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Zelda's entire timeline was created retroactively, right? Surely Nintendo didn't have either a grand plan or even a plan for each game?

The first 5-6 games were always advertised and spoken as sequels and prequels to eachother....it was Wind Waker that kinda tossed a wrench into things..and then people started writing crazy fan theories.

The realities is by the time Wind Waker came along it was just nintendo trying to retell the same story in different ways.

You can ignore the timeline stuff except the directly connected ones and just think of it as an ancient legend that gets told in different ways with the truth somewhere inbetween.

honestly id just like a direct sequel to Zelda 2..... I feel like prequels ruin the mystery , especially origin stories. It makes the ancient stuff more interesting when it hasnt been all layed out for you. Having the godess story be literal kinda limits where you can take the myths of the past. Its time for Link to get the hell out of Hyrule and go see the world again


,,,,also he finally needs to bang zelda
 

Holammer

Member
Nope, no plan. Years later internet weirdos tried to make sense of it all and Nintendo went "suuuuuuure".
Now it's all part of a cyclic and oddly specific pre-deterministic universe.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
eRAda3V.jpg
 

Soodanim

Member
Remember this, we always thought it was just magic but skyward sword made it clear that the original Hyrule was actually a technological place, just like the sheikah are the guards of that tech in breath of the wild. The time travel is explained in skyward sword with the timeshift stones so it's safe to assume most of those items are made with that tech.



1717c1a9b24fce6e5d584f1293934bc3f4024ecb_hq.gif
I suppose you could theorise that the OOT was a Sheikah creation, but I think it’s more likely to be a divine creation. The Song of Time being passed down through the Royal Family could mean because the Sheikah served them, but I think it’s more likely that it’s because Zelda is the Goddess Hylia. Hylia gave the dragons the parts of the song, which means that’s always been her thing. She made the Master Sword, so it’s feasible she could have made the OOT. All of that was passed down because of her reincarnation stuff.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
Yup but it’s still just new story’s with the same characters… they just say it’a decedents so basically none of it matters.
 

Notabueno

Banned
Nintendo are game design geniuses, I wouldn't be surprised that some of it (not all) was indeed "pre-planned".

But there's also a huge lot of retconning which is very important in the age franchises consolidation and streamlining.
 
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Chastten

Banned
Zelda's timeline is about as important as Mario's is. I really don't understand why fans are all worked up about it 'having to fit'. And I don't think Nintendo cares either. They just made it to please some annoying fans.

They just focus on creating an entertaining game that loosely fits into the Zelda universe and is recognizable enough as such.
 

trikster40

Member
I can't see the point in wanting to create a time-line for a series where the main events of each game are exactly the same.
And welcome to Nintendo’s writing department! It’s great to have you! Our “elf-like boy saves land and Princess from bad guy” team is currently full.

Do you want to be on the “Mario saves Peach from Bowser” team, or perhaps the “Soace woman shooting aliens” team?

It’s a good thing Nintendo always has solid gameplay.
 

Sentenza

Member
Zelda's "timeline" is all retconned bullshit, from top to end.

It started with a bunch of lunatic fans sperging out at the realization that every game was basically a soft reboot and a retelling of the same hero journey, deciding that they didn't like it and trying very hard to find a "continuity" in the franchise, in an attempt to fit the round piece into the squared hole.
At first they started genuinely grasping at straws and taking ANY minor nudge to a past title or cross reference as "evidence of the same timeline", until at some point someone at Nintendo said "Hey, take a load of these idiots" and decided to pander to their desires in some half-hearted/half-assed way.

This is why the "timeline" was somewhat "canonized" over time, except the whole fucking thing made so little sense that they had to come up with the SPLITTED TIMELINE with a bunch of diverging points. Hilarity ensued.
Except if you are a Nintendo fan and take that shit seriously. At that point it becomes just sad.
 
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Not retroactively - for the most part - but nothing resembling a grand plan either.

Basically when they start a developing a game they think where it would fit in the timeline and throw it there. But it's a case of form follows function, not the other way around, so in reality It's not like they had a timeline with a diagram on the wall and it doesn't have to make a lot of sense.

