If you exclude the remakes, collections, and spin-offs, the video game series The Legend of Zelda currently includes 20 titles. In a picture from Nintendo Live 2024 in Sydney, Nintendo lists all the games on a timeline – but the two newest titles are not included at all.
What does the timeline look like? Initially, the beginning of the story for all Zelda video games is the same. However, after The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the story splits into three different paths:
- The hero was defeated
- The hero triumphed (Child Era)
- The hero triumphed (Adult Era)
The first category mainly includes the older titles in the Zelda series, such as A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening. The very first Zelda games released on the Famicom and the NES can also be found here.
The Child Era is characterized by the darkest parts of the Zelda series. Here you’ll find Majora’s Mask, where Link can even kill an NPC, and Twilight Princess, where Link doesn’t cope with his traumas. The Adult Era mainly includes games like The Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass, where Nintendo chose the cel-shading look.
However, there are two games that do not fit with the rest of the series and cannot be placed in the timeline. These are the two newest titles in the series.
You can see the very latest title, Tears of the Kingdom, here in the trailer:
Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom as standalone games
What are the implications of this classification? All the events taking place in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom have nothing to do with previous experiences.
This minimizes the chance that we will encounter NPCs, locations, or references from the previous titles. There will only be a few exceptions in the future, such as the merchant Terri, who appeared in both The Wind Waker and Skyward Sword as well as in BotW.
Nintendo can also take bold new steps with upcoming games. In Tears of the Kingdom, for example, it is now possible for the first time to combine items and create entirely new constructs.
It could also indicate that Nintendo will not adhere to the official timeline in the future. With the release of the upcoming Echoes of Wisdom, where we will play as Zelda for the first time, we will see how Nintendo has decided.
Are BotW and TotK connected? Although the two games in the picture are not connected, they do belong together. The creator of the series confirmed in an interview (via zelda.nintendo.com) that TotK takes place shortly after the events of BotW.
Therefore, at least the events of these two games are connected. The upcoming main titles could thus build on the two newest Switch titles. In them, Nintendo could continue to create wild creations, such as a particularly strong fruit: Zelda Tears of the Kingdom: Simple fruit becomes a secret weapon – even defeats enemies without directly hitting them
