Nerdology • The Zelda Timeline Kotaku is reporting that the...

The Zelda Timeline

Kotaku is reporting that the upcoming Zelda art book (an officially licensed Nintendo product) contains the actual Legend of Zelda timeline.

Note that the “split” is due to Ocarina’s time differences and assumptions based on different ways that story could have ended and branched off from his two ages: the Link to the Past split is Link failing, the Majora’s split is Link defeating canon and branching off from his boyhood and the Wind Waker split is Link defeating Ganon and branching from his older years.

So, yeah, that suggests not only alternate universes, but two parallel universes spinning off the same single outcome.

Alright, you had me for about 3 seconds. As a time travel connoisseur I can agree that based on how Ocarina of Time ends there were two time lines (like 1985 and 1985A in Back to the Future 2). Where older Zelda lives in a world that has been war torn and younger Zelda grows up with Link. In that timeline Link quickly falls into the Majora’s Mask story.

But why split it again and claim Wind Waker came from Ocarina? Too much happens between (either) ending of Ocarina and the events of Wind Waker. The entire land had been flooded and people have already adapted to a new way of life. No way that happens shortly after Ocarina.

Personally I agree with the GameTrailers split timeline theory from part six of the 20th Anniversary Zelda retrospective (the whole series is VERY good watch it). The video is from 5 years ago, so there are some games not in the timeline, but it’s easy to see where they would fit.

Another reason why I like the GameTrailers theory is because of this:

In issue 165 of Nintndo Power Eigi Aonuma who was the assistant director on Ocerina and directed Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess and Phantom Hourglass said “If you think back to the end of Ocarina of Time, there were two endings in that game in different time periods. First Link defeated Ganon as an adult and then he actually went back to being a child. You could say that The Wind Waker takes place 100 years after the ending in which Link was an adult.”

Aonuma (for at least a little while) places Wind Waker well after Ocarina.

Regardless of my agreement or not, I’m excited to know that there actually may be an official timeline. I can’t wait to see the book for myself.