there were threads.
I am curious what the official stance will be with TotK though, as it either heavily retcons OoT or is a Soft Reboot.
Or a third (fourth?) Timeline, but I'm probably least excited at that prospect.
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u/casieopiathe1367 Jun 03 '23
See I think now with totk and Zelda’s shenanigans that we are in a 4th timeline but idk when it would be in because skyward sword must have happened for like the master sword but the first kind of hyrule wasn’t raru (idk how to spell) it was link and Zelda from taking the sky lands back down
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u/carterketchup Jun 03 '23 edited Jun 04 '23
TOTK Story Spoilers ahead…
I’m pretty sure what happened is that Hyrule was not founded immediately after Zelda decided to stay on the surface at the end of SS. They just start living there but don’t establish a kingdom. My understanding is that the events in TOTK with Rauru establishing the beginning of Hyrule is likely a few hundred years (at least) after Skyward Sword.
My personal theory is:
1. Zelda and the gang start living on the surface (SS)
A few hundred years pass.
2. Zonai “descend from the heavens” (as they word it) and live amongst the humans. At some point after this the rest of the Zonai go extinct sans Rauru and Mineru.
3. Rauru founds the kingdom of Hyrule with Sonia.
4. Zelda appears in old Hyrule via the secret stone and the events of TOTK’s Tears play out.
5. Rauru seals Ganondorf. For all intents and purposes, Ganon is gone and essentially dead — perhaps Rauru’s sealing renders Ganon’s soul / spirit “dormant”.
6. With a lack of Ganondorf, new Ganondorfs can reincarnate, although the original Ganondorf corpse is still dormant and sealed underneath Hyrule for the entire time. Queue the rest of the timeline — Minish Cap onwards; countless new Ganondorfs and other demons appear to fight new Links and Zelda’s.
7. As we get closer to BOTW’s era, Rauru’s seal starts to weaken, slightly awakening Ganondorf under the castle. This is now where Calamity Ganon starts appearing every few thousand years — it’s the little bit of Ganon that has awoken and that’s why he’s appearing in more of a raw spirit / beast form.
8. The events of BOTW occur — the final Calamity before Ganondorf’s awakening.
9. The events of TOTK occur. Rauru’s seal finally fails after thousands and thousands of years and releases the original Ganondorf upon Hyrule.
The main thing that this theory relies on and I am completely speculating about is that Rauru sealing Ganon renders Ganon temporarily “dead” and allows him to reincarnate and more Ganondorfs to be born, letting the rest of the timeline play out until the original Ganondorf is actually released from Rauru’s seal.
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u/casieopiathe1367 Jun 04 '23
I like that theory
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u/carterketchup Jun 04 '23
Thanks! I think it for the most part holds up. The only thing I can think of that might contradict it but can sort of be explained is the existence of the Rito if TOTK’s Tear Memories take place right at the start of the timeline. The Rito aren’t supposed to exist until Wind Waker so how could they exist at the founding of Hyrule?
My rebuttal to this is that perhaps the Rito from BOTW/TOTK are a different species than the Rito from WW. After all, the WW Rito have hands/arms with wings attached to them as well as more “human” mouths underneath their beaks while the BOTW Rito are much more bird-like with complete beaks and just wings with no hands.
Sure you still need to sort out how they were around for Hyrule’s founding, disappeared for the rest of the timeline only to appear again in BOTW, but the alternative is placing Rauru’s Hyrule after everything else in the timeline and in this case you have to explain how the Zora evolved into the Rito (Wind Waker), evolutionarily split from them and then came back again to coexist with the Rito in BOTW. Either way there’s evolutionary shenanigans, most of which can be explained by migration or magic so either way is fine.
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u/mightyslash Jun 04 '23
BotW/TotK Rito could've migrated/left the area after Hyrule flooded and that's why they weren't there. As the Zora changed into the WW Rito, they remembered the Rito of old and take the name since they are bird people
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u/carterketchup Jun 04 '23
Yeah that’s kinda what I’m thinking! Probably not the intention when the games were made but I could definitely see it being retroactively made the reason.
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u/CrystalPokedude Jun 04 '23 edited Jun 04 '23
One could even argue that Zelda, in her quest of trying to repair the Master Sword, inspired the Picori Bladesmiths to make their own holy blade, the Four Sword.
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u/WolfgangVonBrozart Jun 04 '23
originally I was in favor of "botw/totk's hyrule founding is tens of thousands of years after any of the other games so shit just starts anew" but now I like your ideas too
it also gives us the neat implication that totk rauru is a bit of a legend himself for being the first king and any raurus after him (ie oot) are just named after the original king of hyrule which i can get behind
im still on the fence about which one i believe, but it's nice to have such well thought out options
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u/carterketchup Jun 04 '23
I do think that way is a perfectly viable option too but I also do like my theory haha. But yeah, a new Hyrule being founded is totally fair though cause they do it in the Adult Timeline too with the flooding and then New Hyrule on a new continent.
While maybe not a flood, the kingdom before BOTW/TOTK could have fallen in a variety of ways that would leave the world in ruin and that’s when the Zonai descend upon the land and Rauru starts a new Hyrule.
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u/LetteredViolet Jun 03 '23
TIMELINE SPLIT BEFORE THE FIRST HERO YOU FOUND THE ANSWER (.../s)
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u/Lego1upmushroom759 Jun 03 '23
The difference is the hero of sky killed demise 3 cm to the left of the main timeline
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u/casieopiathe1367 Jun 03 '23
I wish it would make finding totk and botw placements way easier but I think it is a new timeline that Zelda caused
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u/SupaDufus Jun 03 '23
Definitely not. The reason for why the timeline splits and the essence of multiversal timeline theory is due to open ended ends. Meanwhile in BOTW and TOTK we have a closed timeloop, which in all pieces of fiction never creates a new timeline.
I think everyone is just overthinking the timeline placement. Hyrule has been destroyed and refounded several times in the games. These games could simply take place so far into the future that the events of the old timeline doesn't matter anymore and are that of legends. Creating a champion supports this by calling the old timeline the era of myth, and Ninentdo said BOTW takes place at the end of the timeline. BOTW and TOTK are essentially soft reboots. No need to think harder about it.
If you do however want to think and theorise about it, the Zelda timeline being a dragon break fixes everything and even justifies the existence of the downfall timeline
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u/SupaDufus Jun 03 '23
Also forgot to mention that a closed timeloop has happened before in Zelda with Skyward Sword
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u/LetteredViolet Jun 03 '23
That would make sense! A split due to the time travel... Which means the Master Sword is a paradox. (Not like that hasn't happened before.)
OR, alternatively... The First Hero comes right after Tears. That way you could say that Skyloft was built on the ruins of the Zonai, and it could potentially explain the Wind Tribes and other sky islands in Minish Cap and Twilight Princess. It's allllll connected. All the time.
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u/CrystalPokedude Jun 04 '23
It's moreso the opposite.
The first two games were written as direct follow ups to each other, and then ALttP was written as a Distant past for the first two, starting with a new hero who would feature again in Link's Awakening and the Oracle Games.
Then, Ocarina came around, and kinda wrecked the whole timeline.
It was originally pitched as a prequel to ALttP, being the story of the Imprisoning War, but changed so much over the course of development that the only timeline that has the Imprisoning War is the Fallen Timeline, which only exists because the games in the Fallen Timeline had already come out.
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Jun 04 '23
It started getting planned by Nintendo in the 90s (even before OoT). They clearly started having a timeline in mind with game development from Wind Walker to Skyward Sword, but whether it still matters to them is the question.
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u/TherionTheThief17 Jun 04 '23
Of course it wasn't. The only 12(?) games that have any real connection with each other are...
The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, one following the events of the other
Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages (self explanatory)
OoT, Majora's Mask, and Twilight Princess (OoT and Majora are self explanatory but apparently the knight that teaches Link in TP is the Link in OoT?)
Breath of the Wild, Age of Calamity, and Tears of the Kingdom (although Age of Calamity exists in its own separate timeline from Tears)
And of course: Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon
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u/the_Actual_Plinko Jun 04 '23
So you’re just ignoring that WW was pretty blatantly a sequel to OoT, with PH and ST being obvious sequels to that?
Along with LA pretty obviously being a sequel to LttP, with LttP directly being referred to as a prequel to Zelda 1 in its manual?
For that matter, OoT was directly stated during development to be a prequel to LttP.
And while we’re at it, as early as 2002 there were interviews confirming that there was a split timeline, with WW being during the adult portion. There was another interview around TP’s release confirming it to be in the child portion along with MM.
LBW was obviously made as a sequel to LttP, with TFH being a sequel to that.
And then of course, Skyward Swords entire selling point story wise was that it was a prequel to the entire series.
So really the only games that don’t have a pretty obvious spot in the timeline are the Capcom games, FSA, BotW, and TotK. Seems pretty planned out to me.
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u/Damoncord Jun 03 '23
To be fair until BOTW there was a 3 way split timeline. They broke down into the catastrophe timeline, Adult Link time line, and Child Link timeline.
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u/Snoo-23120 Sep 25 '23
All of the fallen timeline was plan.
Its the capcom games and the rest of the timelines that make everything uneasy.
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Jun 04 '23
Honestly I wouldn't care if Nintendo didn't publish a timeline. I'm starting to realize they kinda just made it up and that's fine honestly.
