Posted by jsomau 9 hours ago
Nintendo’s own timeline is the authority here (Hyrule Historia and their chronicle page). The fun part was rethinking how to visualize it. It branches at the end of Ocarina into three eras depending on whether Link wins or loses, so each era is its own thread on the cloth. The threads meet again much later with Breath of the Wild.
I had a lot of help from Claude. I’d often thought about building things like this but never found the time between the day job and the rest of life.
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.
It's pretty clear that the cyclic nature is a part of the story.
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/
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...
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
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.)
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
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...
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?"
Still, it's fun to try to figure out how the puzzle pieces might fit together even though they came out of different boxes.
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.
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.
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.
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!