How Breath Of The Wild Solved (And Complicated) The Legend of Zelda Timeline

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The world of The Legend of Zelda has a surprisingly complex history. While Breath of the Wild attempted to clarify things, it actually created even more mysteries. Over the years, the game series has shown Hyrule in many different ways, leading fans to wonder how all the games connect. Some installments clearly build on each other, but others seem to exist in separate, unrelated universes.

Even a detailed timeline couldn’t answer all the questions, and trying to fix inconsistencies by creating three separate timelines actually made things more confusing. Breath of the Wild attempted to solve this by combining those timelines into one unified world. But, recent Legend of Zelda games have only added to the complexity.

Breath Of The Wild Brought Together The Zelda Timelines

The large time jump in Breath of the Wild was a bold attempt to answer many long-held questions about the Legend of Zelda series’ continuity – but it also created new mysteries about the past and future. Previously, the complicated and often conflicting Zelda timeline was addressed in the official Hyrule Historia book. This book presented a revised timeline, explaining that the events of Ocarina of Time caused reality to split into three separate timelines, each accounting for the different versions of Hyrule seen throughout the games.

Games like Skyward Sword created a shared backstory for the series. Initially, it seemed developers would leave the placement of future games on the timeline open to interpretation. However, Breath of the Wild, released in 2017, surprised players by being set far in the future—thousands of years after all previous Legend of Zelda games. Fans immediately began speculating about which timeline it belonged to, but Nintendo eventually revealed a unified timeline. The game was set so far ahead that the previously separate timelines had merged back together, which explained why it referenced events from different, established timelines.

Breath Of The Wild’s Time-Skip Complicated Zelda’s Lore

Although the way Breath of the Wild handled the series’ complicated timeline was creative, it also created some confusion. The different versions of Ganon in each timeline didn’t quite line up – the Ganon from one timeline wasn’t necessarily the same as the Ganon from The Wind Waker or Twilight Princess. Breath of the Wild included references to elements from Twilight Princess, but some things, like the Light Spirits, weren’t as important to the story as fans might have anticipated.

The Hyrule seen in The Wind Waker wasn’t the original; it was a new land Link and Tetra found in The Phantom Hourglass, with the original Hyrule lost underwater. This makes familiar places feel strangely out of place. Breath of the Wild also connected back to the Sages from Ocarina of Time, suggesting the three timelines still share a common history. But the fight against Calamity Ganon disrupted the cycle of rebirth started by Demise, and Tears of the Kingdom seemed to undo this, bringing Ganondorf back to power.

Where Zelda Goes Following The Age Of Calamity

These recent developments create more uncertainty about the official storyline of The Legend of Zelda. The ending of Tears of the Kingdom hinted that the evil power of Demise – the ancient force behind Ganondorf and the endless cycle of Link and Zelda’s rebirths – will reappear in a new form in a future game. It seemed like Tears of the Kingdom concluded the story for this version of Link and Zelda, promising a period of peace. However, a future Legend of Zelda game could change all of that by continuing the story beyond the events of these two games.

Things get even more complicated when you consider Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. While not officially part of the main Zelda storyline, the game depicts Zelda and Link teaming up with heroes from the past to defeat Ganon, seemingly for good. This creates a new, separate timeline that exists alongside the events of Breath of the Wild. It will be interesting to see how future Zelda games address this, or if they choose to focus on earlier time periods to avoid the complexities introduced by Breath of the Wild‘s merging of different timelines.

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2025-12-31 01:17