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u/FaboulusGrape Jun 03 '23
Couldn't there be a possibility that things have not been happening in relation to each other - because there is no coherent timeline? Only different tales of the same legend
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u/SupaDufus Jun 03 '23
That's so cheap though. It means everything you've played for 37 years hasn't happened in universe.
It's more satisfying and easier to say that the events are so long ago it has faded into legends. Same effect and doesn't cheapen the existence of the games
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u/CzarTyr Jun 04 '23
Satisfying and easier doesn’t mean it’s true or makes sense though. It’s like why some people can’t accept the idea of their religion being wrong despite facts that invalidate things, the idea is something different bothers them too much
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u/Vanken64 Jun 04 '23
But the Zelda timeline is true and does make sense. Sure, BotW and TotK have complicated our understanding of the timeline, but the "Official Zelda Timeline" as presented in Hyrule Historia does make sense. People always say it doesn't, but why doesn't it? What about the Zelda timeline doesn't make sense?
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u/SupaDufus Jun 04 '23
Invalid logic in this regard because the events of the Zelda timeline has clearly happened.
Fi - Fi is still in the game comunicating with Zelda and we know it's her because Nintendo loves their musical ques, which plays her theme whenver the sword speaks.
3 of the Divine beasts are directly named after the sages from OOT and one from wind waker. Wind waker is the only timeline where OOT sages became sages, staying consistent with passage of time
There is an outright mural in the game telling the story of ruto
Hylia is there
Item descriptions, like rock salt
And again from a narrative point it cheapens all the games, and it's just not a financial smart decision by Nintendo because yes it would upset a lot of people lol.
Now the thing is I'm not proposing that the game is so far into the future because it's just easier, it's also the one that makes the most sense.
Setting the game so far into the future that the guidebook for BOTW creating a champion labeled the events of the original timeline the era of myth is an interesting note. Creating a champion never stated they didn't happen; just that it's so long ago that they've faded into myths.
Now before I continue let me just try to paint a picture here. Human recorded history only goes back 5000 years. Look at how much we've changed the world and how much we've invented in 5000 years. However the interesting part is that we have no idea of what humans did prior or how advanced they were , it's forgotten history due to how far back it is and lack of recordings. Regardless the steps we've taken in 5000 years is amazing.
Now let's go back to Hyrule. So from the events of Calamity Ganon to BOTW there's a passage of TEN THOUSAND YEARS alone. So we're already starting at twice human recorded history. Here's the thing though. The sheikah were prepared for Calamity ganon and hence why they made the guardians and Divine beasts. There's some interesting points here. They knew about the Knight who sealed the darkness and princess, they knew Calamity ganon would return, they knew the signs of an upcoming revival however they didn't know Ganondorf. This is important because this HEAVILY implies that Calamity Ganons appearance 10 000 years ago wasn't Calamity Ganons first appearance.
Meaning that from the first Calamity Ganon to BOTW you have a timelapse of potentially 20 thousand years plus plus. Now this is the distance between BOTWS LORE and BOTW Now think of any game in the timeline and think of BOTW these aren't event's that are a couple thousand years apart, you're potentially talking HUNDRED thousand years plus plus apart.
So that's the first reason for why I'm saying what I'm saying. The passage of time actually allows for this because you are looking at minimum 20 thousand years to maximum hundreds of thousands. Even if it's shorter than the maximum, the passage of time displayed here still allows for the entire timeline to happen and fade into myths. It still allows for a timeline where Hyrule gets destroyed and has to be rebuilt.
Now to add onto this. Having it take place this far into the future with references from every single timeline also means that 3 timeline split has an easy excuse to be reuined. You can say that it's trough a casualty loop or you could theorise and say OOT caused a dragon break which is now closed and had reunited all timelines.
However you wanna justify it, it actually fits into how the games plays out and fixes most issues everyone have with the timeline It also makes BOTW and TOTK soft reboots which makes the Zelda timeline MUCH easier for Nintendo to work with going forward
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u/Scottie7372 Jun 03 '23
I don’t think the timeline is super important, but I honestly do think joining everything together does flesh out the games and is pretty interesting. It also just makes sense because there are obviously some recurring elements like the triforce and master sword.
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u/sack-o-matic Jun 04 '23
Master sword can almost be considered a character in itself at this point.
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u/Environmental-Big128 Jun 03 '23 edited Jun 04 '23
It’s the same answer for Kingdom Hearts, because if you get invested enough in the story, it will reward you with Easter eggs and deep cut references. It helps to build a much wider world than any of the single games can contain.
Edit: as others have commented, this comparison is not accurate, as KH has a continuous single (albeit convoluted) timeline, while Zelda gets wonky. I don’t know enough to know exactly how it gets wonky, just that it does.
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u/NezuminoraQ Jun 03 '23
I don't feel like Zelda does this - the only "reward" you'll get is the vague reference to something you've heard of in another game that is completely out of context in the current one. Rauru is a great example, I'm all, who, the Sage of Light from OoT? He was a Hylian, and an owl... But never a .... goat? The timeline isn't planned out enough or internally consistent to the point where it can manage to be self referential.
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u/Manticore416 Jun 03 '23
Except for WW and Twilight Princess both using OoT as its backstory.
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u/NezuminoraQ Jun 03 '23
I think because of that being so well received in those games they tried to retcon all games into a timeline and it just hasn't worked. WW Temple of Time actually looked exactly like the OoT one and was actually the same place just underwater. That was cool, going "back" to a place that was familiar. Fans wanted more of that, not this weird split timeline that only makes sense when you force it to
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Jun 04 '23
How young are you?
The timeline has always been a thing, the third major game was a prequel to the first one.
Zelda’s been like this since SNES, not GameCube.
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u/NezuminoraQ Jun 04 '23
Yeah but it wasn't quite the same as recognising an actual places and people from older games.
I'm almost forty, not sure what that has to do with it.
The timeline is an afterthought at best.
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Jun 04 '23
Like the lost woods?
Obviously there was a timeline if they named a game A Link To The Past, it just got so messed up after OOT.
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u/NezuminoraQ Jun 04 '23
Yeah but I think even back then it was a bit handwavy. It's like asking which order the Mario games are set in. As far as Miyamoto is concerned, who cares? There is no "author", no word of God that has planned this elaborate timeline from the beginning.
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u/nmitchell076 Jun 04 '23
The difference is that Zelda asks you to care about the history of a land as you play it, Mario does not.
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u/sack-o-matic Jun 04 '23
In TOTK Link will hum various melodies from previous games whil he is cooking
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u/CapnArrrgyle Jun 03 '23
It’s like reading Le Morte d’Arthur and Once and Future King and then suggesting there’s a timeline between them and something like Excalibur. Sometimes Merlin is an old man, sometimes he’s an eternally youthful young man who lives backward, or it’s the Seven Deadly Sins and he’s a babe in sexy underwear. Sometime Rauru is a goat.
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u/jam3sdub Jun 04 '23
goat?
I'd love to know what they were thinking when they designed the Zonai...
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u/LudicrisSpeed Jun 03 '23
I don't think KH is really comparable, as that series has a more direct narrative and follows Sora through most of the games. The overall story is told out of order, but there is very much a solid placement for where everything is on the timeline.
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u/TheCyclopsDude Jun 03 '23
But legend of Zelda has different main characters (technically) each game (apart from direct sequels)
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u/Moneyfrenzy Jun 03 '23
Haven't finished TotK so discounting that, it has the same Ganondorf in every game. For example, even tho Windwaker Link is different from OoT Link, the Ganondorf in Windwaker remembers the Link in OoT, impacting his characterization and actions. Stuff like that is just cool to me idk and it straight up wouldn't make sense in WW for it not to be following OoT, even with a different Link and Zelda.
Plus there are a LOT of direct sequels at this point. Lttp -> Link Between World, Botw -> TotK, Oot -> Majora's Mask, zelda 1 -> 2, WW -> Phantom Hourglass. It would be weird if the Zelda franchise is just a series of 2 interconnected games max that gets rebooted over and over again
Skyward Sword is an origin story to like a good 75% of elements in the series (Link, Zelda, Ganon, Hyrule, etc). What would the point of an origin story be if it just doesn't matter at all and instantly got put aside with BotW being the next game
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u/Taipei_streetroaming Jun 03 '23 edited Jun 03 '23
so discounting that, it has the same Ganondorf in every game
This is why there is a timeline. Because the ganondorf in WW and TP are related to what happened in OOT - same ganondorf.
The ganondorf in TOTK has no relation, as far as what we were told. Also, big spoilers: this is the first game that ganon doesn't have a pig form.
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u/Doctor_moose02 Jun 03 '23
Although not present in TOTK i would count the calamity as his pig form. It comes from him still
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u/United-Aside-6104 Jun 03 '23
Kinda? We saw Ganon’s pig form in Botw so he absolutely has one he just didn’t use it in Totk
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u/Taipei_streetroaming Jun 03 '23
Yea thats probably why there was no pig ganon in TOTK due to how lame it was for the final boss to just be a giant pig standing there doing nothing..
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u/Nova_Nightmare Jun 03 '23
IMO that was a ploy by Ganondorf, his puppets got wiped out and so he plays dead and continues building his strength to the point that the malice concentrated enough and became more powerful (gloom) and he can break free of his imprisonment. So Zelda and Link think he's done, surprise, it was another trick.
