Topic: Zelda: Breath of the Wild Timeline Placement

[John Rairdin]

John attempts to find reason in chaos.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/video/42888/zelda-breath-of-the-wild-timeline-placement

After digging through the recent footage of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild I managed to come up with my own theory for its placement in the timeline. It is of course far from definitive but I think it fits nicely with what we know of this new game thus far. I'd love to hear your own timeline theories in the comments as well.

Before the video I'd like to make a few quick notes on my interpretation of Zelda history.I follow the official Nintendo timeline and view each Legend of Zelda as just that, a legend. The world is not consistent because the stories are passed down through generations of oral traditions, and details may be lost. This comes into play when referencing the geography of Hyrule. Lake Hylia and Death Mountain remain in mostly the same place though can be seen to move slightly north or south between games. There are other details of the layout of Hyrule, however, that can be seen to change. The Temple of Time is ruined in the forest when we see it in Twilight Princess rather than inside Castle Town as it was in Ocarina of Time. If we know the temple didn't move then we can assume that Castle Town was laid to ruin at the same time the temple was, and that a new town was built later.

At certain points the games make references to specific amounts of time passing. For example, the "Hero of Men" lived 100 years before Minish Cap, A Link Between Worlds takes place multiple hundreds of years after A Link to the Past, and the Link in Breath of the Wild has been asleep for 100 years. I generally interpret these statements as, "A lot of time passed." I do this for two reasons. Firstly as I said before these are Legends, and details like these are subject to romanticism and hyperbole on the part of the teller. Secondly these units of time are meaningless as we have no context for them. How long is a Hylian year? How long is the Hylian lifespan? 100 years could in our terms equate to a millennium or two weeks. With that in mind I won't use these units of time to come to any concrete conclusions.

[TOPHATANT123]

That line about Hyrule in decline seems like pretty hard evidence for the Hyrule decline timeline.

[kokumaker]

I think it's in the distant future, post-Wind Waker. After the oceans have receded. The world seems vast, empty; sparsely populated. And yet there is a distinctly sci-fi flavor to some of the goings-on. It feels right to me, but we'll see!

[ShyGuy]

I don't know why I love these Zelda timeline theories so much, but I do!

[Bman87301]

One thing still bothers me about ALttP's ending-- it clearly says "the Master Sword sleeps again... FOREVER!"
Yet, the Master Sword WAS used again in the same timeline for ALBW. That seems like a pretty big mistake that could have easily been avoided if they had simply had you obtain its Lorulean equivalent instead. The point is, the story and timeline placements are complete afterthoughts. Chances are any patterns you find linking similarities to Hylian/Gerudo text, geography, etc. are completely random, and not by the design of the developers. Therefore, something in the final game will most likely end up contradicting everything you think you've pieced together.

[Shecky]

I've always held that the 100 years used in many of the games is not a lot of time for a "legend", but agree that they almost seem to imply a longer time that obfuscates the story to legend.  Now a 100 generations is long enough to make a poorly documented story "legend".

Also, it would be impossible to explain differences in game time to Earth time without breaking the 4th wall.  Not to mention that OoT has a "normal" amount of time passing from child to adult link, so it seems like the scale should be similar.

I honestly think "100 years" is just a running reference/joke in the Zelda franchise.  Possibly originating from a poor translation or a proper translation from a young developer who thought 100 years was a long time

And at the end of the day, Nintendo's team likes to take these references, along with any other characters and IP's (like the Koroks) and play loosely with them.  It has always been a loose coupling.  Similar to how you can always pick the name - the past and future of any one game can be left to the imagination of the player.  Each is free to envision it how they like and connect whatever games they like.

As just like Adrock pointed out in this thread, the "official timeline" was almost a consolation prize from Nintendo... One way of connecting the dots, because everyone was demanding it, and because no one could agree that it was just loosely coupled since the second game

[Caterkiller]

The logic behind this time line theory is pretty sound and the best I heard so far.


Remember back in the N64 days we were always trying to figure out some sort of dumb time line? I feel like at the time Miyamoto wrote off some sort of time line and it was only until much later that they created something which I assumed was due to shoe horning what ever they wanted where ever they wanted. But listening to all of this I'm actually a little more intrigued with the whole Zelda lore right now. I've got Hyrule Historia, so maybe it's time I open it up and read through it for more than 20 minutes.


Other M, Sonic Heroes and Resident Evil 0 were the games that made me look down on and lose hope for all video game stories. And not because they are told badly with rough acting(because I think they all sound pretty good) but because the writers can't keep their ship together with plot holes and inconsistencies everywhere. The only series I can look at with no fears is Ecco The Dolphine(1&2). Though I'm sure there is some jacked up inconsistencies in there as well with Ecco Jr but don't tell me!

[Shecky]

And at the end of the day, Nintendo's team likes to take these references, along with any other characters and IP's (like the Koroks) and play loosely with them.  It has always been a loose coupling.  Similar to how you can always pick the name - the past and future of any one game can be left to the imagination of the player.  Each is free to envision it how they like and connect whatever games they like.

As just like Adrock pointed out in this thread, the "official timeline" was almost a consolation prize from Nintendo... One way of connecting the dots, because everyone was demanding it, and because no one could agree that it was just loosely coupled since the second game

Finally beat BOTW ... these games are best played if you don't get hung up in timelines.... I wonder how much bickering there will be for BOTW's "placement"