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The Full Legend of Zelda Timeline Revealed

By Ishaan . December 23, 2011 . 2:32pm

The Full Legend of Zelda Timeline Revealed

OK, this goes beyond the realm of simply remembering the games, and into the realm of understanding the consequences of each, so understanding some of these events will likely require you to spend a little time reading the Zelda Wiki. If you’re still interested, here’s the complete timeline for The Legend of Zelda series, as translated by Siliconera contributor, Aria, at her personal website, Glitterberri:

 

 

The Full Legend of Zelda Timeline Revealed

 

You can read an explanation of the some of the events that led to the timeline split (and A Link to the Past’s Imprisoning War) at Glitterberri as well, and take a look at a few pages of the Hyrule Historia encyclopedia via a video embedded on the site.

 

A Link to the Past image courtesy the Zelda Wiki.



  • http://twitter.com/DanijoEX DanijoEX

    This is just as good as it gets. At least it’s much clearer to understand now.

  • epy

    I still really dislike the idea of the Hero of Time being defeated. He is my favorite Link as, even though he’s a silent protagonist like all Links, his story of being really a

    SPOILER … I guess….

    Hylian and being raised as a Kokiri, never really fitting in but ultimately becoming the Hero that would battle evil across the ages. His relationship with Saria, Ruto and the rest of the Sages. His fateful ties with Zelda and Ganondorf. I dunno, maybe its because I played OoT way too much, but I feel this Link is really fleshed out. Also he’s voiced by the awesome Nobuyuki Hiyama as an adult.

    I would rather have that world where Ganon succeeded being the first world before the time skip that ended up with no Link to defend it (assuming the past world Link went back to is a different one due to the changes caused to the space continuum due to his time travelling as one of the posters here proposed) than him actually being defeated.

    tl;dr

    You damaged my childhood memories, Nintendo!

  • http://profiles.google.com/zferolie A.J. Ferolie

    I like this time line, it is easy to follow, and explains some things that happened outside the games. And After reading some other things, the 3 way split makes sense.

  • shion16

    The era of Decline: Zelda 2 : The adventure of link

    Everything makes sense again

    • http://twitter.com/ifarah12 Gren

      Zelda 2 was a pretty nice game, i don’t understand the dislike for it.

      • shion16

        Right its a nice game(it has some cool boss fights), but not as good as the original zelda

        • http://myanimelist.net/profile/Kuronoa Kuronoa

          I like the gameplay more in II.  Link to the Past is what really made I’s gameplay shine.
          I want another game like II. :(

          • http://twitter.com/Megawarrior345 Elle

            I completely agree. I remember having so much fun with II.

  • LaLaLaidarR

    I am completely satisfied with this explanation. We can pick the debating back up when nintendo releases the next zelda game and it shatters this timeline.

  • http://strictlyapathy.comoj.com/ SoulArbiter

    Makes a little more sense now.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Tim-Bustin/100002646117128 Tim Bustin

    This explains much. Now I know I prefer the games in the hyrule decline era. Please make another one there please Nintendo

  • http://tristsantithesis.tumblr.com/ Tsunayoshi Sawada

    So Ganondorf vanishes in the Wind Waker timeline area, thats odd, series main villain gone, though I thought he is supposed to always be around since he is, in OoT, forever a part of the triforce.

    • Göran Isacson

      Ah, but have you PLAYED the Wind Waker? Ganondorf is dealt with PRETTY DARN DECISIVELY in that game, and the games in that timeline don’t make use of the Triforce… at least, I can’t remember it playing any part in Spirit Tracks.

  • Göran Isacson

    Sooo if the failure timeline is what leads to a Link to the Past… how come the descendants of the sages in that game are all human girls, instead of one Goron girl, one Gerudo girl, a Kokiri girl, Zora girl, Sheikah girl and, well, one human girl since Rauru has to be in the game somewhere?

    At the moment, that is the one thing that sticks out in my mind. Apart from that, this is… pretty darn comprehensive. I do wonder what the failure in question is, however. Ganondorf kills Link? Time-travel mistake when you go back to take the Eye of Truth, as some speculate? Answers that simply lead to more questions!

    And to the people who want each game to be it’s own thing, heck- why not make a separate timeline for them all? If there can be three timelines, why can’t there be more? Timelines FOR EVERYBODY!

