Nintendo Japan has sent out a newsletter to its customers offering them rebates on every Zelda game on the eShop to celebrate the upcoming release of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD on the Wii U. What’s interesting is the newsletter contains a timeline showing how the games are all connected. You can check it out below!
Left side is the “Hero loses”-timeline, middle is “Hero wins – Child”-timeline, right is “Hero wins – Adult – Hyrule ceases to exist after a long time – hundreds of years later”-timeline.
At least this one includes all the games. The one they posted earlier felt like an ad, as it only included games available for purchase (excluding VC)!
Which game is under Minish Cap? I see four Links, but lower I see Four Swords already. I’m not very good with the box covers.
I clicked on that other timeline that is in English. Apparently both are Four Swords. I know there was Four Swords and Four Swords Adventure. Are they different games? I thought one was just a sort of remake or something.
They are different games with different stories.
Oh. Didn’t know that. Only handhelds I’ve played are Link’s Awakening and Link Between Worlds. As always, thanks for the info.
Any time. The problem with four swords on gba is it’s a multiplayer only game. I’ve never played it myself, just because I couldn’t. It kind of sucks having a story on the timeline that I can’t physically experience for myself.
That does sound kind of familiar, not being able to play alone. I prefer the franchise to stay single player personally. When I was little I think I wanted a two player adventure, just like I wanted two player Mario Bros. (not the take turns kind). But as I got older, I realized Zelda is a single player experience and I don’t want it to change.
You know what they say. “It’s dangerous to go alone… Take this with you.”
There was actually a singleplayer version on the DS that was released limited for a small amount of time. They should put it on the e-shop
It is Four Swords, the one below Twilight Princess is four swords adventures
Tri Force Heroes is officially canon now.
Already was before. Nintendo of America tweeted it saying it happens after A Link Between Worlds, same Link that for some reason has a different face.
I was happy when Nintendo finally decided to release a canon timelime, but I immediately regretted how they set it up. Basically after OoT, the future depends on whether Link loses to Ganondorf or defeats him. IT CAN ONLY BE ONE OR THE OTHER. Basically Nintendo is saying that half the games in the series are purely hypothetical and didn’t actually happen. They’re just part of a “what-if” scenario. In that case there’s no reason to even have them in the timeline or have them be in the main series at all.
Since players generally beat the game, we should assume that Link ultimately wins in OoT and every game in the far left column didn’t actually happen. The original LoZ didn’t happen. Link to the Past, often considered one of the best Zelda games, didn’t happen. Link II, in which the actual ‘Legend of Zelda’ is explained, didn’t happen. Nintendo is appeasing their fans by saying, “Here we made this timeline to show you when the games you love so much take place. But as payment for our hard work, half the games you love are now completely inconsequential. Thank you for your support.”
Thus ends my rant.
I like to think it’s just a multiple universe thing, in one universe Link wins, while in the other, parallel universe, Ganondorf wins. They’re both canon, just in different universes
Yeah I’ve thought about that too, but I feel like it takes away from a smooth-flowing timeline. It’s like with DC or Marvel. They invent so many different stories and scenarios that eventually they have to invent multiple universes just to make everything flow properly. In the end you’re left with something that’s much more complicated and convoluted then it needs to be. Fans are left to sort out the mess and keep track of which characters are from which universes and which universe any particular story takes place in and which stories take place in the alternate future of this universe. It just gets complicated after a while.
The Game Theorists YT channel do show a lot of support for a multiverse rather than multiple timelines or rather 2 winning timelines and a 2nd universe where Ganondorf won.
Yeah I was confused… I was like doesn’t the Zelda universe force you to win? How does he lose? Lol well.. at least he isn’t godlike and they show the hero doesn’t always win….. I guess….
There not inconsequential every single one of them happened. Pretty much when link used the master sword and the ocarina to transend time, it created 3 parallel universes. In one link wins and stays the hero of time, in one he loses and dies, in one he wins and turns back into a kid. All three are true in different universes.
I understand that Link travelling through time would create 2 seperate timelines (i.e. his actions as a child and his actions as an adult). The same Link travels two seperate paths in the game and therefore both paths continue on. But at no point during the game does Link travel a third path that suggests a timeline is created where he loses.
