The official Legend of Zelda timeline isn't entirely official yet

@Faceless Troll

The Miyamoto never lies!

@Faceless Troll
Now there is. It's called retcon. Deal with it.

@sparkster

All retcon does is further destroy a timeline's legitimacy. Not only does it make it seem that the developer has no idea the direction it's going, but it's willing to erase its own content to do it. Never a good thing.

@Kagiroi
Yeah, I'm sure they knew what games they were going to be making 25 years after the first Zelda. If any of them would be Zeldas at that. Also, before there was no official timeline, now there is. That's like a reverse retcon. They didn't remove anything, only added.

@Faceless Troll

This whole timeline thing is just like the whole: "Getting the triforce in OoT"..

People think you can, other think you can't, the hackers prove you can't but people still think you can...

If a person decides that a timeline does or doesn't exist there's a chance that If even Miyamoto himself write it on a board while live streamed, some people wouldn't believe him and still think the official would be a different, or it that there wouldn't be a real one, or that one was the one.. People go through great lengths to fool themselves into believing what they want to believe, that's why religion still exists.

@Ashkental Oh, and Han Solo shot first. I don't care what Lucas says.

@Kagiroi Really? Cause Batman used to have no problem rolling with a .45 like other pulp fiction characters. Or heck any long running character versus their actual origin.

Retcons can DEFINITELY be for the positive. Unless no new idea can ever be as good as an older one.

@kilroy214 Because Nintendo published a book with the timeline in it and then Joystiq posted about this book and...?

Seriously people I am not a crazy timeline nut or anything but it most certainly exists, and in the past couple of days we've even found out that it is actually a concrete thing that you can look at with your eyes.

Sticking to your guns and saying 'there is no timeline. it's all the same story!' is just as wilfully ignorant as the people getting enraged by the fact Four Sword Adventures doesn't follow A Link To the Past.

@jogr I think you missed the point. The fans bitched about the "timeline" so much that Nintendo decided to do something about it. It's very clear that only for the past few years have they bothered with a timeline at all. Ten years ago, it didn't exist, though the games still did. That's the issue here, they're supposing this over the games instead of the games being developed with a timeline in mind.

@jogr

Yes, it exists - and it makes no sense whatsoever. This is like reading a book on String Theory - it's a bunch of people trying to shoehorn together something that doesn't entirely mesh, and pass it off as fact. I'm not buying it.

The thing is - in order to have a proper timeline, the timeline has to be in place *before* the content is made. This seems like the opposite - they're trying to forge a timeline after the content has been made - and I bet money that the Zelda community will find holes in this timeline even though its the *official* one from Nintendo.

@jogr there are multiple timelines, that makes it impossible for all the games to be placed in order. Most of the games don't have anything to do with each other, based on this chart you can't put Wind Waker before or after Majora's Mask. So no, all the games are not part of a timeline, some of them may be related and can be put on separate timelines but there is no main zelda timeline.

@DustbinK Well they've been talking about a timeline since Lttp and Oot so it's been around in some form since then. At what point it existed in what form is moot point though: it exists. It's been talked about for years and now it's on paper. Putting your fingers in your ears and saying it doesn't don't make it so.

@Kagiroi Just cos it's confusing don't mean it aint real.

Besides the super confusing stuff is just from how different strands relate to each other (all this split-timeline/ what-if scenario malarky). It's abundantly clear that OoT --> Wind Waker --> Phantom Hourglass --> Spirit Tracks, it's just a bit weird how that strand relates to, say, LttP --> Zelda 1 --> Zelda 2.

@singleandlovinit Replace 'timeline' with 'timelines' in my previous comment. Point still stands.

@jogr

Lining stories up in a sequence doesn't mean there's a timeline all of a sudden. If they're just creating this timeline now than they sure as hell didn't have it years ago.

That's not to say that this is a negative thing or anything. I don't think most people think of Zelda games for their intertwining stories or references to the past, and because of that I don't really think there's a point to doing this.

@liquidsoap89
Why Mr Miyamoto, I didn't know you posted on joystiq.
So nice of you to bless us with your insiders knowledge of the inner workings of nintendo.

@Shadowbender

*even that's stretchable.*

@Shadowbender
you saying its like a folk story/fairytale?
that makes sense

@Shadowbender

It's pretty damn firm in Wind Waker; there's portraits of the characters from Ocarina.

