Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda is one of the longest-running series in gaming, and it’s accumulated quite a complicated in-universe history over the years. Despite each game’s perpetual re-telling of similar events (Link beats Ganon with the help of, or in order to save, Zelda), all Legend of Zelda games take place in a connected timeline. Still, it’s not quite as simple as placing one after the other, as the timeline splits into multiple paths and follows an occasionally surprising order. Thanks to its complicated chronology, the Zelda series didn’t have a public timeline for decades.
Nintendo first published an official Zelda timeline in 2011’s Hyrule Historia (which received its first English edition in 2013), 25 years after The Legend of Zelda’s 1986 Japanese release (individual games below are listed with their North American release dates). Being the first non-sequel Zelda game to release since Hyrule Historia, much speculation was had about where Breath of the Wild fit in the timeline, and Nintendo finally revealed Breath of the Wild’s timeline placement in mid-2018. The resulting chronology is a mess of events, names, and branches, confounded by reincarnations, a timeline split, and a timeline convergence. Here’s each part of the Zelda series timeline, as told by Hyrule Historia, The Legend of Zelda: Encyclopedia, and the games themselves.
At the Zelda timeline’s very beginning, three goddesses – Din, Nayru, and Farore – descend from the heavens and create the world. They leave behind the Triforce, an artifact that can grant a mortal being’s wishes. Another goddess, Hylia, serves as the keeper of the Triforce, until a demon called Demise attempts to take it from her. Hylia sends the world’s people to live safely in the floating islands of Skyloft and seals Demise away, weakening herself greatly. She transfers her soul into a mortal girl named Zelda, enabling her to use the Triforce’s power to seal Demise away again, and creates the spirit-imbued Goddess Sword capable of bestowing itself upon a hero.
In Skyward Sword, the Zelda timeline’s first game chronologically, Hylia’s prediction comes true – Demise breaks his seal, returning to bring destruction to the world. He is eventually defeated by Zelda and her heroic friend Link, but Demise bestows a curse on them before his death, promising his evil spirit will haunt those of the “blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero.” This sets into motion the cycle of conflicts pitting good versus evil seen in almost every Zelda game.
The spirits from the Zelda universe’s creation story become the series’ central characters, destined to play out different versions of the same struggle and continually manifesting themselves (whether by reincarnation or direct descent) in different versions of the same beings. Demise’s hatred manifests as Ganon and Ganondorf, Hylia is reincarnated as Zelda, and the spirit of the hero is inherited by reincarnations of Link, wielding the Master Sword with the…
2023-06-04 15:00:05
Link from screenrant.com