i was honestly bummed when Hyrule Historia came out and codified the timeline, because half of the fun of the series for me was trying to imagine where all these games that didn't quite fit together fit together. that, and the third branch essentially being a what-if and relegating the original games to it felt like a dismissive cop-out. i appreciate how BotW was full of enough contradictory evidence to not be placed in any one timeline and then TotK doubled down by contradicting the original Imprisoning War, and now Nintendo has given up on placing them anywhere. we are so back
this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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I know, but its better than messing up everything into one soup that does not fit anymore. Zelda is a long running series and many more will come. So I at least appreciate that they do respect the history and not ruin everything by putting it into one noodle soup. The new Breath of the Wild era games have barely anything to do with the old games and stand on their own.
You know, unlike Disney (Star Wars).
The people who actually make these games have said that the timeline in Hyrule Historia is little no more than elevated fanfiction, because they don't follow it when making their games. It's all retcon and forced connections.
People who want them to have some shared continuity as if they're a real history might as well make a timeline for Mario too. It's silly, and misses the point
Yeah but where does BDG place it
Headline is misleading. There is no canon timeline and never has been, regardless of what officially-licensed book it was published in.
The game designers have said many times that they don't take any sort of timeline into account when designing a new Zelda game. They nail down the mechanics, and the story comes next, and if it happens to match up thematically in relation to another game, that's just a bonus.
The canon is anything that appears in the games. There are clear timelines between many of the games, asserted within the game text or game subtext.
Producers have gone on record echoing what's states in the HH, both before and after it was published.
Do not mistake the canon for something the producers and designers feel in any way bound by. That's not what the term means when discussing media.
I mean that's one way to look at it I suppose. However I don't think the story being secondary to gameplay means we have to discount what is there available to us. Like if you want to ignore it that's fine but I don't think you can say it's wholesale not canon.
Edit: also want to say I am not taking this link as gospel, but just showing how the words can be interpreted many ways.
Also the newest timeline is on display at the official Nintendo live event in Sydney, which I would argue is more legit than a licensed book
Regardless it's not really that important, so if people like the timeline, who cares? Nintendo clearly acknowledges it, and the devs don't use it when making new games. Both can be true