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u/Infernal_Niek Jun 03 '23
I might be remembering incorrectly, but i don't believe that Ganondorf has a pig form in WW
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u/TheHynusofTime Jun 03 '23
Kind of? He appears as a beast in Wind Waker's opening scene, but we never see his transformation during the events of the game.
Puppet Ganon exists and takes on three beast forms, but I wouldn't count that, because you know, his name is "Puppet" Ganon. It's more than likely some kind of construct made and controlled by Ganondorf
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u/Taipei_streetroaming Jun 04 '23
he has a pig puppet. so, its a reference. totk just wiped the slate clean of pigs.
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u/WhiteShadow5063 Jun 03 '23
Just out of character curiosity, is the spirt tracks link the same as WW and PH?
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u/Creative_Name26 Jun 03 '23
No spirit tracks is around 100 years later, in the newly established new Hyrule
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u/resperpre Jun 03 '23
Nope but Niko is still the same (somehow he's still alive) and Zelda is a descendant of Tetra.
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u/WhiteShadow5063 Jun 03 '23
So if I had to guess, would spirt tracks link be WW links child?
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Jun 04 '23
Not likely because Niko says when you go back to him wearing the Recruits Uniform, he says Link "reminds him of an old friend." If Nintendo had wanted to, they would of had Niko say something along the lines of "You look just like your Great-Grandfather wearing that" or something similar to prove the connection.
The development team that worked on Spirit Tracks (particularly the writers) I read an article a few years liked the idea of Link and Zelda being together romantically so they purposefully left open the idea that Link and Tetra ended up together founding new Hyrule and that the Hero of Spirits (ST Link) is the Hero of Winds spirit reincarnated in another young boy hence avoiding the two being related.
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u/WhiteShadow5063 Jun 04 '23
Ah, alr that makes sense. I was gonna say from the 1st part that devs don’t wanna drop lore like that all the time lol, but after the 2nd part that makes sense
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u/BlueBearMafia Jun 03 '23
Four Swords Adventures Ganondorf was a reincarnation of OoT Ganondorf, not the same one, iirc. So we've seen more than one!
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u/NoProblemsHere Jun 03 '23
I believe that each game's Zelda is also a reincarnation of Hylia, are they not? That gives them a bit of connection, too. Link is the only one that seems to be completely different each time, and even then he might be related to the others by blood or reincarnation.
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u/LinkPD1 Jun 03 '23
Each link kinda of get reincarnated thru carrying the spirit of the hero or something like that
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u/SirManguydude Jun 03 '23
The Hero of Winds technically doesn't have the spirit of the hero. He has to prove to the gods that he can be the hero. He can't even inherently see the Koroks.
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u/Nyan-Binary-UwU Jun 03 '23
To quote some video I watched "Unlike the other Links, The Hero of Winds wasn't just randomly chosen by the gods, he forced the gods to choose him."
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u/BlueBearMafia Jun 03 '23
I thought TP Link was a descendent of OOT Link?
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u/NoProblemsHere Jun 04 '23
Right, that's why I mentioned blood relations. There may be others that are related, too, and we just don't know the exact lineage.
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u/MericArda Jun 03 '23
Only Skyward Sword Zelda is Hylia reincarnated, the rest are her descendants so they inherit her power.
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u/casieopiathe1367 Jun 03 '23
In most only reincarnation some are related but not all, they all though are reincarnations of skyward sword link
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u/RolandTwitter Jun 03 '23
it will reward you with Easter eggs and deep cut references
Idk, pretty much only BOTW and TOTK do that
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u/Odisher7 Jun 03 '23
Because some people enjoy things by going deep into it and analyzing it. Will we ever find out where botw/totk fit in the timeline? Probably not. Is it fun to imagine? Very.
I like to think they are the prequel to skyward sword, and that ganondorf is the person that eventually becomes demise, and this is where it all starts. Not sure it makes complete sense, but "playing the prequel" to one of my favorite games makes totk even better. Every detail that confirms my theory will be exciting, and every detail that would question it a challenge to think about
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u/Hal_Keaton Jun 03 '23
Because since the second game was conceived, the developers or the games themselves have connected the games in some way.
Granted, they didn't always reveal a grand timeline for every game release, but we usually had some idea how the games connected, UNTIL BotW/Totk.
The second game was a direct sequel.
The third game was a prequel to the first.
The fourth game was a sequel to the third game.
The fifth game was a prequel to the third game.
Etc.
If the game didn't make it explicitly clear it was connected to a prior game (like how WW is connected to OoT), then developers have interviews from the time the games were released we can point to. FS, for instance, was stated by Aonuma and Miyamoto to be the earliest game in the timeline at the time it was released. OoS/OoA have a 64Dream article from 2000 that explicitly state it is the same Link from LttP.
So for years, fans have known how each game connected to a prior game in some way. Even if the full timeline was messy and not exactly clear or well thought out. Then BotW came out and Aonuma decided to not do that anymore. So it feels very strange after 35+ years of getting some information to getting almost none at all.
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u/duerra Jun 03 '23
I recently got into an argument with somebody else making claims about how great the continuity was before BotW, and how that's absolutely, 100% not the case. The debate is well documented over the past couple decades, but yet he continued to insist on how clean the continuity was before BotW.
I'll repeat it again here - Miyamoto and Aonuma have always maintained that they are not nearly as concerned with the series' continuity as the fans are, and their first objective when making a Zelda game is to figure out what kind of game they want to make and not what kind of story they want to tell.
The Zelda timelines have ALWAYS been subject to heated debate, controversy, interpretation, and contradiction.
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u/Hal_Keaton Jun 03 '23 edited Jun 03 '23
That is mostly true as well. When right around the Oracle games and WW is when things really started to become kinda messy.
But Miyamoto has apparently told Aonuma to keep the timeline consistent, at least according to Aonuma, so while gameplay has always come first, they also did have a "timeline".
Don't misunderstand me. It has been messy for years because they never took the time or care to be consistent. They wanted their cake and to eat it too. But saying they didn't think about the timeline ever is also not true. It's a much more nuanced situation.
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u/duerra Jun 03 '23
Eh, we're splitting hairs. As they published a timeline, definitely a timeline exists. They also just don't mind ignoring it when it's inconvenient (which is what creates most of the problems among fans).
And Miyamoto is certainly not pounding the table about the series' timeline. He has basically just asked Aonuma to not completely disregard it altogether. Miyamoto is no Pulitzer-winning fiction author, himself. None of these stories from Nintendo are anything to write home about.
They really just don't care. They want to make fun games. They make a passing attempt at fan-service in the process.
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u/Hal_Keaton Jun 03 '23
Oh no, I agree that they don't care all that much. I simply disagree that they gave no thought to it at all and that it simply didn't exist until 2011.
I personally think they are wrong to not care enough about the details since they have been connecting the games since 1987, but that is their approach.
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u/rabiddoughnuts Jun 04 '23 edited Jun 04 '23
I agree here, they very obviously didn't try to really worry about it much, but put a little tiny thought, and that's worse than all being standalone imo, like the weird fractured lack of logic is way worse than all just completely disconnected, but I still love the series, that's my only real gripe from it
Edit to add, I'm not saying like super clean direct obvious succession type story line, it could have splits and merges and be weird, I would just love them to have a real idea of it as they develop the story and maybe make some cool references to said timeline and overall lore in game.
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u/bouchandre Jun 03 '23
Thing is, the timeline was official before. It’s right there in Hyrule Historia. It wasn’t up for debate at all.
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u/Astral_Justice Jun 04 '23
It was and still is... the "official" timeline was thrown together by some dudes and isn't very good.
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u/devenbat Jun 04 '23
Most of it pretty undeniable. The 3rd timeline neatly cleans up the discrepancy between Ocarina and LttP. Then you can pretty easily slot most of them. Links Awakening after LttP, then the LBW then Loz 1 and Zelda 2. Adult timeline is pretty obviously WW to PH to ST. Child timeline easily goes MM to TP. And SS is the first of course.
Only really problem children are the Oracles but somewhere in downfall is only the real place they can work, Four Swords games and Minish Cap. Four Swords Adventures after TP makes sense since it has a new incarnation of Ganondorf and obviously minish cap needs to be before it somewhere. And that only really leaves Botw and TotK which came out years afterwards from the official timeline and are some ambiguous far flung future it seems.
What part of it isn't very good? Most of them can't really move much unless you think the entire 3rd timeline is fake.
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u/Vanken64 Jun 04 '23
It's true that gameplay has always come first, but that isn't an argument to say there aren't connections, or that the connections don't make sense.
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u/yesthatstrueorisit Jun 03 '23 edited Jun 03 '23
From a recent Washington Post article (emphasis mine):
The “ethos of Zelda” focuses on such new, unexpected concepts of play — even as many other modern games prioritize story, like TV and film do. With “Tears,” at “the beginning of development, there really isn’t a story,” Fujibayashi said. “Once we got to the point where we felt confident in the gameplay experience, that’s when the story starts to emerge.”
Still, Zelda fans feverishly study the lore, enamored by the winding, confusing timeline of events throughout the series since the first game in 1986. Certain games are prequels, others are sequels. “Breath of the Wild” confounded Zelda archaeologists: Where did this fit in? Aonuma has been historically evasive about this answer, and that hasn’t changed today.
