For years the mere mention of a The Legend of Zelda timeline was a source of great controversy. Nintendo had teased such a timeline existed, but fans couldn’t agree on how any of it fit together, and many declared the whole timeline thing a fraud.
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Eventually Nintendo broke down and revealed the full, official timeline in the 2011’s Hyrule Historia collector’s book, but that didn’t eliminate the controversy. And now we have The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to deal with, which further confuses things.
For those unfamiliar with the Zelda timeline, it’s fairly straightforward up until The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, at which point Link’s time travelling screws everything up, splitting the timeline into three branches.
Breath of the Wild further throws things into disarray, as the game seems to have elements from all three branches. Did Nintendo just decide to toss out the branching timeline? Or add a new branch? Or does Breath of the Wild take place before the Ocarina of Time split? It’s enough to give you a headache. If you want to puzzle it out for yourself, you pore over the full timeline (as of 2011), below.
Well, GameRant recently asked Breath of the Wild director Hidemaro Fujibayashi about the timeline, and, surprisingly, he actually gave a small hint as to where the game may lie…
“It takes place in an age long, long after any of the titles released to date. It is the most recent age. And because of this we believe players will be able to easily immerse themselves in the game. Of course, regardless of the time period, the story does unfold in Hyrule so for those who’ve played other titles in the series there will be a lot of recognizable places to enjoy.”
Okay, so it’s the most “recent” Zelda game to date. That’s something! But what does this means for the split timeline? Some have speculated Breath of the Wild is a follow-up to Wind Waker, but there’s plenty that contradicts that. I don’t know the answer, and I have a feeling Nintendo might not either.
You can check out WWG’s latest The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild coverage here, and our extensive back catalog of stories, right here.
[via GameRant]
