I consider as a sort of modern equivalent to the coyote stories. or Paul Bunyan, Finn McCool, Gilgamesh, Or really, any legendary heroic epic passed along by oral storytelling.

So it is fun to try to fit it into some sort of unified timeline. But I don't think it is, that is not how they were actually written and we would loose most of the interesting storytelling flexibility if that is how they write them in the future.

I would be surprised if it did not have some impact on the writing of the games, though of course there is (as of yet) no explicit reference to the timeline in the games.

[1]: https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda_timeline [2]: https://zelda.nintendo.com/about/

And then something to question once again when Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom cannot make its mind up about such a timeline. somehow being so far in the future that all timelines converge and all history is lost. Basically disregarding the idea of a timeline altogether. ToTK can't even commit to really being a chronological sequel to BOTW if you break down details in the game.

History can be rewritten.

The history written today adds intrigue and lore.

The official timeline was already a botched version of the fandom’s timeline, and the fandom continues to come up with far more interesting variations of the timeline that answers far more than the official does.

I mean, the official doesn’t even interface with the split timeline created by Skyward Sword, or how both Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons can happen in either order. Also it’s just poorly designed; the “Hero Defeated” section is not a timeline but an alternative universe. There is no canonical ending to Ocarina of Time featuring Ganondorf’s victory in the game itself (unlike LoZ II’s ending card), meaning those games cannot be attributed to that scenario without changing it from a timeline to a separate universe entirely.

It's pretty clear that the cyclic nature is a part of the story.

As far as I consider, it's just a series of games with a loosely connected series of stories, with a few exceptions of direct sequels

This is not a deep-Zelda-nerd take, this is mostly working with simple connections like "Zelda 2 is a sequel to Zelda 1".

I think most Nintendo IPs are about playing around with the same motifs, ideas, narratives, and gameplay elements. Metroid is another series where this is very evident, with half of the games being spiritually a remake of a game which game before. A timeline doesn't preclude the Zelda series as a story about the cyclical nature of conflict, about archetypes reappearing throughout history, or as a legend passed over generations.

Then Hyrule Hostoria came out as a collectable. I would put good money on a conversation during its writing that went like this "What else can we put in here?" "Maybe a timeline of the games?" "Yeah, sure. What's the official one?" "There isn't one. The fans have a fun split timeline one." "Oh neat. Yeah work out the details. Now has anyone found that Wind Waker concept art yet?"

A common flaw I see in media literacy is operating like the author has pulled a completely coherent story from a different universe and simply written it down, as opposed to a creative process. Nintendo has never cared about the timeline, nor developing a single coherent story across all of the Zelda games. Some games are sequals, prequels, or have direct references. The timeline itself is purely from non-game sources, and is obviously not a factor when they design a new game.

Maybe they did release the timeline because of fan pressure but some sort of timeline did exist for at least a decade before they released it which doesn't fit your theory they just came up with something and released it in secondary media because of fan pressure.

[1]: https://www.nintendoforums.com/articles/40/super-play-magazi...

Which was exactly the situation before they published the timeline!

The only questions which the official timeline answers is how exactly to connect some otherwise-disparate sequences of games into a unified directed graph.

2002 was the first point in time where having a timeline document was useful, because it was the first game to make it clear there was at least a "child timeline" and an "adult timeline". Before then, there was a simple sequential chronology in the series.

There's stories all over about Hollywood dumping physical copies of films, sets and props only to later regret it.

No one knew if a sequel or trilogy or decades of fan service would happen. They didn't care like our rose colored glasses of time make us see.

American comics and Star Wars has had their continuity reset.

This is just "grass is greener" type thinking. It's only ever been the US fan culture that cared; most creators just see it as a paycheck

It's loose, but it's there. These are separate stories, retold many times or not, and the cyclic nature of the battle for the triforce is established game lore.

I believe it's also misleading to say Nintendo doesn't care about the timeline stuff. They care but also make a conscious decision to keep it light and not overly bound or caught up in it.

AoL was a sequel to LoZ. ALttP was a prequel to LoZ. LA was a sequel to ALttP.

OoT is explicitly a prequel to ALttP.

OoT splits into at least two timelines. MM explicitly follows the child Link who preempted Ganon's ascension. WW explicitly has you fight the Ganon defeated by adult Link. TP explicitly places itself as a sequel to the "child timeline" and so also a sequel to MM.

The only games which lacked an explicit placement to the rest were the Four Swords series and the Oracle games. Not small exceptions, but exceptions none the less, and that's only if you ignore interviews. (And interviews would give you Minish Cap preceding Four Swords preceding Ocarina of Time.)

Instead, I view the games as a combination of re-imaginings and direct sequels. However, the games really are not story-driven enough to care which one is which. Any of the games can be played standalone or in any order, and it doesn't matter.

