When looking through the in-game text, manuals, game boxes, interviews and other promotional material, you’ll see the series has always had a rather clear chronologically ordered timeline, and the stories have almost always had a relationship to one another.
Because my post was so large, I couldn’t natively post it here on Reddit, so I have a link to it on Blogger instead:
https://thelegendofzeldalore.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-legend-of-zelda-timeline-existed.html?m=1
In the post I go over the many pieces of evidence which shows the series timeline has always existed, and use proof to back it up, some examples are: A Link to the Past taking place before the first two games as stated on its box and guidebook as well as the in-game depiction of Hyrule matching Zelda II’s manual which stated Hyrule “used” to be one country in the past (which ALttP shows), Ocarina of Time showcasing the origin of the Dark World (known as Evil Realm in OoT) and the Seven Sages which are talked about in ALttP’s backstory, Wind Waker recounting the story of the Hero of Time (Link of OoT), Oracle of Ages/Seasons being stated to be sequels to ALttP in a promo in a 64 Dream (Nintendo Dream) magazine, Skyward Sword being the first in the timeline as shown by the lack of the Hyrule Kingdom (which already exists in other games like Minish Cap) and the creation of the Master Sword, Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom taking place long after the past games by mentioning Ruto’s story of OoT having taken place a lot more than 10,000 years in the past, interview quotes from Shigeru Miyamoto, Eiji Aonuma, Dan Owsen, and Nate Bihldorff which shows Nintendo had an internally documented timeline since at least 2003, etc, etc, etc.
by xXglitchygamesXx
19 Comments
Back in the day one of my favorite things to do was try to puzzle out how the games connected. Hyrule Historia corrected some of my assumptions but overall I got fairly close. Is someone claiming that the timeline didn’t exist before Hyrule Historia? Because that’s just silly, Hyrule Historia was just the first time it was officially canonized.
A timeline has always existed but it has gone through many [revisions](https://www.zeldadungeon.net/daily-debate-does-the-zelda-timeline-have-value-if-developers-treat-it-as-an-afterthought/) and even the devs can’t always agree on it. In recent interviews (as in the last few months), Aonuma has outright said that he doesn’t put much stock into a timeline. Fujibayashi has said that he only considers the timeline to an extent and doesn’t make it a priority.
While some games certainly have a strict chronology, others don’t, and we shouldn’t be pretending that they do. The devs have said that they want to us to have fun theorizing about how the games fit together. So, have fun coming up with headcanon for how the games fit together, but don’t hold it against others who don’t see things the same way you do.
The amount of Zelda fans that still cling on to the inconsistent and retconned nonsense that is the “official timeline” even after BotW and TotK took a giant dump on it and several Nintendo devs publicly stated that they don’t really give AF is truly staggering. Must be some kind of OCD thing or sth.
For your consideration: [The Zelda timeline doesn’t matter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cswC6Z8Qx54)
Everyone here always hates on people that like the timeline, but I actually like it.
I’m not saying that the devs need to stick to it like religion and sacrifice creativity in favor of it, but it’s nice to know, when you’re playing the games, that there is some connection between them and that the writers actually put a little bit of thought into it.
For instance, I think the connection between Ganondorf in Wind Waker and in Twilight Princess to OOT makes the game more engaging.
I think there is an interview where Aonuma (?) said something like ” Yes there is a timeline, there is a document that show how the games are related, we try to keep it consistent but we are only two to have access to it because we don’t want the staff to overthink it and we don’t care if this not 100% accurate ” this was the idea I think, and it was before HH.
Outside that yes , there was always some connections between the games , with more or less importance, Wind waker and Majora’s mask were clearly after OOT but in different branches, Link’s awakening was implied to be after A Link to the past in the manual and nightmare taking the form of Aghanim and Ganon confirm that.
I think that only the oracles and Minish cap felt weird to place.
Obviously that doesn’t mean it have a great importance, as the devs themselves don’t make it their priority, but that doesn’t mean this is not a thing, It’s just kinda cool,each story is nice and self centered ( even when connected to other games ) but I how it create a ” big picture” that I like personally.