Correct, like a fable/fairy tale, told through ages.

But as Acosta said, Wind Waker heavily invested itself in its own LoZ fiction, references more direct than casually winked at, out of the dimension of the game, if you know what I mean.

It's compelling stuff to discuss. Either the Miyamoto and the gang have a deep understanding of what they're doing behind the curtain, or they haven't a clue, or perhaps a mixture of both. I'm still holding out for the "old story" theory over here though.

@Lerkero People care because, like every single post has said, Nintendo acknowledges that there IS one. And this is apparently it. We're learning the word-of-god version of the storyline. That's what it matters.

@Once known as Shadsy

If Nintendo is going to continue saying, "There is a timeline, but we don't want to be held to it", then I take that as a reason to not really care about a timeline, because even Nintendo doesn't necessarily want to make it official.

I've never been passionate about knowing everything about a franchise though, so I guess I simply won't ever understand.

@Lerkero Hello... there is a Nintendo official book

@Lerkero Lots of franchises have internal "bibles" full of tons of unnecessary details, so for fans of the series, it's a lot of fun to learn about that. This is a huuuge piece of such information from a really big name. I'm not a big Zelda fan, but it's still neat to learn about all the internal logic behind the series.

@Roto13 Actually all three occurrences did happen. As the player you can lose the battle so that's one timeline. Then after winning there is an already confirmed split timeline where link wins and presumably lives the rest of his life out, and one where he is returned to his childhood that was lost and travels to Termina

@donkeybong Then I guess it's only a matter of time before Luigi gets a game where he sets off to defeat Bowser to avenge the death of Mario, who was taken out by the first goomba in 1-1.

@Roto13

That's not how it works. In OoT, you sleep for seven years and awaken as adult Link, in the devastated Hyrule. You are forced to go back in time at least twice, and this is where the third timeline comes out of.

It's not that Link gets killed, but when he goes back in time, he permanently leaves that particular future. The future he returns to after removing the Lens of Truth is not the same one, therefore, the original future (the one he leaves) is the one where Ganon takes over.

@Blackbird

actually, that wouldn't really work out.

Link does his thing and pulls out the sword, moving 7 years into the future. At this point, no new timeline has been made, he simply moved into his own future. He slays a few monsters gets a few cool things and then needs to go back in time in order to go down the Well in Kakariko Village.

Now by going back, and changing his past. He creates an alternate reality. However, if this is the case, once he travels into the future, nothing he did before should have happened because this is a fresh version of the future. (since the Well).

As we all know, that is not the case, so the future he returns to, is the same one he first visited, with all the changes made.

Link goes back in time again during the Spirit Temple, gets what he needs and then once again returns to the future.. the same future with all the things he had completed before and kills ganon.

So in the end what do we have? 1. the future with ganon sealed by the sages. and 2. the past where link goes back one final time and stays there, and ganon is executed. (as it has been proven before, even when link goes back and forth, the future timeline remains).

Thus there are only 2 timelines, it doesn't make sense for a 3rd, but if it did... there would need to be a 4th as well. (original wake up future, post well future, post spirit temple future, and return to child forever future)

merry christmas guys, girls and others.

@Aenal

oh and I totally forgot!

The 3rd timeline only makes sense the way they have it as an "if Link failed" but what if link died in the deku tree? or any of the other dungeons? died to the boss or the normal monsters? what if he choked on a bottle of milk? or was murdered by angry chickens? ....you get my point.

@Aenal Next thing you know he'll go back in time before he was a twinkle in his dad's eye, and winning the affections of his own mother....

@Calatia Merry Changmas! :)

@Fuzunga We care. Any other questions I can resolve for you?

Also...

Skyward Sword > (All other Zelda games) ...

... (All other Zelda games) > Wind Waker > Wind Waker's DS sequels

And previously:

A Link to the Past > Link's Awakening > Zelda 1 & 2

Ocarina of Time > (All other Zelda games) ...

The Minish Cap > (All other Zelda games) ...

Bonus:

Miyamoto once said, in the 1990s, that the entirety of Link's Awakening takes place during the raft ride between the continents during Zelda II. But they call that the infamous "Miyamoto timeline" and was swiftly taken off the Zelda website around the time the Oracle games came out.