In my view, the story of these games is mostly a pretext and the real reason is the gameplay. Some of the games lean a bit harder into the story angles, and they really suffer for it (too many cutscenes make those games frustrating to play).

> Shigeru Miyamoto: For every Zelda game we tell a new story, but we actually have an enormous document that explains how the game relates to the others, and bind them together. But to be honest, they are not that important to us. We care more about developing the game system… give the player new challenges for every chapter that is born.

So I don't think this is as clear cut as "a different group of people decades later make a timeline". The least charitable view might be that they never intended the unified timeline thing to became public and didn't consider it "lore", but I'm not sure I buy that either (since they talked about some details in other interviews, including the Victorious/Fallen Hero split most people object to).

[1]: https://www.nintendoforums.com/articles/40/super-play-magazi...

So in this case, I imagine almost all the writing staff present for Zelda in 1986 were present to establish such a timeline some 15 years later. And much of them were probably still around 20 years after that working on the upcoming remake. I'm truly envious.

Nintendo just never did that until the speculation about the topic became noticeable enough that they felt they had to address it (at which point everything was so inconsistent that only the timeline split could reconcile it). And even then, the unified timeline was published years before BoTW, and it adds the wrinkle that... (waves hands) all of the timelines sort of became the same thing.

That sort of hand waving is unavoidable as BoTW has elements from all three of the timelines, it literally cannot be on one of the three legs-- and if it's not, the only other logical place it would fit is before Skyward Sword (meaning an entirely separate ancient founding of Hyrule) or just after the Imprisoning War which would butt up against A Link To The Past. But those can't fit because the Zora evolved into the Rito and BoTW has both.

Never mind the strange notion that a fish people evolved into bird people under the pressure of a worldwide flood... you'd think that wouldn't be necessary or helpful, but hey, Zelda's weird.

Mostly in jest, but isn't that a creationist argument we all usually dismiss? "Why are there still primates around if we evolved from them?"

So, while it's questionable how much involvement some of the team may have had with this timeline, it's entirely feasible they could have gotten input from the same people that wrote the games from the very beginning.

Zelda canon was never that deep when each game was written

writers had no secret timeline or their own deep interest in the prior writers rendition

they have a loose setting and other people that chose the writer to have near complete license to do whatever they want with it

and even that’s a negotiation, writers often have their own backlogged story already that they adapt to existing IP retroactively

whatever it doesn’t matter, I’m just surprised people are actually spending energy on this for this franchise. If this is what “fun” looks like now, it’s fine

Still, it's fun to try to figure out how the puzzle pieces might fit together even though they came out of different boxes.

That's a very cynical and dare I say Hackernews take. You could also, less cynically, see them as unique pieces of art that have managed to carve a space in a field where, by necessity, a lot of money is needed to create it (AAA games).

Tears of the Kingdom is art. It's a beautiful, simple fairytale told through the medium of a huge open world game and there's something unique in being able to embody that story for so many hours. I haven't played any other Zelda games from the past ~20 years but if they're similarly artful (and by all accounts they are) we don't need to be cynical towards their simplicity or the fact that they're variations on a theme. Pretty much all human art (and business) is, after all.

It is why I consider excessive use of cutscenes a tell of poor game design, They stop the machine and pull the player out of the environment. They have their place, but generally should be avoided.

book: tell a story

movie: show, don't tell (big sin opening lore dump)

game: do, don't show (big sin cutscene)

To the exception of TOTK, I _never_ noticed any link (hehe) between different titles. I know there are some references, but I never catch them.

Even Majora's Mask, which is an official follow up occurring months after Ocarina of Time have a totally different story to tell that don't even try to continue the OoT story and is more just another completely independent story barely in the same universe.

I love the Zelda games, I consider myself a fan. But they are just that : good games. Each of those games do have interesting stories to tell, interesting universes to visit, but the overall "franchise" lore is totally uninteresting.

And honestly I don't think it's something bad, it means each game is free to go where it wants, and every game is free to have an universe as rich as it wants.

I see Zelda totally like I see mario : it's just universe codes, not a real lore. Nobody cares if Mario Galaxy happens before or after Mario 64 or Super Mario World. Zelda is the same for me. And that's cool.

From what I understand - it's because Nintendo famously designs the game and gameplay systems first and then writes a story to match what they built. If the story doesn't work with the setting then...<shrug> - it's still a good game at the end of the day.

https://xkcd.com/111/

Seems like a lot of folks here are eager to discuss about interpretation and opinion, I take that as Nintendo did a great job providing enough to keep everyone engaged into the dream and fantasy behind it.

Cheers To more Zelda!