    EDIT: NO WAIT DISREGARD THAT FIRST STATEMENT. It just now struck me that the descendants in ALttP must of course be the descendants of the Hylian sages seen in Twilight Princess, who were presumably killed during the lost seven years of OoT forcing Link to traipse around the kingdom and awaken their successors.

    Man, solved my own question… where’s my No-Prize, Nintendo? Also, way to be ethnocentric there oh benevolent godesses >:| Is a non-Hylian only good enough in a last-resort situation, HMMMM?

    • Suicunesol

      “I do wonder what the failure in question is, however. Ganondorf kills Link?”

      Yes, he does. Remember in Ocarina of Time? Remember that time when you were fighting Ganon but you ran out of bottled fairies and you got a Game Over?

      Yeah, that time. If it’s in the game, it’s canon. :P

  • http://www.facebook.com/shawn.dickenson1 Shawn SomethingOtaku Dickenson

    my anime club went crazy over this lol

  • Omikuji

    Man… bad guys get revived a lot in Zelda don’t they. And… wait… everyone keeps reviving in the world of Zelda. They have a good reincarnation plan don’t they XD

    I never really thought all that much about this (Okay I never really cared in reality) , but I know a few Zelda friends of mine who are going to love all over this… hrn. I donno if I can believe they planned all the games to be connected and just tied it together for kicks.

    • pothier.adrien

      SPOILERS FOR SKYWARD SWORD

      SPOILERS

      Ganon is Demise’s hate incarnated over and over in an endless cycle.

      SPOILERS

      SPOILERS FOR SKYWARD SWORD

  • RoKKlauser

    this timeline is so fragile. Just as another person here said, as soon as another game comes out its going to shatter this timeline chart somehow XO

  • andref

    Though I can’t seem to figure out the whole defeated time line… could it possibly be the fact that the hero of time was sealed for seven years allowing ganon to reign without any opposition

  • Natat

    Well, it was about time really. It’s easy enough to understand as well.

  • ShadowWolf

    what the balls?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Nirun-Rangraengjit/100001072531722 Nirun Rangraengjit

    So the next game should be LoZ: Shattered Dimensions the Edge of Time. Where Link meets other links and work together to defeat… Ganvaatidorf…

    • Foxeh Jones

      i was thinking the same exact thing lol

  • Levin_Nova

    By “Hero of Time Defeated” they obviously mean he was mauled to death by Cuccos. This is cleary the best and most logical possibility, as Link should only killed by the one invincible threat that has always been looming over and inside Hyrule.

    Cuccos have been the true villians all along, manipulating everyone and everything, including the Goddess’s themselves. Everything plays right into their hands-err, claws, and those who cross them are immediately eliminated, regardless of their status.

    They know all and see all, nothing escapes them. They manipulate you with their own Agents, who works their way into the world and enter a number of powerful to useful positions, from Sages to politicians to mayors to horse tamers to pirates to Keese, and all inbetween, having supreme sight of all that occurs throughout the world.

    Tremble, citizens of Hyrule and lands beyond, for the Era of the Cuccos is near. The Grand Cucco Council will seize control of countless countries, dominating the trade routes and economies, elections and wars, all those resisting left to rot as pile of smoldering trash, to be buried under the sands of time.

    You WILL know true fear.

  • PrinceHeir

    awesome :D

    guess i’ll use this as a reference to which Zelda game i should play first :P

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Rudy-Soto/100001518601121 Rudy Soto

    You know, I kinda hate how they just revealed the official timeline. It added a good challenge to fans in coming up with their own theories, as well a air of mystery.
    And wasn’t Miyamoto against it because developers would try making Zelda games that would try to focus to reason with the timeline, instead of focusing on the quality?

    • kylehyde

      Unfortunately Miyamoto has not been in charge on the series during a long time, so the blame to the time-mess probably would be upon Eiji Aonuma

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Utku-Savaş/571425196 Utku Savaş

    How come Twilight Princess is in the Child Era? In the TP, Link was clearly not a child.