In the beginning this was very vague and basically: Zelda II is a sequel to Zelda I, Link's Awakening is a sequel to LttP. LttP happens before Zelda II because Zelda I and II because II finished the story. Not much confusion there.

Then it came "OoT happens before Link's to the Past" this makes sense because the prologue in LttP speaks of a war, and in OoT those were the events they were going for. This is the thought process a lot, Because Ocarina of Time ended up not having that war, Twilight Princess when unveiled was to take place as a third game after OoT and Majora Mask, where the imprisioning war was to take place - but then they added the wolf mechanic and it didn't fit anymore so they made it a thousand years afterwards and made the Hero of Time a ghost - which was a short time for all the differences introduced but hey, (and again) form follows function.

What was novel was the concept of different Link's and Different Zelda's, but obviously, Link NES-era, Link SNES-era and finally Link N64-era weren't the same person from the very beginning - seeing it has Legend in the name these could all have happened instead of being "reboots". It's an interesting viable solution even if on a continuity scale it doesn't amount to much.

I would say the stories are not always the same though or that there is no mastery in a Zelda plot, as the plot devices and circumstances change a little and they are usually very well written. Through repetition you get some good character development for Ganonforf for instance, which is the only reason he is actually a good villain.
Im 90% certain nintendo made it up after revealing wind waker as the game got alot of hate for its art style at the time it was revealed
No because you had Koizumi. Aonuma and Miyamoto are tools in that sense, they never wanted a timeline/never cared and actually probably acted against it. But for a team developing a concept it's important and it was basically inevitable.
 
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I don't think there is a precise timeline. Maybe some nods between games, but that's it.

Zelda is a kind of a recurring dream: the story repeats itself with slight variations. The most important part is the differences between gameplay.
There is though. The whole alternate timelines depending if Link lives or dies in Ocarina of Time etc. That's all "official" now, but it's clear Nintendo pulled that out of their ass years later.
 

Rran

Member
For the first 15 years or so, Zelda had a pretty consistent and straightforward story, and the games actually did connect in a cohesive way. Ganon dies in Zelda 1. Zelda 2 took place a few years after Zelda 1, with Ganon on the verge of reviving if Link didn't intervene. Since Ganon didn't come back, ALttP was a prequel taking place centuries earlier, featuring Ganon(dorf)'s first acquisition of the Triforce and turning into his beast form. Link's Awakening was a side story that took place right after ALttP.

Ocarina was a prequel to all of that, describing the origins of the Triforce and setting in motion the idea that the three main characters have the pieces within them. Majora's Mask was another side story immediately after OoT. Wind Waker took place at least 100 years after OoT and directly referenced it several times (some of the coolest lore-based stuff in the series, IMO). With me so far?

As much as I like Wind Waker, the problems started there. I distinctly remember a Nintendo Power Aonuma interview where he mentioned that Wind Waker took place after the adult timeline of OoT. I thought this was an odd choice that took away from the stakes of the plot.

More problems showed up with Twilight Princess, although to be honest it's been so long since I played it I don't really remember why it felt kind of shoehorned into the overall story. But it was yet another game wedged between OoT and LttP and the whole "Ganon shows up, Link stops him" thing was getting to be pretty repetitive by that point, storywise.

To account for all the little inconsistencies about Ganon's movement and the Triforce's locations, Nintendo apparently felt like they had to split the timeline into THREE. One after OoT's adult timeline (when Link disappeared from being sent back), one after OoT's child timeline (when Link was sent back), and...one where Link loses to Ganon in OoT???

This third one is especially bizarre, as it implies that any particular action will split the timeline into different parts, leading to trillions of timelines out there. Why does the purely hypothetical situation of Link losing to Ganon in OoT lead to like six other games? Why stop there? How about a timeline where Link sneezes in the Fire Temple, or fails to kill an errant Keese that ends up taking over the world?

In short, it wasn't retroactively made up entirely; the history of Zelda was originally at least somewhat planned, was a source of cool Easter eggs, and made enough sense, but it eventually got way too convoluted and crazy.
 