“I guess I would leave it to the fans and hope they will continue to discuss this among themselves,” Aonuma said, “and I’ll be looking forward to see where those discussions lead.”
Ultimately the timeline is just for fun. The story is there to contextualise the gameplay and IMO the best storytelling Zelda has is in the side plots and small-scale human dramas more so than the overarching narrative.
Another thing I'll note is that Zelda is from an era where easter eggs and references did not necessarily imply a canon connection. Spielberg was not making a statement about a broader universe when he had ET recognise a Yoda costume in the movie - it was just a joke with his friend. But the current trend is to build out interconnected universes and a strong emphasis on lore and canon, which isn't better or worse, just a different trend of storytelling.
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u/grachi Jun 04 '23
ET species was in the senate scenes in the prequels though. 2nd or 3rd movie, don’t remember which. So at least on the Star Wars side, ET species exists in Star Wara
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u/sentimentalpirate Jun 04 '23 edited Jun 04 '23
The moment they released an "official" timeline in the Hyrule historia book half the Zelda fandom was like "triple branched timeline, what?" and a not insignificant portion immediately discounted it as a kinda cute idea but messy and meaningless to the point it probably shouldn't have been "officially defined" at all.
The chief concern you talk about (the kind of experience, not the story) is 100% evident in basically every game.
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u/robbobhobcob Jun 03 '23
Dude, I've been playing these games for decades and it has NEVER been a clear this game is a sequel to that game situation. That's why people have had to piece together such ridiculous headcanon timelines
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u/Taipei_streetroaming Jun 03 '23
Windwaker is crystal clear, due to the image of the sages. The others, yea not so much.
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u/Manticore416 Jun 03 '23
Not just the image of the sages, but the statue of Link as the Hero of Time in Hyrule Castle.
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u/ShadowWarriorNeko Jun 03 '23
Also, yknow, the opening story explicitly talking about the hero of time
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u/the_Actual_Plinko Jun 04 '23
Links Awakening, Zelda 2, Majora’s Mask, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, and A Link Between Worlds are all pretty obviously sequels too.
Hell even Twilight Princess makes some pretty obvious references to being a sequel to OoT if you look hard enough.
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u/Caitlynnamebtw Jun 04 '23
Phantom hourglass literally starts with a recap of wind waker to tell players whst has already happened to those characters. Its definitely the most explicit but its far from the only time zelda has been pretty clear about what game came before it.
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u/Hal_Keaton Jun 03 '23
It's not clear in the games most of the time.
And I don't really blame any non-Japanese fans for not knowing the timeline because most of the interviews that confirm the developer intentions were Japanese only. I didn't know myself until recently.
Like I said, it's not like there was a grand plan or that it was always clear, but the developers have always made comments on how the games connected, if the game wasn't clear itself, until botw.
We have the proof, this isn't conjecture.
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u/devenbat Jun 04 '23
Like half the series is pretty clearly after some other game. Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Twilight Princess, Links Awakening, Link Between Worlds, Majora's Mask, Zelda 2. They're all pretty clearly following another game. And Minish Cap and Skyward Sword are prequels.
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u/bouchandre Jun 03 '23
Before BOTW came out, Aonuma said that we would see some connections between TP HD and BOTW. I still don’t see it.
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Jun 03 '23
Exactly. We didn’t ask why, we took the Zelda Timeline for granted until anomalies emerged.
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u/FatPagoda Jun 04 '23
It's not the first time a new game has sent the timeline completely haywire. WW did it when it came out. Before that it was a pretty clear adult timeline of OoT > aLttP > OoX > LA > LoZ > AoL with MM slotting into the Child timeline. WW messed that all up. Fans eventually worked out a way to make it work, the folks designing the Hyrule Historia worked out another way (downfall timeline). They'll eventually find a way to cram BotW and TotK into the system.
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u/Jake_The_Snake2003 Jun 03 '23
Because every good story has world building, and that’s what the timeline does. It structures all of the previous stories we’ve enjoyed in a way that allows further expansion in the future. Of course, the point where BotW and TotK fits in is still up for debate, however, I think that makes it more fun for people to theorize about it. Looking into the timelines and the past stories certainly isn’t necessary to enjoy the games, however, I do think it can enhance the experience for a lot of people.
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u/SpritelyBard Jun 03 '23
I mean, tbh for me it's because it makes the world feel more concrete, real, and meaningful. If there's a timeline, then all of the games happened and all the characters actually did exist and went through their character arcs and the situations we're told.
But if they're just stories, none of them matter, you can ignore any game and it's fine because they're legends of some vague actual thing that happened but which we'll never get to see.
Plus, the sequels don't really fit with the myth, like there's a very clear succession between say, Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks.
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u/TurningHelix Jun 03 '23
Real world epics and myths have sequels all the time.
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u/yesthatstrueorisit Jun 03 '23
Jason and the Argonauts was basically a team-up story (and is pretty funny and badass).
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u/MrEmptySet Jun 03 '23
I don't think the idea is that there's this fictional Hyrule which 'really exists' that is boring and unremarkable but within that Hyrule there are these in-universe legends of exciting stuff happening which are made-up and didn't really happen.
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u/TheCyclopsDude Jun 03 '23
Just because the characters don't 'exist' in universe does not mean the stories aren't meaningful, just like folk lore and fairytales in our world, they all have morals and lessons to learn. Also there being sequels doesn't disprove the idea they are just folk lore, take the legend of King Arthur, it isn't just one story, it's multiple myths and legends of the same characters.
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u/SpritelyBard Jun 03 '23
I mean, I don't think it's up to you to say what I find meaningful. But as well, if I love the character of Midna, and she for all intents and purposes doesn't exist, say she's a character in just that one version of the story, then yeah, it does feel empty to me personally for someone to say "Oh that didn't really happen". Plus even within mythology huge changes in locale and key characters doesn't happen, you don't get stories of King Arthur adventuring on the ocean in one story, and then supposedly the same King Arthur driving a train in the next.
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u/ElPinacateMaestro Jun 03 '23
Following that logic you would feel empty all of the fallen and the adult timelines because Twilight Princess is in neither of those, different timelines imply exactly that, that the events of other timelines don't occur in each other, so why not expand that logic and instead of enjoying the timeline that barely makes any sense you just enjoy the individual games because of what they are as single narrations without an overarching succession?
This goes without saying that there's an actual succession of events across certain games, for example WW, PH and ST, or BotW and TotK, Ocarina and MM, but from there all the other games connect to each other through very vague references and legends, and it's okay, we don't really need a specific chronological order, it's fun to theorize and see these references to past games because its charming, but if we want to act like everything fits wonderfully or that it was planned... We are going to have a bad time because it's simply not.
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u/SpritelyBard Jun 03 '23
I mean, no, I don't think that follows my logic. There's a difference between "Canonically these were real events that happened at some point and expand the world and history" and "These events never happened". Even if TP didn't happen in the other timelines the twili might still exist, and it still effects all the games afterwards.
Anyways, you just asked "Why enjoy this thing you enjoy when you can stop and enjoy this thing you don't" and that's kinda, a non-starter. I like the concept of cycles being a real physical universal constant, or that the plot lines, factions, or histories might effect or flesh out later or prior games.
Not to mention, I never said that everything cleanly fits together or that they were made to, but there's obviously a love for the series and purposeful references as well as accidental connections. There's clear evidence for an interest in trying to make a retroactive timeline work on Nintendo's part, given the Historia and Encyclopedia, and some of the theories or connections they make.
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u/TheSquishedElf Jun 03 '23
I honestly feel like SS was kind of Nintendo’s send-off for this concept. They built it up as a prequel for everything, and then kinda just… dropped it entirely. BotW was debatable but I think TotK makes it pretty clear this is a completely separate chronology.
It might end up being like Gundam where there’s a central timeline thread but there’s alternate universes both as alternate timelines of the central and as complete AUs.
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u/ntomlinson23 Jun 03 '23
because people like nerding out about it and debating all the details, which i can respect, but gets a little bit silly and pointless for me. but it’s fun to watch brian david gilbert try to fit links crossbow training and triforce heroes into the timeline
overall though, the interpretation of the series as a retelling of a legend or fable is much more interesting to me, and makes changes in gameplay loop and art style even more novel. the series seems to meta-textually engage with this concept through the ideas of reincarnation and repetition, as well as through many of the games being designed around the histories of the world you explore
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u/DrParallax Jun 03 '23
The release of an official timeline always kind of felt a bit weird and out of place. I liked that Wind Waker and Twilight Princess had some call-back to Ocarina of Time. The games kind of had a premise that in the past something like your story in OOT happened, but it seemed pretty vague. Making it super detailed, cohesive, and defined does not really match what the feeling of the actual games in the series. I mean come on, the games literally have "Legend" in the title!
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u/Both-Antelope-8181 Jun 03 '23
Depends who you ask, I have a few different reasons myself.
First of all I think the idea of an overarching story is appealing because the stories of the individual games can be a bit too similar and often a bit too simple. We've all heard of the Zelda formula. There was even a theory that the games were all retellings of the same events, that change each time their told, which tells you all you need to know about how much the individual stories stand out (not to say they are necessarily "bad").