And the adult timeline doesn’t have Link winning and staying the hero of time. In it Hyrule is saved and Link disappears (because he was returned to the child timeline). That’s why Hyrule doesn’t exist in WW. Ganondorf returned and Link wasn’t there to stop him. So the gods flooded the land. In this way the child and adult timelines are connected and thus make sense existing together in the same universe. But as TheDarkKnightNoivern said, the third timeline would have to be in an alternate universe, completely seperate from the other two; which I just don’t like.
I didn’t mean he didn’t disappear, I meant he didn’t go back in time as a kid, and he was still regarded as the hero of time. I know he disappeared, I’ve played WW a hundred times. I stinking love that game.
Sorry, my bad. It kind of sounded (or looked rather) like you were saying he stayed in the adult timeline.
My point is those two timelines coexisting in the same universe makes sense. The third timeline would have to take place in a completely alternate universe. It just bothers me is all.
-||Silence, Nintendo isn’t always about a hero saving the day because in this world, the bad guys can win||-
Actually, I think this would be the first instance of a hero losing in Nintendo’s history.
So would you say Nintendo should start fresh? Maybe with Zelda Wii U (or Zelda NX🤔?) resetting the timeline or rebooting it?
I don’t think they should start fresh. I just think the timeline needs to be rearanged. The only reason the ‘Link loses’ timeline exists is because Ganondorf was killed so many times it was difficult to explain how he kept coming back. Three timelines made it easier to explain than two. With an alternate timeline where Link is defeated, Nintendo was able to justify Ganon’s existence in the titles they put into that timeline.
I feel like Nintendo should make a game for either the child or adult timeline (or both) where Ganondorf is simply reincarnated/reborn (just like Link has been several times) and then instead of killing him at the end, have him escape before Link finishes him off. This way they can work the “Link loses” games into the other two timelimes without any trouble.
Beautifully said. I 100 % agree with you
That’s the one thing I never understood about the timeline. I mean I understand it, it just doesn’t make sense… You beat the game. So how could there be a timeline where Ganon wins? “Ok, congrats, you defeated the evil Ganondorf. But somehow you actually didn’t and Ganon won, and as we speak he is throwing Hyrule into complete chaos. Thank you for playing.” That one detail has always irked me.
Okay, okay. Which one of you started OoT, but didn’t finish it? One of you must have… Well, you forgot to beat Ganondorf and this weird alternate time line is all your fault… lol
Wasn’t me haha.
Considering time travel is a mechanic in Ocarina of Time, it’s possible the Hero Falls timeline was a side effect of Link using the Pedestal of Time one too many times. Unlike in Skyward Sword, the time travel device in Ocarina was not perfect since it wasn’t created by a god but by flawed human beings/hylians instead.
This is my theory on the matter til Nintendo themselves clarify it. This is why so many of us love the Zelda franchise: we can come up with our own theories because of the fact the games do leave a lot of questions unanswered at times. Just when you think you have the timeline all figured out, a new game comes out that throws everything you thought you knew into disarray as it answers some questions but then it makes entirely new questions that get left unanswered. I love the fact the Zelda games work more like a lake with different currents running underneath the surface instead of a river that goes in one direction. In other words, the games all take place at random points in the timeline instead of each game taking place right after the previous one.
I agree. One of the things I like about these games is seeing references to past stories. I especially liked the opening of WW. It was neat how they showed the aftermath of OoT and how that story basically became a folk legend to the Hylians.
One thing I wish Nintendo would do is wait until about a month after releasing games to give them a place in the timeline. Before the timeline released I used to like picking up little clues in the games and speculating on when they might’ve happened.
The problem with that theory is, where did the Link that loses come from? In the scenario where Link wins, two timelines are formed, but there is still only one Link. He returns to the child timeline, leaving the adult timeline without a Link. (Side note: next game in the series should be a sequel to Link Between Worlds titled Without a Link) If the Hero Falls timeline came from Link messing with time, where did the second Link come from?