John Bilbo

Member
There is though. The whole alternate timelines depending if Link lives or dies in Ocarina of Time etc. That's all "official" now, but it's clear Nintendo pulled that out of their ass years later.
Yeah one can say there is, but for me there isn't enough substantial evidence in the games I've played to consider or care about an official timeline, even if pulled out of their ass by Nintendo. Death of the author and all that.
 
Yeah one can say there is, but for me there isn't enough substantial evidence in the games I've played to consider or care about an official timeline, even if pulled out of their ass by Nintendo. Death of the author and all that.
Evidence? The owner of the franchise says "this is cannon" than it's cannon.

You may think it's db, bad story-telling, retconned, etc, but it doesn't matter. It's cannon, because the Zelda creators say it's cannon.
 
As much as I like Wind Waker, the problems started there. I distinctly remember a Nintendo Power Aonuma interview where he mentioned that Wind Waker took place after the adult timeline of OoT. I thought this was an odd choice that took away from the stakes of the plot.
I think up to this point it makes sense.

It's very hung on Ocarina of Time but that's the whole divide, you had the adult timeline that was basically ravaged and ceased having the Chosen Hero, because he traveled back. Ganon will always break the seal (says as much in OoT while being sealed) question is how long. If the seal lasted less than a chosen hero lifespan then there would be no one to stop him so the goddesses had to intervene and... well, they basically wanted to do a Zelda game in an ocean.

There seems to be a Murphy Law in the Zelda universe that says "if the hero of Hyrule goes away for some reason shit will happen" because it always does.

I think with the flooding they were trying to explain/suggest why Hyrule maps change so much, but that part doesn't get across all that right/wasn't picked on by newer games so just adds some nuance. The story is still very interesting, and the last one where Koizumi had a lot of influence, I liked where he was going for the most part.
More problems showed up with Twilight Princess, although to be honest it's been so long since I played it I don't really remember why it felt kind of shoehorned into the overall story. But it was yet another game wedged between OoT and LttP and the whole "Ganon shows up, Link stops him" thing was getting to be pretty repetitive by that point, storywise.
Yeah. Twilight Princess started as a Ocarina of Time sequel, so they were kinda stuck to it. The whole connection feels a bit forced in hindsight and some of the plot seemingly went from being contemporary to the game to being what happened before the game which is always problematic. It's too tied to Ocarina of Time, so it feels like a form of fan service in lots of things, like howling Ocarina of Time songs. :messenger_frowning_

Plot device is the same. They either executed Ganon during Majora Mask or after "if" the Hero of Time didn't come back to Hyrule or died prematurely in the Lost Woods (as is also implied). So they tried to execute him and instead seal him. Same proposition "he'll always break free eventually" comes to play, shit happens.

It's convoluted because it doesn't help pacing on a game that already had pacing problems. Having Ganon in was clearly important to them.
This third one is especially bizarre, as it implies that any particular action will split the timeline into different parts, leading to trillions of timelines out there. Why does the purely hypothetical situation of Link losing to Ganon in OoT lead to like six other games? Why stop there? How about a timeline where Link sneezes in the Fire Temple, or fails to kill an errant Keese that ends up taking over the world?
"That" timeline is basically a form of recycle bin.

They don't know what to do with the first 4 Zeldas (plus Oracle of Ages/Seasons) at this point and they want them not to be canon. so they throw them in there. It's not elegant I agree (marginally better than saying "not-canon" but not by much), but I understand why they did it I just wouldn't do it that way.

What I never understood is why then, put Minish Cap after Skyward Sword, why is that game more canon than Oracle of Ages/Seasons. The only explanation I have is that Aonuma liked it better because of the Wind Waker artwork aesthetic.
 
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Trogdor1123

Member
I’m on team timeline. I like the idea of there being some kind of connected timeline. I wish there was more to it though. It should mean something rather than just be an exercise to connect the games.
 

brian0057

Banned
I don't care.
The existence of the timeline doesn't weigh on my enjoyment of the games.
It's like the Star Wars OT. Does it really matter whether George planned the trilogy from the start or made it up as he went along?

Also, APOLOGIZE!

George-Lucas-Artist-Main-1-1.jpg
 

Sentenza

Member
Evidence? The owner of the franchise says "this is cannon" than it's cannon.