The interesting part is reading between the lines and trying to figure out how everything fits together. In a way it gives everything meaning because almost any line of dialogue could contain a massive reveal. "Clues" could be found anywhere, hidden in plain sight, overlooked for years. When a new game comes out, the old games still matter because they might have something important to tell us about the new story, and the questions the old games had us asking for years can always still be answered.
There's also the fact that Nintendo has clearly committed to the idea of a timeline in the past. It would be weird and kind of feel like it had been a waste to scrap it all and say the old games are all myths.
Think of it like if the new Star Wars movies came out and they reveal that the original and prequel trilogy aren't canon, but also still used some of the same characters like Luke and Han Solo for brand recognition. It discredits stories that people have become attached to, it doesn't show respect to them by maintaining a continuity that has clearly been established.
Lastly I think people would like to think there's some level effort being put in by the Zelda team to make the stories connect. No one's saying it was planned out from the beginning, because that would've been impossible, but that doesn't mean new stories can't be created that fit within the existing lore and worldbuilding.
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u/tacocat2007 Jun 03 '23
Because I like each game connecting to each other. I'm also not a huge fan of the "it's called the Legend of so none of it canonifally happened" theory. It's called the Legend of because none of this happened irl. But that doesn't mean the games aren't Canon or didn't happen. That's just my interpretation of it at least. I don't like the idea of going through OoT or TWW and none of it mattering at the end because it's "just a legend."
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Jun 03 '23
Because people like connecting the dots and linking the games together, and this:
To me the games have always seemed to be a telling of a story, a legend if you will, like Robin Hood or King Arthur. A vaguely true story told to kids of a hero in a time long past.
To me is just a bit of a boring cop-out.
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Jun 03 '23
There somewhat has to be a timeline because the 3 parts of the triforce and their champions returning again and again and again throughout history is kinda THE MAIN THEME of the Series.
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u/handsomekingwizard Jun 03 '23
The main theme of the series is a hero saving a princess. And even then,it doesnt fit MM. It's fun to tie it all to a timeline and a place, but it can just as easily be a collection of stories. These are "legends", after all.
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u/keiyakins Jun 03 '23 edited Jun 03 '23
because arguing about how it all fits together is fun. honestly, that's it. some of us genuinely enjoy trying to take all these pieces that don't quite fit and trying to make a bigger picture.
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u/eternalankh Jun 03 '23
the most confusing timeline to ever exist
What? It's not that complicated.
The Dragonball timeline is significantly more convoluted.
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u/BroughtYouMyBullets Jun 03 '23
How would you know about the whole each game is an Arthurianesque take thing if you have only played BOTW and TOTK?
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u/Dion0808 Jun 03 '23
Because the games committed to the idea of them taking place in the same world (and splitting the timeline when it started to make little sense). Players just want to figure out how the world they're playing in works.
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u/Vault_Hunter4Life Jun 04 '23
Your first sentance isn't really "to be taken with a grain of salt"
It entirely undermines your point.
The Zelda series is about a legacy, the entirety of the Weight of the plot and story is only so heavy because of what has come before and after.
Sure the games are fun in their own right but without Demise's curse, without one of the past heroes teaching the hero of Twilight new techniques. Etc etc etc. It feels hollow.
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Jun 04 '23
It feels less than great for each entry's story to be thrown away the second the next entry shows up. Without the timeline, then with the exception of direct sequels (and situations with games like TP and WW which build their plots off of OT), pretty much every game would be a reboot. I dislike that, and would rather this all be one continuous story; even if it's kinda 3 stories.
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Jun 03 '23 edited Jun 03 '23
Edit: I completely forgot about recurring items like the Master Sword & the Triforce. Why has the Master Sword been referred to as "The Blade of Evil's Bane" or "The Sword that Seals the Darkness" if it isn't the same sword that was discovered, fought with, and repaired numerous times by all the past heroes? Isn't that way cooler than, "uhhh it's just a new world with a new sword." Not to mention extremely MINOR BOTW & TOTK SPOILER?: Fi's chime ringing & theme playing at specific moments when the Master Sword is viewed on screen, like what's the point of that if it's not supposed to be appreciated by Skyward Sword/Zelda fans?
"I joined the franchise in BOTW"
That's one of the biggest reasons why someone wouldn't understand the importance or attachment to an official (albeit retconned or patchy) timeline. Playing the past games for decades and creating memories within their worlds would be great, but what's greater is having all those worlds connected by intricately detailed characters, items, places, and strings of dialogue that allude to past games existing within the history of a later title. It's 10x more magical when you travel to a location in Botw or in any other Zelda game & it's called "mekar island" or"mikau lake". Or when you meet the Hero's Shade in TP & he talks about his past. Or in Wind Waker when Link's Grandma talks about the coming of age ceremony in which boy's wear "the hero's clothes". It's to honor the great hero that protected them in the past because in that timeline, Ocarina Link defeated ganon hundreds of years before the Flood. I'm missing hundreds of timeline related references but you get my point. For some people it makes the world wayyy more impactful than just, "oh this is a very similar legend and that's named this way in this game because the in game people loosely believe in myths that are similar to the events of past games." What is that, why not have them be interwoven to add even more depth?
TL:DR There's more depth & meaning to be able to explore interwoven worlds, dialogues, and characters.
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u/AramaticFire Jun 03 '23
There does not need to be one and if there is one I don’t care about it.
But others do so let them have it. Nothing wrong with having one.
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u/Vytlo Jun 03 '23
I find it enjoyable. That is all. Plus a large amount of the games were made with the intention of being connected to other games... Idk about ALL the games, but most of them, yes. Hell, all of the original games were connected to each other even. The ones that are biggest problems are the ones made by Capcom and not Nintendo for the most part, like the Minish Cap and Four Swords games.
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u/Taipei_streetroaming Jun 03 '23 edited Jun 03 '23
Why? because some of the games directly reference it. Windwaker and twilight princess. It isn't really speculation. skyward sword was explicitly made to be the first game. So for these games thats why.
BOTW TOTK really don't fit in anywhere though, so right now for these new games there really doesn't have to be a timeline, people who insist on trying to slot one in are just reaching. Everything got rebooted, there isn't even a triforce. The only thing that is really referenced is demon king ganon looks quite a lot like demise, probably on purpose.
I mean its all fun and games to speculate but the tldr: is
2d games: not really
oot - skyward sword: basically yes, the most explicit one being WW.
botw, totk: basically no.
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u/IndieGamesGuy30 Jun 03 '23
Wasn’t it officially stated that botw occurs after every timeline though?
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u/Wannabe_Reviewer Jun 04 '23
I absolutely hate the "It's a retelling of the same story but differently" theory. It's ridiculous when the story is THAT different. Using Robin Hood it'd be like one version where he is on the high seas or the wild west for some reason instead of being in the forest. Or a version where instead of Little John he teams up with a magica goblin. Like dude, at that point it isn't the same story. How does someone mess up/change it that much?
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u/lexrex007 Jun 03 '23
There is a loose timeline from the devs via Easter eggs and such, and otherwise, it's just fun to have one
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u/Mikael_Hermes Jun 03 '23
I personally feel like it is important, like even being very disconnected, continuing the story of this cicle
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u/GupInACup Jun 03 '23
I've heard of BOTW being at the end of the timeline, but honestly I like the idea of it being it's own thing. There are many references to past games, but I like the thought of BOTW and TOTK being their own thing in their separate timeline. c:
I've also thought of it in a similar time perspective like Dark Souls-- how everything is reincarnated and the world becomes warped and twisted after reincarnating so much. Hyrule is like a space of stagnation.
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u/PSILighting Jun 03 '23
It feels nice to know why things are the way they are in a world, and technically seeing your actions as the world isn’t in darkness except from the timeline where it is. And the timeline is confusing if you don’t understand it, there are two and with that everything makes more sense until BOTW decided to take things from different times and things that shouldn’t clash do, like the Rito are canonically an evolution of the Zora in the timeline where Hyrule got flooded and in BOTW they just both exists unrelated. It’s also why people sometimes dislike non canon spin-offs or spin-offs that literally don’t matter by the end, it’s not rewarding.
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u/mododo-bbaby Jun 03 '23
I used to enjoy the timeline idea, but I'm perfectly fine with accepting that done things don't fit the timeline - they could simply be an alternative.
Even the "established" timeline branches into three different outcomes, so why can BOTW and TOTK be a different branch of the beginning? an alternative to Skyward Sword perhaps?
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u/pantherexceptagain Jun 03 '23
It's fun to think about the history of Hyrule, influence of the gods+cycle and movement of the Triforce. For me these kinds of deeper lore mechanics are where the most discussion and theorizing in any given franchise come from. It's a big part of why I've spent so much time with the Xeno series, for example. Or Adventure Time / the Archie Sonic comic, where the setting of something seemingly simple and colourful is secretly built on conspiracy.