Originally, there was barely a story, and it existed just to give some motivation and context for the various video games. This encompasses Zelda 1 - 5. ie, NES, SNES, Gameboy Zeldas, and Ocarina of Time. When Majora's Mask came out, it was a direct sequel, which hadn't really happened before, and moreover, you carry on as Child Link rather than Adult Link. (recall that you end OoT as Child Link in the credits)

By the time Wind Waker came out, Nintendo had officially started talking and thinking about Zelda timelines, although I think you can argue that they had already started down this path in Majora's mask. Wind Waker is the first game to formalize the idea that there are many Links, and it's more of a status or title than a person. The person who saves Hyrule. At some point (I really stopped following Zelda closely after Twilight Princess) Nintendo seems to have bowed to the pressure on the internet, and released the "official" Zelda timelines. ie, Nintendo followed the trend of trying to formalize the timeline, but did not really invent it)

The "official timeline" is convoluted because (much like religious stories) much of it was never planned in advance, and the current understanding is something of a retcon that would have been unrecognizable back in the old NES / SNES Zelda days.

- Link: The Faces of Evil

- Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon

- Link's Crossbow Training

- the various Hyrule Warriors games

Good luck! :)

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-25c8Rsobw

(the second one wasn't very good..but the first is a great game and runs even better on Switch 2.)

I'm a little surprised to hear that Ocarina of Time is getting a remake. I take it it's going to be a Switch 2 exclusive?

In other words : if you have good memories of your experiences with those games, do yourself the favor of playing the other titles, they are equally good.

If you want to sample the Zelda series, I'd propose:

- Link's Awakening for the 2d experience

- Ocarina of Time for the 3d experience

- Breath of the Wild for the open world experience

as a starting point. The remakes are all new, so you get some QoL.

Yes I know Hyrule Historia has a timeline. It's an afterthought too, it's not like they had books of deep Zelda lore to compile, they just put something together to sell a book.

Idk why we can't enjoy Zelda games for what they are - each game has recurring core cast, similar mythological archetypes & thematic motifs, and similar gameplay, but are all independent of each other. Even the games that are direct sequels to each other are still very independent.

I think this is neat and honestly the perfect use of an LLM, just some for-fun project to visualize something completely inconsequential and nostalgic.

Somehow is devolved into dunking on the west and other unfortunate “better than thou” comments.

When you watch Star Wars do you start with The Phantom Menace? Do you start Star Trek with Enterprise or maybe even First Contact?

I might be a heretic but yes, as a surface level Star Wars fan I watch them in the order they are numbered: episode I through episode IX.

However I don't think it applies to LoZ at all and there is literally no reason to care about a timeline between the games for your enjoyment of them.

Western audiences just love literalism.

But then Link returns to his childhood time. As a child, Link warns Zelda about Ganon, and preempts the future (where Ganon takes power and adult Link defeats him) from happening. So, there are at least two timelines.

Majora's Mask follows this child Link in one of the few explicit sequels in the series.

But then Wind Waker faces off against the Ganon defeated by adult Link. This is explicitly referenced in the text but it's not so clear-cut a sequel.

Meanwhile, Ocarina of Time was explicitly a prequel to A Link to the Past (depicting the events described in ALttP's backstory). But (1) some events don't quite line up and (2) the continuity of games established in the other timelines can't really neatly fit the ALttP-LA-OoS/OoA-LoZ-LA chronology. So a third timeline is just the neatest way to do it.

None of this really matters for playing or understanding the games, though. With the exception of Majora's Mask (and Phantom Hourglass / Spirit Tracks to a lesser extent), each Zelda game can be enjoyed as someones first Zelda.

Also, it's almost an open secret that the the Nintendo development teams weren't really thinking in terms of a coherent timeline until later when they published some book mainly because they saw an opportunity to make money and sell merch to a bunch of nerds rather than to truly give a history to a bunch of somewhat related but fairly disjointed games all from the same franchise. They only pretend there's a timeline cause it sells games and books. Not cause there really is. What's worse is that the Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom games really throw a wrench in the works.

TLDR: enjoy these games on their own merit and know that only few titles are meant to be really connected in some way. Like Ocarina of Time <-> Majora's Mask and/or Breath of the Wild <-> Tears of the Kingdom . As for the rest there's slight references to each other but not really much linking them.

Nobody should be discussing the timeline before playing the games. And not from some kind of purity perspective, but just because it's nerd shit that you won't get anything out of until you do. I really enjoy thinking and talking about the timeline, but I'm under no illusion that it's anything more than after-the-fact fanfiction.

Seems a bit weird. To me, it’s enough that someone has a thought of something they wish existed and now it does exist. How they bring it into existence isn’t of much importance to me. The AI didn’t dream this into existence, but it may very well have performed 99.9% of the creative work, but the human provided the spark in the form of that instruction to do so. With nearly all creative works, I can appreciate the craft but also I don’t have to; I can just appreciate the output.

I hope you enjoy it!

Obligatory link to Ship of Harkinian for anyone else interested in playing or replaying OoT: https://www.shipofharkinian.com/