Official Zelda timeline?

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I thought spirit tracks was before skyward sword as there is a really suspicious looking turntable in a tower underneath the third boss.

Meh must have just been some random mine shaft

 

[shrekfan246]

If you have access to all Zelda games and need an order to play them in, do it in the order they were made.

You could say that about the Metal Gear series, but you wouldn't be playing them canonically. :s(I think someone established a clear canon, though. Haven't looked too much into Metal Gear so I can't say 100%)

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (2006)
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (2010)
Metal Gear (1987)
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990)
Metal Gear Solid (1998)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008)

I think that's the order, at least. The games themselves actually reference this, though. Metal Gear Solid has tons of references to the original Metal Gear games and, by now at least, both MGS and MGS2 have specific, official dates of occurence. Metal Gear Solid 3 is established as the story of (spoiler) Big Boss, long before Solid/Liquid/Solidus Snakes were ever created. Portable Ops and Peace Walker are about the same character, and MGS4 features Solid Snake at the end of his life-span.

There's even a downloadable database add-on for MGS4 that features a time-line of all the games that were released up until whenever it released (so I'm not sure if it features Peace Walker or not).

Oh, wait, this subject is about Zelda. Yeah, I haven't played hardly any Zelda games outside of OoT, Majora's Mask (which I couldn't comprehend at that age), and Wind Waker. So I have no stake in any established canon.

 

[cricketgg7]

I could've sworn to the fact that Wind Waker would have been in the same split as Majora's Mask.

My theory was along the lines that the Hero wasn't able to save Hyrule from the Flood because he was trapped in some crazy time warp in Termina. Since Termina was supposed to be an alternate deminsion, and the fact that Link had to repeat that 3 day cycle multiple times made it feel like Termina had a faster, or at least different, time flow than Hyrule.

Time-traveling theories hurt my brain... I don't know how Doc and Marty were able to follow all those crazy universes...

This is heavy.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I guess that make sense, well I would need to read each of the games lore again to see if it fully make sense.
The whole "What if" scenerio seen abit of a cheap moves although would we want a complicated singular timeline?

 

[DustyDrB]

I'm as much of a Zelda fan as anyone, but I really have never cared about a timeline for the series. To me, Zelda is like the blues. It's many different versions of the same great song.

 

[Steampunk Viking]

Afterthought 2: Kinda surprised that Link's Awakening isn't in the same arch as Windwaker.

Nintendo officially announced a while ago that it was after Link to the Past.

Anyways, this is very interesting... I never considered the possibly of a third split, but it makes sense. It's like the whole thing ties up as the legacy that binds all the Ganons, Links and Zeldas together. Skyward Sword explains how it comes about... yes, this is actually making sense now.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I didn't think A Link to the Past could get any creepier, then it did.

 

[DarkRyter]

Don't forget Soul Caliber 2.

 

[Zukhramm]

What is the point? Nintendo do not know what they are doing. Why make it needlessly complicated?

As far as I'm concerned, there is no timeline. Nintendo, sometime after The Wind Waker still had the chance to have one, but they didn't take it back then, and now it's too late.

 

[Shia-Neko-Chan]

There isn't one. Nintendo already established that.

 

[Tallim]

Don't forget Soul Caliber 2.

Hehe that line in that vid floored me the first time, so out of left field.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Those intrepid writers over at GlitterBerri have deciphered the official Legend of Zelda timeline from the recently released Hyrule Historia and have created the following image that shows exactly how the timeline for the series pans out. The timeline itself was created by Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma who is the supervising editor of the book.

Well, this would be a confirmation?

 

[The Diabolical Biz]

I made a thread about this just now, but luckily the Escapist ate my thread. Seriously, 3 pages in and the search for 'Zelda timeline's latest result was from 2010...

Either way, I think it's very interesting to see. The three way split at OoT took me slightly by surprised, but makes a lot of sense now that I see it.

Spoiler: Concise diagram