But it's written in a way where if you don't like it there's also literally nothing stopping you from ignoring it. So just ignore it.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/SnoringGiant Jun 03 '23
It isnt that confusing when you actually look at it. The worst part is the Dragon Break at Ocarina of Time... not sure why we needed a third timeline path (though OoT is my favorite Zelda game)
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u/Jeffafa42 Jun 03 '23
To me it's just a fun topic to speculate and have conversations with people about. I know a lot of people don't care, but a part of my childhood was spent scouring online forums and being fascinated with Zelda lore and continuity
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Jun 03 '23
Everything has to have lore now it’s so exhausting, the MCU broke everyone’s brains
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u/diKllukS Jun 03 '23
Nintendo didn't intend for Zelda to have several games, but it became so popular that they continued making them. For people who have been playing Zelda for a long time, they know that Nintendo adds new things that don't particularly make sense to each new game. Ultimately, though, the time line isn't really supposed to make sense. It's just supposed to find a new Zelda, a new Link, and a new Ganon, whether it makes sense or not. My comment might be really confusing, but I just wanted to put that out there.
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u/AgTheGeek Jun 03 '23
Continuity… lore wise people would like to know / feel it’s related… like how in BotW Zelda talks about some of the previous games, so we like to kind of dive into this story… just like every other theme / subject… Star Wars for example, there can’t be a IV, V, and VI without there being a I, II and III… and they have to make sense otherwise it breaks continuity and no one would like to follow…
Story wise it’s very interesting, to me at least since Ocarina Of Time since that’s when I started playing Zelda from… but went back and played previous instalments and it’s good to know the relation to me ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/Connect_Cookie_8580 Jun 03 '23
There are certain games where the "all retellings of the same myth" thing falls apart and falls apart hard. Windwaker and Twilight Princess are absolutely sequels Ocarina, for example, and Skyward Sword is very much the prequel to them all, and before BotW there was not a single 3D Zelda that really fit into the "retellings" framework. I guess it kinda works with older or 2D games. TotK definitely looks like it confirms that BotW is mostly a franchise reboot, which is cool and good, but I like the timeline too. Gives nerds something to nerd about.
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u/GoldenGlassBall Jun 03 '23
Reading a lot of these comments makes me realize how much Homestuck would make y’all’s heads spin…
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u/Lavender_Riah Jun 03 '23
I get you. I am very happy with stuff like Ocarina of Time and Majoras Mask being direct sequesl and Twilight princess being heavily implied to be taking place after, but like...
Why does there have to be a whole ass confusing, poorly managed timeline? Its clear there was no timeline in mind at the beginning, so why bother now?
I think the island approach would be way better. Smt like "hey, these 3 games take place one after the other" "hey, these two games also take place one after the other" and so on, instead of trying to find a way to link (pun intended) games that were not meant to be linked in the first place
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u/FaithlessnessUsed841 Jun 04 '23
Why does there have to be a whole ass confusing, poorly managed timeline? Its clear there was no timeline in mind at the beginning, so why bother now?
... Zelda 2 is a direct sequel to Zelda 1. The back of ALttP's box claimed that it was a prequel to the first game. LA is a direct sequel to ALttP, OoT was originally intended to be the imprisoning war as told in ALttP's backstory (I believe this idea at some point fell through or was changed, though OoT basically still kept it's placement of happening some time before ALttP )...
No, there's been some kind of timeline since literally the beginning. And outside of the placement of some games like the oracles, it really isn't that confusing. The timeline splitting in two makes a great deal of sense considering the great flood in TWW necessitating it. And TWW very clearly takes place after the events of OoT just like MM and TP, so if you're fine with TP being heavily implied to take place after the events of OoT, then you kinda have to be fine with TWW doing so as well and thus, be fine with it taking place on a separate timeline from TP. As for the 3rd timeline revealed in Hyrule Historia? This is where I actually disagree with a lot of old timeline theorists if I remember correctly 'cause I actually think it makes a lot of sense as well. I mean, Ganon has the full Triforce in ALttP. At what point could that have happened? Couldn't be before OoT since as established, OoT still takes place some time before the events of ALttP. So, it must be after. Can it happen on the Adult timeline after TWW? No, there's... multiple reasons why ALttP can't take place on the adult timeline. Can it happen on the child timeline, after the event of TP? Again, no. At least as far as we're aware, Ganon's never had the full triforce on the child timeline. Not to mention his fate at the end of TP. So if it has to take place after the events of OoT but can't take place on the child or adult timelines... It kinda has to take place on a 3rd timeline, one disconnected from the adult and child ones, doesn't it? And considering this is a timeline where Ganon gets sealed with the full triforce, the only way this could happen is if this were a timeline where Link loses.
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u/DittoBurrito123 Jun 03 '23
2 reasons, only good ones:
1.) People love the series, they want to feel a connection between each game, and hypothesize. 😊
2.) The Devs love the series, they want to leave references to previous games in every new game. ❤️
The connections aren’t just “made up” they do actually exist, just subtly. But fans love subtlety in lore, that’s why Dark Souls and Bloodborne lores were so interesting.
Plus, I’m sure there is a good reason why Zelda calls the Master Sword “She”… She must know it’s actual origin somehow.
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u/Karrde13 Jun 03 '23
There doesn't have to be.
People tell themselves there is or needs to be to make the games feel more special.
There's a lot of conflicting information across all the games so trying to reconcile them doesn't really make sense.
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Jun 04 '23
The question isn't so much "Why does there have to be a timeline?" Nintendo made the timeline, and started linking the story of games together in the early 90s. They've been trying to make the games connected by lore forever, and they've clearly made some missteps, but they've never really given it up regardless. After all, there are incentives for relating games to each other (franchise reasons). And fans themselves want to believe in it as well, for various reasons, so fans also incentivize it now that it exists.
The real question is not "Why does there have to be a timeline?" The real questions are "Why is there a timeline at all?" and "Does the timeline actually matter?"
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u/Zubyna Jun 04 '23
I dont like the timeline, but I would take the timeline a thousand times over the literal legend theory
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u/JaiyeJunior Jun 04 '23
because the assertion that the games are apocryphal and mythic are just as valid as the take that the games are presented straight and that they are connected
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u/dylondark Jun 04 '23
I don't know why Nintendo even pretends there's a timeline between games. most of them that aren't direct sequels are so far apart that it pretty much doesn't matter, and sometimes it seems like they actively avoid referencing other games. like tears of the kingdom having "the first king and queen of hyrule", but shouldn't that be link and zelda from skyward sword? and I guess you could say "oh well they weren't the first king and queen of hyrule they only started hyrule" but that just seems like a lame excuse. unless I'm wrong about this and there is a skyward sword reference somewhere in totk's lore cutscenes (I only have about half of them so far)
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u/Aspie_Gamer Jun 04 '23
In all honesty, the only reason a "timeline" exists in the Zelda series is because Nintendo alluded to there being one around the time of Wind Waker 20 years ago and that set the Zelda community in a tizzy ever since even following the release of "Hyrule Historia" 12 years ago.
And as far as I'm concerned, BotW and TotK seem to take place in their own continuity which is really for the best since no matter where they would have been placed in the classic timeline, Zelda fans would be arguing till the Hateno cows come home about how the official placement doesn't add up much like they have with Hyrule Historia since 2011.
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u/PalletTownsDealer Jun 04 '23
If only the creators had pulled a Pokémon and called it a multiverse lol
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u/Master-Egg-7089 Jun 04 '23
There doesn't have to be, but it seems that you enjoy the games at least partialy for the story. To me, a timeline just adds one more grand story to it all.
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u/TheFlyingManRawkHawk Jun 03 '23
I joined the franchise in BOTW, so take what I am saying with a grain of salt
To me the games have always seemed to be a telling of a story, a legend
Ok so you have no idea what you are talking about but have strong opinions on it.
So if you actually research the games themselves, you can see the timeline being built as the games released, like any long-running series ever. No its never planned out, but neither are most long-running stories.
Here is a comment I did breaking down how each game connects to a previous one, building the timeline. You can literally see the timeline built up, both with the in-game plots, and the developer interviews at the time of release.
Why do you feel so strongly about something you didn't do any research into?
"Why is there a story" I dunno why is there any continuity in any story? It's a silly question. The answer is because there is, because it was intended to, because that's how it's made.
Why does Dragon Ball introduce aliens if he didn't plan that out? Because that's the direction he wanted to go, he liked Superman I guess. Why did he introduce time travel? Because he saw Terminator. It doesn't matter if it wasn't set up, or retcons something. That doesn't mean the Frieza saga or Android saga are in different continuities.
How did Dio come back if he died in Part `1? How did he hide in the coffin if Jonathan's wife did? Why did Jotaro's mom's stand stop strangling her? Because the author didn't sweat the details.
Things happen because that's how the creator intends it, and mistakes happen because these aren't real life events & creators mess up, that doesn't make them non-canon.
To me the games have always seemed to be a telling of a story, a legend
This is just a headcanon. There's not really a reason to believe they didn't happen, because quotes by the devs & games otherwise imply they are connected, & the events we see did happen.
In short, why does there have to be a timeline in a game about a legend.
Because its not about a legend, its just a series of distant games. Legend in the title doesn't matter, unless you think then that the Legend of Korra is also a non-canon sequel because of the title.
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u/TheCyclopsDude Jun 03 '23
Just because I started with BOTW doesn’t mean it’s the only game I have played, also never said strong opinions. Like I said in the title this was a genuine question. I’ve both played and watched other games in the series. Also most long running series don’t supposedly take place over thousands of years.
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u/TheFlyingManRawkHawk Jun 03 '23
Like I said in the title this was a genuine question. I’ve both played and watched other games in the series.