Easy explanation. Dragon Ball Z predates Ocarina of Time. In DBZ, by going back in time to save Goku & thus change the future for the better, Trunks didn’t change his future but simply created a new timeline where his timeline gets cut off. In that new timeline, there was still a Trunks existing in that new timeline who was killed by Cell. Nintendo could use that little side effect from Trunks’s time machine in DBZ to explain it in Ocarina of Time.
But in that example, Trunks is traveling backwards to a point before he was born, and he took preventitive measures to make sure he would still be born, thus resulting in two Trunks’s and two timelines. It was his actions that actually created the alternate timeline. If he went back in time, but didn’t interact with anyone, the same future would’ve resulted.
In OoT Link doesn’t even technically travel through time until the very end. When he picks up the master sword he simply falls asleep until he’s old enough to wield it, and when he puts it back, the process is reversed. The entire game, he is on one single timeline. It’s not until the end of the game, when Zelda sends Link back to his childhood and he warns the king of Ganondorf’s plan, that the second timeline is actually created. It’s Link’s actions at the end that create the second timeline. That’s why there’s no Link in the adult timeline; because the Link that belonged to that timeline was sent back in time and chose to create a different future. If Link decided not to expose Ganondorf, the child timeline wouldn’t exist.
By going back in time, Trunks created a paradox when he killed Frieza & King Cold instead of Goku doing it. Not to mention he gave Dr Gero’s computer a chance to take some of his own DNA as a fully grown Super Saiyan to create a more powerful version of Cell. In Ocarina of Time, there was a paradox already existing by way of the windmill guy teaching Link a song that he learned from Link playing the song in the past but Link didn’t learn that song til meeting the windmill guy in the future. These paradoxes result in rifts in time that cause splintered timelines. I think a previous episode of The Flash also can be used to explain this 3rd timeline in the Zelda universe by way of a time remnant. Harrison Wells explains it better so I suggest looking up his explanation… if you can bloody find it. I, sadly, can’t find it & patience is not really my strong suit when I’m trying to get off the computer as quickly as possible.
Oh & when Harrison Wells uses the speed force, replace it with the Sacred Realm’s & Master Sword’s seal on Link til he was old enough to wield the Master Sword.
All this talk about time travel is starting to make my brain fuzzy. Quantum physics wasn’t exactly my main area of study in school. You might have something with the windmill thing though. I’ll take time later to think about it.
~*It’s not mine, either. But luckily, most of quantum physics is theory, anyway, so it has no strong facts to support therefore you can come up with something that sounds crazy & beyond belief but somehow makes sense when you keep an open mind about it all. But yeah. It is a very confusing subject to talk about. Luckily, I watch a lot of shows with time travel involved like Back to the Future, Doctor Who, Inuyasha, The Flash, so on & so forth so I got some insight into the field. It’s not much that would allow me to actually become a teacher for the subject but enough to understand it to a degree & explain it to an even lesser one. But yeah. Time to get off this subject for a bit before I fry my brain trying to figure it all out, too. lol*~
Why did they use the original Ocarina of Time art yet update Majora’s Mask to the remake version? It’s really bugging me
I think it’s to highlight the 30% off. Looking at some of the other games on the timeline, it seems to imply the VC versions are currently 30% reduced in price. Since the 3DS version isn’t in the sale, that explains the choice of box art.
People! We’re forgetting to ask the biggest question!!!
Where will Zelda U fall under?!!!
I’m thinking Hero Loses
~*I knew it. Link’s quest in Triforce Heroes is why Hyrule went to hell in a handbasket by the time the original Legend of Zelda occurs: because Link was wasting his time saving a spoiled brat’s fucking wardrobe. Thanks alot, Hytopia’s Royal Family! You fucked Hyrule over by wasting Hyrule’s hero’s time! Filthy fashion obsessed rejects! Now we know why Link wasn’t around to stop Zelda’s brother’s sorcerer friend from cursing Zelda into a near endless sleep. Well mystery solved!*~
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a timeline previously, I think I got it with Skyward Sword special/limited edition, or maybe the Hyrulian book. Idk too much Xenoblade to think about Zelda right now.