You may think it's db, bad story-telling, retconned, etc, but it doesn't matter. It's cannon, because the Zelda creators say it's cannon.
First things first, the word you are looking for is "canon". A cannon is a heavy piece of artillery or a siege weapon.

Second, they actually went on record saying something that sounded pretty close to "We never really cared about it", before caving in to the fanbase's mass hysteria and deciding to start making shit up on the spot.
 

Shut0wen

Member
Not retroactively - for the most part - but nothing resembling a grand plan either.

Basically when they start a developing a game they think where it would fit in the timeline and throw it there. But it's a case of form follows function, not the other way around, so in reality It's not like they had a timeline with a diagram on the wall and it doesn't have to make a lot of sense.

In the beginning this was very vague and basically: Zelda II is a sequel to Zelda I, Link's Awakening is a sequel to LttP. LttP happens before Zelda II because Zelda I and II because II finished the story. Not much confusion there.

Then it came "OoT happens before Link's to the Past" this makes sense because the prologue in LttP speaks of a war, and in OoT those were the events they were going for. This is the thought process a lot, Because Ocarina of Time ended up not having that war, Twilight Princess when unveiled was to take place as a third game after OoT and Majora Mask, where the imprisioning war was to take place - but then they added the wolf mechanic and it didn't fit anymore so they made it a thousand years afterwards and made the Hero of Time a ghost - which was a short time for all the differences introduced but hey, (and again) form follows function.

What was novel was the concept of different Link's and Different Zelda's, but obviously, Link NES-era, Link SNES-era and finally Link N64-era weren't the same person from the very beginning - seeing it has Legend in the name these could all have happened instead of being "reboots". It's an interesting viable solution even if on a continuity scale it doesn't amount to much.

I would say the stories are not always the same though or that there is no mastery in a Zelda plot, as the plot devices and circumstances change a little and they are usually very well written. Through repetition you get some good character development for Ganonforf for instance, which is the only reason he is actually a good villain.

No because you had Koizumi. Aonuma and Miyamoto are tools in that sense, they never wanted a timeline/never cared and actually probably acted against it. But for a team developing a concept it's important and it was basically inevitable.
The team never developed the timeline and in the zelda book it is stated that they developed the timeline by bringing certain enemys and characters back from previous entries and officially established it when wind waker came out, again my theory was for the pissed off fans at the time of wind waker being revealed
 

IFireflyl

Gold Member
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

Nintendo should just reboot the Zelda series. Establish a totally different and unique timeline that is not tied at all to the current games. Start out with an origin story, and have each follow-up game be connected in a way that is super easy to see that they are sequels. Make brand new baddies as well. Don't re-use old enemies as that will just confuse people. And tell people up front that this is what they're doing so people don't try to link (heh heh) the reboot to the old games.

This is just my opinion of course. I don't see the harm in handling it this way, and it would make it easier for new Zelda players to understand what's going on as they would have a set order for the games that would have an obvious continuation (like the non-spinoff Halo games do).
 

Majukun

Member
they had an hazy idea on where some of the episode are related to each other, but nothing on paper yeah
 

tkscz

Member
After LTTP I'd say it was planned.

Remember, LTTP was always said to be a prequel to the first game and OoT a prequel to that (to the point where LTTP pretty much tells you the entire story of OoT). Even mentions the knight losing to Ganon and the wisemen had to seal the dark world away.
Wind Waker was also always said to be a sequel to the adult time line and Twilight Princess to the child.

It just wasn't a focus until we fans started making a stink about it.
 

John Bilbo

Member
Evidence? The owner of the franchise says "this is cannon" than it's cannon.
Let's say Donald Trump buys the Zelda franchise and says Link has always been Jesus and Zelda has always been that homeless lady from Home Alone 2. Would you care? If so, why?
You may think it's db, bad story-telling, retconned, etc, but it doesn't matter. It's cannon, because the Zelda creators say it's cannon.
The creators of Zelda can say in every Zelda game the sky is green and every sword is actually a penis in hiding for all I care. If they cannot make a substantial enough of an argument based on the content of the games themselves, I don't care. The content decides, not the creator.