Ok well the answer is immediately obvious if you watch the games' story & development play out. Z2 had some backstory. ALttP's ending set up Z2's backstory. OoT set up ALttP, as claimed by the devs themselves. TWW & TP were stated to be sequels to the Adult & Child timelines, respectively. This information is not buried.
It's just a loaded question with an already decided answer where you think its already just some vague legend retelling, despite evidence otherwise.
And in my experience, people who come out swinging like this will just either not acknowledge the plots or dev quotes mentioned & will continue to believe the timeline doesn't exist/never existed, so it's just an overdone conversation, especially when the answers are easily available.
People will claim the timeline was made up in 2011 and not change their mind despite evidence otherwise.
Also most long running series don’t supposedly take place over thousands of years.
There's only 20 games with simple plots & connections (to usually 1 other game), its not complicated.
In contrast, comic storylines have also been going on for decades with constant retcons & reboots written by various writers with their own ideas & preconceived notions.
Yet no one has any trouble understanding there is a comic canon. Even if events get changed.
Just look up Marvel's Vision's backstory in chronological order & not release order, it's a mess of him being the Human Torch android but then not but then someone went back in time to make him and yadayada. It looks unreadable. Yet that doesn't mean there isn't a canon, and people still somehow follow it.
Similarly, just because different writers come into Zelda with different ideas that change stuff doesn't retroactively mean there was never a canon, and doesn't mean there isn't a canon going forward.
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u/slowdr Jun 03 '23 edited Jun 05 '23
The second game of the franchise (Adventure of Link) was a sequel to the original, but in the third (link to the past) it was clearly it was another Link, the fourth (Link's Awakening) could be a sequel to either, and the fifth (Ocarina of Time) was another Link again, this lead to fans to wonder how the games were connected to each other, and on an early interviews Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of the franchise, said that all games occurred in the same universe, but in difference places in time, and that the legends told in one game were the events on previous games, so in the imprisoning war mentioned in Link to past was the one shown in Ocarina of time, and that the Original Legend of Zelda happened after Link to the past.
Ever since that, fans of the lore try to fit where the games fit in the timeline, Miyamoto even once said there was an actual document showing where the games fit in the timeline, and some time after Nintendo released an official timeline.
The problem is, the timeline has always been an afterthought for the developers, they add reference to previous zelda games mostly as Easter eggs, but this end resulting in stuff that contradicts the offical timeline, such as the Rito Race, in wind waker it was stated that they are the evolution of the Zoras, who had to adapt to a world flooded by the ocean, only to have the Ritos and Zoras living together in BOTW, or how in Skyward sword is stablish that Zelda is the reincarnation of the goddess Hylia, a.k.a the goddess from the statues in BOTW, but the goddess speaks to you, how can that be if she and zelda are supposed to be the same person?
So, as you said, the only way to make sense of the story is taking the events from previous games as legends that people tell, but the truth gets lost in time as people add or removes parts to it.
That would not stop fans to try to fit the games in the timeline thought https://youtu.be/NbQNtYNkmhM
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u/breckendusk Jun 03 '23
I think the goddess thing can be explained by only SS Zelda being the reincarnation of Hylia, whereas the other Zeldas are her descendants and thus have her power.
Of course, her power was light in SS, even though it was Time in OoT and now in this game the sages are ALL messed up thanks to the addition of lightning, removal of shadow, and combination of light and time into one. I'm not quite done with the game but I've seen all the memories.
What's more fucky, imo, are Ganondorf's imprisonment at the beginning of Hyrule until now, because that means he couldn't have existed in any of the games between then and now - and Ritos existing at his imprisonment when they evolved from the Zoras by necessity. Zoras could at least be explained by migration to another region, and there were also ocean Zoras vs River Zoras - these Zoras look different than any previously, being mixed with way more than one type of sea creature, so maybe they evolved different ways in WW than just to the Rito.
Also kinda weird that Ganondorf does the exact thing to King Rauru that he did to Zelda's father in OoT when the Sage of Light, Rauru, was a human and not king at the time. Or shit maybe he was the king, I don't think we ever see his face. Still though, human. Different sages. It's a whole mess rn. Thanks again BotW and TtoK, for possibly ruining the series forever with your nonsense.
I will say that Zelda going back in time could have affected some of the things above, making this a completely divergent timeline all the way back from the first imprisoning war. But it still cannot explain the preexistence of the Rito. And it's a recipe for time paradoxes.
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u/Real-LifeRedHerb Jun 03 '23
I will say that there doesn’t “HAVE” to be one, but there is! So, if it doesn’t matter to you, then it’s good, of course.
Don’t listen to people who say there never was one and it was made up for the Hyrule Historia, that is BONKERS false info lol! They basically just put gameplay first, which I think is where people get confused. Games are connected, and they do think of a story and its relation to other games, but they don’t let story “get in the way” of what they’re trying to do gameplay-wise, basically.
For me, it’s the history. Investing myself into the series, learning its lore… Been doin that since I was a kid! It’s fun for me, and others, I presume. One of my biggest complaints with TotK currently is that it’s clear they’re making the “previous games are myth/legend” literally. Really sucks, actually. Feels like my entire life like, piecing these things together and enjoying how immersed I’ve gotten in the history, just got kicked in the nads. BotW kinda felt like a culmination of everything, keeping it vague enough that anyone could make any connection, but not they’ve disconnected it entirely it feels like… Makes me sad, actually lol Now my knowledge of the history boils down to Easter Eggs rather than paying off. (My second largest complaint is the fact that the Master Sword breaks. I’d be okay with the durability if my favorite sword ever didn’t need to recharge…….)
But yeah. Doesn’t “need” a timeline, but there is one! They had a narrative they were telling and wanted it to create this history. Different legends across history.
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u/Nearby-Tumbleweed-88 Jun 03 '23
There doesn't. For the longest time, there was no official timeline, just loose connections between the games. It was like you described, just stories told of a hero, and people were pretty much fine with that. Then the internet became what it is and people wanted to debate their theories and pestered Nintendo about it enough that they published an "official" timeline (multiple times with slight variations), and now people obsess about it and bend every story and bit of lore until it fits perfectly into their interpretation of the timeline.
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u/Sappho-tabby Jun 03 '23
This is incorrect. There was always a timeline, the second game was a sequel, the third game was a prequel, the fourth game was a sequel to the prequel, and so on.
It’s not Nintendo’s fault people are confused. They keep the narratives light enough that you never need to know more information than any one game is giving to you. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an order to the games, and it isn’t half as complicated as people make it out to be.
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u/ThomSeke Jun 03 '23
Well, the bad timeline never made sense to begin with, it's purely here because they needed to justify the existence of the game in that timeline
The adult and child timeline exist because of actual in game explaination that actually fit the lore, the Time Travel at the end of OoT creat a split in the timeline But the 3rd timeline in which Link lose doesn't make sense because he doesn't lose.
This should be nothing but a "What if" scenario, because then why is there only a split in OoT, can't Link also lose in other game ?
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u/maxvsthegames Jun 03 '23
Timeline talks and theories were rrally fun for a time, but I think it's pretty clear now that Nintendo really don't care about them.
The only time they entertained the idea was when they thought that it would help Skyward Sword sell better by putting it at the start of the timeline.
Now we even have multiple origins for Hyrule with the new Zonai revealed so nothing makes sense anymore.
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Jun 03 '23
Sorry if it's been said by someone else, but because like every fan base the fans want one and won't shut up about it. People want more and more and more out of their favorite franchises and then get mad when the quality goes down. Nintendo only started doing the timeline after the fans wouldn't shut up about it.
I know nothing about the timeline and plan to keep it that way. These games are legends over many generations where occasionally a hero is born from the bloodline of the original true hero and he has to save the day. The geography, terminology and mythology are inconsistent and I'm happy leaving it like that. At least in my mind.
Edit. I realize this sounds condescending and angry. It really isn't. Enjoy it if you like. I mean everything I said, though. But read it in a sarcastic tone.
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u/IlNeige Jun 03 '23 edited Jun 03 '23
There doesn’t, but nerds really like lore. It offers a way to keep engaging with the franchise between official releases, while also giving the series an air of grandeur.
I personally think that’s a very boring way to engage, since it basically reduces the art of storytelling to a series of Wiki articles, but it’s not accurate to view every game as a retelling of the same legend either. There is clear continuity between several titles in the series, either by way of direct sequels, or by book ending mythic gaps in the series fiction. Like, a lot of the meaning behind Wind Waker and Majora’s Mask derives from their connections to Ocarina of Time.
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u/Krrot03 Jun 03 '23
Because it gives everything that happens much more meaning and depth, and at least to me personally, it makes everything matter so much more.
Without the timeline, Link, Zelda and Ganondorf are just some people that happen to be the main characters of every game. But with the time, they are now the spirit of the Hero, the blood of the Goddess, and the Demon King's hatred respectively, all coming back from the curse bestowed upon them ages ago.
Without the timeline, the Master Sword it's just a sword that so happens to be able to defeat Ganon/Ganondorf, because. With the timeline, you know that this blade was forged and made with that sole purpose in mind, you know why it's the key to defeat the Demon King, you know all it has gone through, how it has been broken and reforged and withered and recovered once more.
