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For as long as the Zelda series has been around, the idea of an official timeline for the franchise is actually relatively new. Fans speculated for years and years, but Nintendo made things official with the publication of Hyrule Historia in 2011. The book presented a dual timeline in which the events of Ocarina of Time created three separate futures based on whether or not Link was successful in defeating Ganon. Of course, Breath of the Wild has been released since then, so that left gamers asking when it took place, as well as on which timeline. Now, Nintendo has finally revealed an answer, or at least a partial one.
Nintendo of Japan recently updated the series’ official website with a new timeline placing the newest game at the very end, however it doesn’t specify on which branch it takes place. This revelation led to a discussion between Japan’s Famitsu magazine and two of the main men behind Zelda, series producer Eiji Aonuma and BotW director Hidemaro Fujibayashi.
Fujibayashi offered the rather coy explanation of, “That’s… up to the player’s imagination, isn’t it?”
However, Aonuma gave a much more realistic view of things, saying, “Hyrule’s history changes with time. When we think of the next game and what we want to do with it, we might think, “Oh, this’ll fit well”, and place it neatly into the timeline, but sometimes we think, “Oh crap”, and have to change the placement. Actually, the decided history has been tweaked many times.”
In other words, while many fans try to tirelessly decipher Hyrule’s history over the many adventures of Link and Zelda, the actual developers are much more worried about the game they are working on at the time and then try to squeeze it into the timeline afterwards. Considering this, it’s likely we’ll see future changes depending on what the developers decide to do with the next game.
Source: Siliconera