If the creator wants to express something through their content, they better have enough substance to back their claims. Otherwise they have failed to convey their message as a creator of a story.
 

SCB3

Member
Its pretty much a retelling of the same story

Ganon, Link Zelda - All linked to each triangle in the Triforce, Ganon always wins the first fight and then is defeated later, how you get to that end is always different though, only BotW is different in that regard

The only exceptions to this are the side games like Links Awakening
 
I don't think anyone ever called Zelda's story good, it's not Planescape or Xenogears level is it?
I'd say it's different. Different scale and goal.

Ocarina of Time and Majora Mask were in a class of their own as far as minimalistic text coupled with a silent protagonist goes. That poses limitations, which is why most games these days opt out of that, but those limitations can be taken advantage of for a grand effect.

Focus is taken out of the character and becomes how others characters treat the protagonist, or what happens with characters around the character that mimic the character existential dilemmas. It also puts more focus on facial animation and gestures. If done right it's a good exercise and one that only games can pull. I think it's a shame not more of them do these days, and when they do they don't push boundaries.

But the games you mentioned wouldn't be the same, and would in fact be worse, if done with this ethos. On the flipside, OoT and Majora Mask would be worse games if done like that, not enough to go with.
 
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Rodolink

Member
I think that changed after how the community started creating so many theories about the characters and connections between the games, eventually deciding to make an "official" take with Hyrule Historia which didn't work that well. Now they're trapped in pure nonsense.
In the beginning of course nobody planned ahead so much of the universe true not only for Zelda but most games overall. But now I think they actually do as best they can xD
 

Soodanim

Member
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

Nintendo should just reboot the Zelda series. Establish a totally different and unique timeline that is not tied at all to the current games. Start out with an origin story, and have each follow-up game be connected in a way that is super easy to see that they are sequels. Make brand new baddies as well. Don't re-use old enemies as that will just confuse people. And tell people up front that this is what they're doing so people don't try to link (heh heh) the reboot to the old games.

This is just my opinion of course. I don't see the harm in handling it this way, and it would make it easier for new Zelda players to understand what's going on as they would have a set order for the games that would have an obvious continuation (like the non-spinoff Halo games do).
I'm under the impression that the intention of Breath of the Wild being at minimum 10,100 years after any other game is to be a soft reboot, leaving the timelines behind so that the series can move forward and away from them. I've seen people guess that the many references to games from different timelines is a suggestion that there's some sort of destiny for all timelines to merge.
 

Woopah

Member
Every single game in that series is a remake. What do you think? It's incredible they even attempted to create a timeline.
The majority of the games directly reference events in other games. They are prequels or sequels, not remakes.
Well anything can be explained when you quite literally say "it's not the same link" or "it's a different timeline".

I mean lmao how is that not the most obvious sign that they have no clue and are making shit up on the fly.
It makes sense when they plan almost every game to have a new Link or be a Link from a previous game. In the vast majority of cases that is not something they decide afterwards.
Kinda weird there is a "Hero Fails" timeline after OOT. AFAIK, there is no bad ending in OOT. So that whole timeline assumes you never finished the game?

Not only that but most of the other games, including the original, are based on that assumption.

Also, isn't the "Child Timeline" the same as "Hero Fails"? You can only kill the last boss in OOT as an adult and it doesn't let you play after that so you can go back in time. Which means in the child timeline Ganon was never defeated in OOT.
Zelda's "timeline" is all retconned bullshit, from top to end.

It started with a bunch of lunatic fans sperging out at the realization that every game was basically a soft reboot and a retelling of the same hero journey, deciding that they didn't like it and trying very hard to find a "continuity" in the franchise, in an attempt to fit the round piece into the squared hole.
At first they started genuinely grasping at straws and taking ANY minor nudge to a past title or cross reference as "evidence of the same timeline", until at some point someone at Nintendo said "Hey, take a load of these idiots" and decided to pander to their desires in some half-hearted/half-assed way.