    • Levin_Nova

      The Child Era is where Link was sent back to at the end of Ocarina by Zelda (and removed from the Adult Era), which then proceeded to Majora’s Mask. Twilight Princess takes place 100 years after that and parallel to Wind Waker’s timeframe in the alternate timeline. It is called the Child Era because OoT Link got to live out his lost childhood in it.

      As said, he was removed from the Adult Era, and as mentioned in Wind Waker, lead to Hyrule having no Hero to combat the evil that attacked shortly there after, thus leading to the Goddess’s flooding the world and making the Great Sea. It is called Adult Era because it is the timeline where Link spent his short time as an adult before being removed from it.

      I hope that makes things a little clearer, if I didn’t screw anything up.

  • riceisnice

    Uhh… Okay! So in the beginning there was sky. Then the sky turned into Skyward Sword and transformed into a tiny hat. The hat then splits into 3 different hatlets and like Ganon Dorf dies at some point and tries to come back alive in like almost every game. So the main focus of this entire series is to make sure Ganon Dorf stays dead for a change.

  • Draparde

    Hmmm, This actually makes me wanna play more zelda games. (starting with Skyward sword!) 

  • http://otoboku.se manga

    At the beginning there was no timeline. All was good.

    Now there is a timeline and everyone is just ?_? and at ease.

    I´d rather stick with the old saying that there isn´t any direct timeline between the games :p

    • http://www.facebook.com/keishenra Kyle D. Johnson

      But why cling to that notion when the reality is that the timeline is canon? I mean, it doesn’t get much more official than straight from the developer.

      • http://otoboku.se manga

        As I remember it which can be wrong it was the developer themselves that said that there were no timeline and that all the zelda games did not belong in the same timeline.

        • http://www.facebook.com/keishenra Kyle D. Johnson

          I remember that too, but from a long time back. They’ve since changed their minds, and the timeline is now the current reality. If they decide to Retcon, and just throw it out the window, then that will be the reality. But until then, you can say it shouldn’t be connected, but you’d just be denying reality.

        • James Beatty

          They have never said that. They said that they didn’t want to reveal the timeline and that there are branching paths. 

  • http://twitter.com/Xander_VJ David García Abril

    Sigh…

    Really, Nintendo?

    Of all the possibilities you could take, you took the one that made less sense.

    The Hero of Time defeated?

    Seriously people. REALLY think about it.

    It’s just utterly stupid!

    Besides, why it splits in “Ocarina of Time” and not in any other game? What would happen if the hero would fail in any other story?

    • http://twitter.com/GameGodZER0 Ben Sylvia

      Don’t worry, we’ll probably have more Zelda games that take place in alternate futures where some Link was defeated.

      Just give them time.

    • Testsubject909

      What about a link to the past or any other Zelda that makes use of some alternate reality?

      That should cause more divergences in the space time continuum and cause multiple other realities and timelines.

    • Joanna

      Yeah I don’t like this three way split either…but what can you do?
      Also I find is so ironic that ALttP’s prequel was OoT (as advertised by Nintendo themselves no less), yet ALttP only happens when the stuff in Ocarina doesn’t happen. Funny how things work out in the end. Also it kind of looks like Aonuma is isolating all of Miyamoto’s games in one split to tidy it up to me. (Which ironically doesn’t quite tidy it up in the end….It’s been a while but I seem to recall that Oracle/Season’s Zelda didn’t seem to know Link and that was the reason most people had trouble placing the game in the timeline…the most reasonable theory I read placed it after Zelda II with an entirely new Link to explain that little quirk. They also used other interesting arguments, like the triforce being in the castle and whole). Anyway, my point is that while this timeline makes sense in general, it still has a few shortcomings, but I’ll accept it for what it is because it’s the official timeline now and I guess Nintendo is going to be using it for future games? Or at least I hope so if they have gone to the trouble of making this public….

  • http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=2704923 Buntar0

    …that’s why I like self contained stories.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kevin-Schwarz/100002325567790 Kevin Schwarz

    I can see the timeline going to heck once a new zelda comes out :

    • Xerain

      Or maybe we’ll finally get a Sequel to Zelda II.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kevin-Schwarz/100002325567790 Kevin Schwarz

        That would break the circle, and make Nintendo awesome again, I daresay.

  • http://twitter.com/Megawarrior345 Elle

    I guess I should play something besides A Link To The Past to understand this.

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