And I am not sure if this a common opinion but there is people saying that the timeline was as obstacle to the devs’ imaginations, but since already didn’t care that much and separated the timeline after OOT just so WW and TP present two alternative futures and Ganondorfs, OOT events are slightly different from ALTTP backstoryand and recently TOTK with apparently a refounding tell me that they continue to not care and wasn’t never that much of an obstacle.
I also think that in a recent interview they implied TOTK is not a reboot but I am not really sure though, even if it was I wouldn’t care that much
You’re getting downvoted even though the title is a literal fact
The “Fallen Timeline” that supposedly spun off from an OOT game over was always clunky to me. With TOTK’s Ganon origin story completely incompatible with any other, I think TOTK should be placed in the Fallen Timeline and just completely be disconnected from OOT and the Adult/Child timelines entirely. Any references to Adult/Child games in BOTW/TOTK are just the result of interdimensional travel or something
It always amazes me how fans care infinitly more abt this time line than the devs do especially when it almost never affects the game at all
I don’t care about the timeline if the games are far enough apart that it doesn’t affect the story
It will always be baffling to me how weirdly upset people get over the idea and concept of the timeline and other people enjoying it. It exists. It’s always existed. Its canonicity doesn’t matter, and you don’t have to engage with it if you don’t want to, so what’s the point in trying to dump on it or others?
Although I love Zelda lore, if you care too much about it to the point of putting above everything else, you always gonna be disappointed with the games. That’s not the reason why people love Zelda games.
It’s cool but it’s not that deep.
Please don’t be discouraged by the responses here. One of the very interesting things about redditors is that they are some of the most relativistic people on the internet—and they hate reading comprehensively. They are conditioned, for some reason, to strongly believe that any amount of comprehension and rigidity is foolish and wrong. I’m part of the r/musictheory subreddit and getting them to admit music theory *exists* is like pulling teeth.
Only a tiny percentage will read your actual post, but a good number of people who didn’t read it will comment some off-hand about how the timeline is obviously bunk because of one quote they read (on Reddit).
Congrats on your post and research. It’s interesting to see that the common conception doesn’t have as much merit as is commonly stated. Go figure game developers who dump their heart and soul into games are, you know, *thinking about what they’re doing*, even if they have to occasionally (or frequently) make logistical/financial/commercial concessions. It’s also worth noting that the compendium itself was a very thoughtful effort, which undoubtably used a lot of the evidences you cited in constructing the timeline. It’s not like they just threw everything together.
Timeline Zelda fans are the most annoying
it’s cute, but it’s got a bunch of mistakes too
Nobody care about Zelda timeline that much, even Zelda team didn’t give a shit and literally create 3 freaking game outside of the timeline.
It’s suppose to be a “legend” and retelling of the “legend” with same same characters.
whatever you need to tell yourself
I appreciate each game utilizing aspects of previous games for each installment. There’s no overall time line, but each game may reference and build off others. I think that kind of thought to detail is one of the reasons Zelda is so special.
The timeline always existed. It’s not a big statement. The timeline isn’t important for the development of Zelda games. Story is the last thing they consider when making a Zelda game. It’s very easy to recognize that the games are placed in different eras, but that connections between them aren’t very important.
AND YET
So many Zelda fans have a meltdown if you so much as state that the timeline is fact-checked and backed up by more than 15 interviews. It’s like they refuse to even look at the facts. Most fandoms do not have this issue. Pokémon has a timeline that matters even less than Zelda, but everybody happily accepts it and moves on with their lives.
Honestly, talking to these timeline deniers is like talking to flat Earthers. It doesn’t matter how much evidence you have, they won’t look at any of it but will latch onto misleading and inaccurate headlines and quotes that are taken out of context, and use them to tell you that you are wrong.
When people say “there was no timeline before HH” they don’t mean it literally. They mean that Nintendo didn’t care half as much as the theorizing community did. And some of the evidence for this is the fact the timeline kept getting retconned every five years because the new game that comes out doesn’t mesh with the information from prior games and you have to flip things around to make sense of it.
Or Nintendo themselves would give an interview and literally and casually contradict what the theorizing community decided made sense with the information given in game. Every time they did that, it showed either they don’t remember the information given to us, or they don’t care.
If you want a good summary of the problems of the timeline from one decade to the next, here:
https://youtu.be/NbQNtYNkmhM?si=AbzDLsS9vkqBhAYC