This is why the "timeline" was somewhat "canonized" over time, except the whole fucking thing made so little sense that they had to come up with the SPLITTED TIMELINE with a bunch of diverging points. Hilarity ensued.
Except if you are a Nintendo fan and take that shit seriously. At that point it becomes just sad.
The timeline splitting into 2 after Ocarina of Time makes perfect sense. Adult time after you beat Ganon in battle, Child timeline after Link goes back in time and prevents Ganondorf from entering the sacred realm in the first place

The third, retconed "Hero Falls" timeline was their answer to the problem with the story changes to Ocarina of Time. Originally the game was planned as a prequel to LttP, set in the Imprisoning War. But in the end the story changed so much during development that it no longer worked as a LttP prequel.


Im 90% certain nintendo made it up after revealing wind waker as the game got alot of hate for its art style at the time it was revealed so yes the whole timeline is bullshit but i do think with every game thats came out after wind waker is connected in someway the rest isnt but ninte do will say otherwise, especially with twilight princess having the hero of time teach link moves and with skyward sword being the prequel to all the zelda games
The timeline existed ever since they made Zelda II and set it four years after the original game. It wasn't something created for Wind Waker.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
But seriously, thinking a bunch of Japanese 20-somethings had this grand vision of a saga spanning 35 years of gaming when they programmed the first two Zelda games in 1986-87 is beyond crazy. Timelines and the inevitable retconning that comes with them are mostly due to rabid nerds wanting to find sense and continuity in something that doesn’t have anything of the sort. Every Zelda game between Zelda 2 and Majora ‘s Mask was basically the same template with the simplest of plots attached to it, with enough differences from previous iterations so you could say it wasn’t literally the same game.
 

Rat Rage

Member
Nobody gives a shit about the story in Legend of Zelda games. People play them for the gameplay, the dungeons & puzzles and the amazing artstyle and music (IMHO)

That's not to say the stories and the narrative style of them are bad. I actually enjoy the way these stories are told - in a simple, effective, fairy-tail-like way, but things like "timeline" and whatnot were never of any interest to me.
 

Astral Dog

Member
obviously its all made on the go, Zelda is not about some big epic interconnected narrative plan with an end, the gameplay will always be more important than the timeline shenanigans wich are mostly for fanservice

However, that doesn’t mean Nintendo overlooks the details, at least since the time of Windwaker and Twilight Princess there has been an effort to explain the timeline, since the 3D and 2D games are vastly different, so they settled on simply give us alternate events, Twilight Princess is a 'what if' of Ocarina of Time, while the Wind Waker is a sequel set in the far future, A Link to the Past is a sequel as well, but with the 'what if' the Hero lost

Miyamoto would prefer to not overcomplicate things and keep the same story going on (closer to Mario) , but the timeline is for the fans and give the series a loosely connected theme (so you play all the games)
 
I get the sense that they put some thought in it. Intro to windwaker and some clues sprinkled around BOTW certainly imply that they have a rough framework for the series. But it’s clear that they are far more concerned with telling a focused story, than building an expanded universe.
 

Fare thee well

Neophyte
I couldn't care less about the Zelda timeline. It's just a recreated story using common themes and archetypes. The magic is in the variation of puzzles, combat, dungeons, themes, etc. Sure, you could use paper clips and bubblegum to string together some insane notion of continuity that was never planned from the start, but don't lose your mind when keeping track waxes more absurd with each new game 🤪.

I personally like this nebulous template with mythical connections through past and future. I'd enjoy it less if I tried to definie every precise feature of linearity.
 

Lunarorbit

Member
I still haven't opened my hostoria or hyrule book. It's just been sitting on my shelf for 2 years in some plastic wrap.

Thanks for the reminder. Gonna check that out tonight.
 

Shut0wen

Member
The majority of the games directly reference events in other games. They are prequels or sequels, not remakes.

It makes sense when they plan almost every game to have a new Link or be a Link from a previous game. In the vast majority of cases that is not something they decide afterwards.


The timeline splitting into 2 after Ocarina of Time makes perfect sense. Adult time after you beat Ganon in battle, Child timeline after Link goes back in time and prevents Ganondorf from entering the sacred realm in the first place

The third, retconed "Hero Falls" timeline was their answer to the problem with the story changes to Ocarina of Time. Originally the game was planned as a prequel to LttP, set in the Imprisoning War. But in the end the story changed so much during development that it no longer worked as a LttP prequel.



