Trying to piece together Zelda continuity is like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle with different sized pieces, no artwork, and a finished picture that doesn’t line up. You’re left staring at a jumbled mess with edges shoved into ill-fitting openings and a painting that kind of resembles a forest, but also looks vaguely like a volcano. That hasn’t stopped theorists from painstakingly working to make a cohesive timeline, though.
Even if strict continuity isn’t important to Shigeru Miyamoto and the creatives behind the series, there is an official Zelda timeline that gets updated with each new game for these dedicated fans. And with the upcoming release of the Ocarina of Time remake, that timeline has been updated once again, offering even more evidence that there are in fact two Hyrules.
The theory goes that Zelda witnessed a second Hyrule being founded in Tears of the Kingdom, not the original as many had assumed. Indeed, as noted by YouTube channel Zeltik, the Japanese timeline now lists the “Establishment of the Kingdom of Hyrule” twice, once right before Minish Cap, and once right before Breath of the Wild.
So, let’s get into the weeds of what this means for the timeline.
Ocarina of Time’s ending ultimately gives rise to three different branches: an ‘Adult’ timeline in which Link defeats Ganondorf and the Seven Sages seal him away, a ‘Child’ timeline in which Zelda sends Link back to his childhood with all the knowledge he has accrued so that he can warn her of Ganondorf’s plans, allowing him to be stopped before he can conquer Hyrule, and a ‘Fallen’ timeline in which Link is defeated, allowing Ganondorf to claim the full power of the Triforce.
The ‘Adult’ timeline leads into The Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks; the ‘Child’ timeline leads into Majora’s Mask, Twilight Princess, and Four Swords Adventures, whereas the ‘Fallen’ timeline leads into A link to the Past, Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Link’s Awakening, A Link Between Worlds, Tri Force Heroes, The Legend of Zelda, and Zelda 2. Eventually, following all of these disparate games, we find ourselves in a future where Link and Zelda’s stories have become the stuff of legend—Breath of the Wild.
That gives us a fairly clean timeline. At least, as clean as Zelda can get. Ocarina of Time splits into three continuities, allowing each game to have a shared origin. Breath of the Wild then jumps ahead and unifies all of these stories as myth, allowing you to decide which timeline the game follows. However, problems arose when Tears of the Kingdom showed Zelda witnessing the founding of Hyrule. Thankfully, the new timeline offers a solution by establishing that there were in fact two foundings, confirming the theories.
And to cap it all off, the Ocarina of Time remake itself appears to be bridging that gap far more explicitly, with visual references to Breath of the Wild in the Kokiri kids having Queen Sonia-esque tattoos, and Sheikah patterns now being consistent with the Switch games.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.thegamer.com/zelda-timeline-update-two-hyrules-theory-ocarina-of-time-remake/