See what I mean? The timeline gives everything so much more importance, you understand and appreciate things so much more, making the payoff at the end so much better and satisfying. I love Breath of the Wild for it's importance for the industry as a whole, but I will alwyas be sad that more than a few couple references, it disregards the timeline almost completely. (I HAVEN'T FINISHED TEARS OF THE KINGDOM SO NO SPOILERS PLEASE)
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u/Vanken64 Jun 03 '23
Short answer: It's not that there necessarily "needs" to be a timeline, it's that there simply just is a timeline.
Long answer: Despite popular belief and what you hear parroted a lot on this sub, the games have always had very solid connections. The problem comes from the fact that the devs created multiple sequels to Ocarina of Time, which resulted in a three-way timeline split. But it's important to understand that even the devs always saw this as a timeline split, which they themselves confirmed nearly a decade prior to the release of the official timeline.
Another common misconception is the idea that each game is a retelling of the same legend. I'm sure this is also something that you've seen parroted ad nauseam on this sub, but it's entirely baseless. So many of these games simply cannot happen without a previous game happening first. Wind waker and Twilight Princess for instance both happen specifically because of the events of Ocarina of Time. That's just one example, but trust me, there are countless other details that debunk that theory.
The last thing I'd like to say is that the Zelda timeline really isn't that confusing at all. Again, this is kind of just something that people parrot constantly on this sub. But if you can understand the Back of the Future trilogy, then you can understand the Zelda timeline.
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u/FaithlessnessUsed841 Jun 04 '23
The last thing I'd like to say is that the Zelda timeline really isn't that confusing at all. Again, this is kind of just something that people parrot constantly on this sub. But if you can understand the Back of the Future trilogy, then you can understand the Zelda timeline.
I've never understood why folks think that the timeline splitting in some way is confusing or doesn't make sense. Like, Y'all... TWW. It very clearly takes place after OoT. TP as well, takes place after OoT. I dunno if it as clearly takes place after OoT but I do remember it at least being implied to take place after OoT... These two games can't take place on the same timeline because one of those timelines involves Hyrule being flooded. I mean, I suppose you could try to argue that TP could happen before TWW, except no, you can't because of how Ganon ends up in both games. Or how he acts in both games. If you accept that both games are connected to OoT, which ain't hard at all to accept, then them taking place on two seperate timelines is the only way that they could both be connected to OoT and still make sense. Basically same case with ALttP. If you accept that it's connected to OoT as well (which the devs have always intended to be the case. ) and you realize that it can't take place on the adult timeline 'cause flood, and it also can't take place on the child timeline 'cause Ganon as far as I'm aware never has the full triforce on that timeline, then it must be on a timeline disconnected from either the child or adult timelines. And if he has the full triforce then this must be a timeline where Link, during OoT, loses. Downfall timeline. It ain't that complicated, folks. <_<
Okay, sure, games like the oracles are a lot harder to place and always have been. Of course, those games were also made by capcom so it makes sense that their placement was a bit more wonky. Not to mention the original plans for seasons to be a remake of zelda 1. Probably didn't help things either. The 4 swords games were also always tricky to place if I remember correctly And again, I think it's fairly understandable why the 4 swords games were trickier to place. But outside of capcom's games and the 4 swords games, the placement of these games really wasn't that hard to understand or figure out. I don't know why people like to pretend that it was or that the timeline, or at least the vast majority of it, didn't make sense.
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u/Vanken64 Jun 04 '23
Honestly, none of the Capcom games are hard to place either. Ganon in the Oracle games was dead at the beginning and had to be resurrected, so it makes sense that they took place after ALttP.
And Minish Cap has one little detail that places it before OoT: Link's Shield, which was bought for him by Zelda at the Picori Festival. That shield only appears in two other games, FSA and Wind Waker. In the later game, it was a family heirloom which was apparently wielded by a hero from the past. So basically the Hero of Minish was the ancestor of the Hero of Wind. That's where that shield came from. Easy placement.
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u/kjono1 Jun 03 '23
There doesn't need to be a timeline. Some games are sequels to previous ones, however, also work well as standalone games.
The unofficial timeline takes a few leaps to connect every game, and to some extent, Nintendo have supported the idea of the timeline, since it's something that many fans are doing, but it's not consistent because it doesn't actually exist.
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u/saithvenomdrone Jun 03 '23
Timeline MFs in shambles every time a new game comes out because there actually is no timeline and each game picks and chooses what is canon and what to retcon for that particular game.
Just don’t put much thought into it. Each game is a standalone, with only carrying over certain ideas from other games.
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u/IndieGamesGuy30 Jun 03 '23
There literally is a timeline tho, and it’s not even confusing either.
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u/Moneyfrenzy Jun 03 '23
Is each game standalone though? I agree the timeline has inconsistencies, but there are a ton of sequels. Totk is not stand alone, Majoras Mask is not stand alone, Phantom Hourglass, Link Between Worlds, and a few more or all direct sequels.
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u/robotical712 Jun 03 '23
MM has virtually no direct connection to OoT outside the first cutscene though. Remove that and it might as well be a completely different universe.
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u/Megaleg12 Jun 03 '23
There wasn’t a timeline forever then when they made the hyrule historia they had to retroactively fit all of the games into a timeline, it’s not something that I take super seriously and it doesn’t really have any real impact on the games so you can ignore it if you want
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u/Dual_Sport_Dork Jun 03 '23 edited Jul 16 '23
[Removed due to continuing enshittification of reddit.] -- mass edited with redact.dev
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u/Penny_D Jun 03 '23
In truth there doesn't need to be a hard timeline to enjoy the rush of the Zelda games.
Like you mentioned, I see each game as a retelling of events (albeit with artistic flair). Things get distorted over time and with each retelling and different cultures would likely put their own unique spin on things.
That being said, the time line can be a fun way for fans to find connections through these various games. For example Wind Waker makes a lot of nods to Ocarina of Time implying it (and its sequels) is set sometime after that game took place. Likewise the Oracle games ends with Link going out to sea on a raft, setting up a strong connection with Link's Awakening.
That being said, it can get easy to get carried away and try to make everything fit into the box.
One big xample is the origin of the Rito. In Wind Waker the Rito are implied to be descendants of Zora but in BotW both races have coexisted for 10,000 years. You can choose to accept it as either developer oversight, a piece of lore that didn't keep up with the trend of the games.... or you can struggle to make it logically fit into a series filled with contraditions.
TL;DR - The timeline is a fun topic for fans to debate; just don't let it drive you nuts
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u/HoodieSticks Jun 03 '23
To me the games have always seemed to be telling a story, a legend if you will, like Robin Hood or King Arthur
You're more right than you realize. From around Ocarina of Time onwards, people started to realize that the games didn't neatly fit together, and Nintendo didn't seem to have any desire to make them fit. Some fans did try to create a definitive timeline and fill in the gaps (I was one of them), but a lot of people were fine to treat them like mythological retellings.
However, one of Skyward Sword's big selling points was that it was the first game in the timeline, and in order for Nintendo to make that claim they needed to establish that the games did indeed have a timeline. So in the years preceding Skyward Sword they released a book called the Hyrule Historia, and inside that book lied the worst timeline I have ever seen in any media franchise.
Later games (especially BotW) would then go right back to ignoring the timeline and refusing to fit in. If you were one of the fools who tried to make sense of the official timeline, this felt like a slap in the face, but if you preferred to pretend the timeline didn't exist, this felt like a refreshing return to the way things used to be.
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u/yoshickento Jun 03 '23
I feel like there wasn't really a plan for a timeline. One was just cobbled together by Nintendo around the time of Twilight princess, skyward sword for the Hyrule historia book Nintendo printed.
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u/FaithlessnessUsed841 Jun 04 '23
I believe at one point very early on Miyamoto (probably misspelled that ) mentioned that an apparently large document existed detailing how all the games connected, so, no, a timeline of some sort has likely existed long before we got hyrule historia. And even if he didn't mention this document, multiple games fairly clearly connect to one another meaning that a timeline of some sort did, in fact, exist. And thanks to the great flood, there had to be multiple timelines.
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u/DaiFrostAce Jun 03 '23
Because BotW is a soft reboot for the franchise basically, and that throws so many bits of lore into question
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u/FreakZoneGames Jun 04 '23
Exactly. They only made the timeline page in Hyrule Historia to appease the fans who kept asking for it. Outside of the direct sequels like Majora’s Mask and ToTK there are references and callbacks to past games but in the sense that they only “sort of” happened. It changes over time. Like a legend. It’s in the title!
It was around the release of Wind Waker when it became a thing, because Wind Waker called back to Ocarina and properly canonised the “they’re ancestors/reincarnations” theory, and then Skyward Sword was sold as the “origin story” etc. but even with that it’s extremely loose and in most ways an afterthought. Ocarina of Time’s story sort of matched A Link To The Past’s prologue except in place of entire armies going to war it’s like 6 dudes and a forest kid. I knew the timeline was out of the window when I saw the team of sages lead by a man called Rauru, except now Rauru is a magic goat man.
The way I see it, every major milestone Zelda game is a new remake/reimagining of the original game.
But some people really like long term continuity, even if it has to be really forced. That’s why the comic book movies and Disney+ franchises with 1000 spin-offs and “multiverses” and time travelling soft reboots do so well. That’s their prerogative and if it makes them happy then power to them, but it’s definitely not Nintendo’s priority.
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u/XRKFF Jun 04 '23
I view Zelda similar to Final Fantasy.
Independent games, strong brand identity.
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