The timeline existed ever since they made Zelda II and set it four years after the original game. It wasn't something created for Wind Waker.
It was publicly announced when WW was near enough finished


Again this was stop fan hate of WW for at the time fans slated it because of the art style so nintendo made up a whole timeline, there is no way in hell nintendo had conceived this plan from the very start, i love ninte do but they really dont give a shit about there consumers never mind a timeline
 

Gifmaker

Member
They probably had some idea of which game came before/after but I’d guess the whole split timeline thing was constructed in retrospect in some kind of attempt to please fans.
The third split with the failed hero timeline definitely came out of nowhere, but the original split of child and adult timeline was 100% established well before they released Hyrule Historia. It is directly brought up in the story of The Wind Waker if you just play the game. Remember, after OoT we had MM which was clearly following the events of child Link after he returned to the past, while even the ending credits of Ocarina clearly depicted there being a separate adult timeline in which the people of Hyrule celebrated the defeat of Ganon and the Sages watched over them.
So, when Wind Waker came out after MM, it states right from the beginning the events of Ocarina of Time and Link's victory over Ganon, which only happened in the adult timeline. So, by Wind Waker's release, we canonically had two games that each followed a different timeline, both of which had been depicted in the end of Ocarina of Time.

This was not constructed by fans or to appease to them. This was knowingly done by Nintendo. Now, I would argue that most likely, it was done more out of convenience than in an attempt to actually deepen their lore or such; but that does not change the fact that both logically inevitable timelines were introduced, acknowledged and used by Nintendo, which in turn fired up fan theories and speculation - not the other way around.

there is no way in hell nintendo had conceived this plan from the very start
This is where you are right.

i love ninte do but they really dont give a shit about there consumers never mind a timeline
This is where you are wrong. It doesn't matter if Nintendo had the entire timeline planned out from the very start - which they obviously didn't, because how would you even plan out a timeline for games and stories you have not yet even created. But to state that they don't care about their timeline at all is just plain wrong and there is plenty of evidence for that.

First of all, they always made connection efforts. Always. The first two games were connected, and ALttP, effectively rebooting the series, was declared a prequel so that it would make some kind of sense. Then, Ocarina of Time was effectively a remake of ALttP and a reboot in a sense, and in order for that to not directly contradict the other games, they presented it as a prequel again because it fit the descriptions of ALttP's intro's sealing war. It was also an origin story for Link's iconic look.
In the following games, they cared about their latest achievements with OoT more than with what came before it, so they concentrated on that groundwork and treated it as a clean slate and made the stories afterwards work in context to it. Most if not all of the following games had a kind of clear understanding of how they related to the events of Ocarina of Time as an origin point and worked with that.
Finally, with Hyrule Historia, they published their official timeline and introduced a third timeline split in order to get rid of the "inconvenient" games that had no such clear placement or which' plots were too ambigous to work for the overarching story, so they shoved all of that into their separate realm as to not having to inconvenience themselves with these games and their narratives any longer, but still have the freedom to draw from them should they ever need to.
Now, with Breath of the Wild, they pretty much reset things again to start off of a clean slate, similar to how things started over with Ocarina of Time. But still, they didn't say "This is a new Zelda game, everything before doesn't matter", but just pushed it 10.000 years into the future and were done with it. It was convenient and they consciously left it ambigous how the game is placed in the timeline, because they don't want to feel limited in what they can do, storywise, with the new games. And now, BOTW2 is in the works, and yet again, it's clearly a sequel to BOTW. So, they always made connections as far as they served their goals with the narrative, but decided to not shackle themselves to having everything being a precisely placed tile in a narrative mosaic. But they do care enough about connections and timelines to put effort into connecting the games somewhat, and I fail to see why so many people seem to struggle with admitting that. The whole "Nintendo had no timeline plans whatsoever and pulls everything out of their ass each time they make a game" crowd is much more annoying imho than the timeliner and theorizer pack of fans, because they just seem ignorant of both things happening outside and inside of the games.
 
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