For almost as long as The Legend of Zelda as a franchise has existed, Nintendo players the world over have been trying to make sense of the timeline.
After all, other than 1987’s Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link for the NES, no other mainline instalment has included a number at the end of its title. The Legend of Zelda is an action-adventure series that’s a lot more freeform when compared to a lot of other long-running franchises, choosing to remix and rework certain themes and elements for every new release, rather than setting each one immediately after the last in sequential order.
Not helping matters is the fact that the very first The Legend of Zelda doesn’t even come first in the timeline. Then, complicating matters once again, is in how there’s not just one, but three separate timelines that sees the events of certain titles in the series run parallel to one another. However, thanks to the book Hyrule Historia published by Nintendo in 2011 and authored by key creatives like Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma, we have a better sense of where all 19 The Legend of Zelda games fall in the timeline(s).
If you’re left scratching your head after picking up Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom as to when it takes place and what events have already happened up until that point, we’re here to break down the entire The Legend of Zelda timeline once and for all.
The Legend of Zelda timeline explained – the beginning
Before the wider The Legend of Zelda timeline splinters off into three parallel universes, there’s a handful of games that forge a very clear path and have been confirmed to take place one after the other. Here is the list of the four games that come first placed in sequential order:
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
- The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
- The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
As you’ve probably already guessed, it’s most people’s favourite The Legend of Zelda game that causes things to spiral big time. Before we get to Nintendo 64’s Ocarina of Time, however, it’s important to say that we know definitively that 2011's The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Nintendo Wii comes first because the story details the origins of the Master Sword.
This is also where we learn that Zelda is a reincarnated goddess previously known as Hylia and get to face off against a proto version of Ganon known as Demise.
Following Skyward Sword you have The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, and we know this because it details the Four Sword’s creation; the Four Sword being the focus of multiplayer tie-in title The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords for the Game Boy Advance. An unspecified amount of time then passes before we catch back up with Link in the aforementioned The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Canonically one of three things then happen when Link faces off against Ganondorf: Link can lose leaving Ganon victorious (Fallen Hero timeline), Link wins and then travels back in time to warn his younger self about Ganon (Child timeline) or Link wins, travels back in time but disappears (Adult timeline).
The Legend of Zelda timeline explained – Fallen Hero timeline
In the timeline where Link loses to Ganon at the end of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time it splinters off into a strand officially called the Fallen Hero timeline. There are seven games in total that make up this timeline and they are the following:
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
- The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Oracle of Ages
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
- The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes
- The Legend of Zelda
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
In what is quite literally the bleakest of all three The Legend of Zelda timelines, Ganon is able to become an entity called the Demon King after claiming all three parts of the Triforce. It wasn’t all bad news, though, because both Ganondorf and the Triforce get sealed away into a location called the Sacred Realm, which serves as the background for 1991’s The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
These kinds of mishaps then keep on happening right through to the original NES game and its 1987 sequel, with Zelda II: The Adventure of Link being the last game in the Fallen Hero timeline (so far).
The Legend of Zelda timeline explained – Child timeline
In the version of the timeline where Zelda sends Link back to his childhood seven years in the past after he defeats Ganon, the people of Hyrule are forewarned about what’s to come. This is what’s known as the Child timeline, which kicks off with what is easily the closest in style and gameplay to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, its sequel The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. Here are the three games that make up the Child timeline:
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
- The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures
After saving Hyrule, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask follows Link’s adventure in the parallel location of Termina, where he must try to save the moon from crashing into the surface in just three days.
He does that only to be faced with Ganondorf once again during the events of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, where he becomes a part-time werewolf while trying to prevent Hyrule from being taken over by a dimension known as the twilight realm. The events of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures then occur, following Link and his three clones’ mission to stop Ganondorf from resurrecting a dark mage not seen since The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords.
The Legend of Zelda timeline explained – Adult timeline
Don’t be fooled by the cute chibiness of Toon Link in this third and final timeline, according to Nintendo he is very much an adult here. Hence why it’s called the Adult timeline.
There are three games that make up this version where Link wins against Ganondorf in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and travels back in time. This original Link vanishes, however, leaving another one to pick up the slack in the following three games:
- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
- The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
- The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Before the arrival of this new Link incarnation, Ganondorf returns but there is no one to fight him. This forces the gods of the era to drown him and place him at the bottom of the ocean. When Link does reappear, Link and Zelda join forces for a pirate adventure in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker to take down a new version of – you guessed it – Ganondorf, destroying Hyrule in the process.
They eventually set up a new land in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass called New Hyrule, where centuries later, descendants of Link and Zelda fight against a new threat (who isn’t Ganon) named Malladus in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.
The Legend of Zelda timeline explained – Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom
So where does that leave us when it comes to Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom? Where do they fit into the timeline? Well, it’s still not clear exactly how, but Link’s Nintendo Switch debut takes place in a version of Hyrule that seems to come at the end of everything that happened before.
According to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Creating a Champion book, the events of all 17 other games take place in an era called “the distant past” that is set 10,000 years before both games.
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, much like Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask before it, is very much a direct sequel to Zelda: Breath of the Wild. As a result, we’re still left with a lot of the same questions we had when the 2017 game was released in terms of how we got here. Fortunately, The Legend of Zelda has never really been interested in making sense, and this goes doubly so for Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
It definitely comes after the events of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and focuses on the Demon Kin Ganon’s rise (again). If Nintendo ever elects to update the Hyrule Historia, maybe we’ll get a better sense of where the two games fit in.
