Surprised I haven't seen anything on here about this. Or maybe it was but I didn't see it (I searched, I promise!). Anyway, a 25th anniversary Zelda book over in Japan called Hyrule Historia revealed it and the book is officially from Nintendo. Anyway, here is Miyamoto's secret recipe after all these years:




I have to say most people had the two alternate timelines correct, but I never thought of a third. Which does make sense when I think about it. You have the original timeline, which OoT Link was plucked out of and never returned, the adult OoT timeline in which he defeated Ganon and from there, the alternate youth timeline that Zelda sent him back to.

yeah i read about this on n4g.com, it showed a link to this a few days ago. its pretty interesting, i must say. as a zelda fan boy, this is starting to make sense. i've only played and beaten the majority of the 3d zelda games(working currently on skyward sword and next wind waker). i have to say its amazing to see how ocarina of time has a prequel to a prequel to a prequel(i think i got that right???). never thought id see that when i was 10 years old. im so glad someone has revealed some details, and somone deciphered it finally to reveal the timeline after such a long ongoing trilogy(or saga, or whatever you wanna call it).

Very true.
What I like about it is that Nintendo makes it so casuals of the series can pick up any game and play it without knowing any of this. However, the history of the story is so deep for us fanboys that we can spend hours and hours connecting the games together; it is extremely elaborate.

Looking forward to infant Link in the next installment.

I got some likes and dislikes with this.

I like that Nintendo went outside the box and went with a timeline where link failed.

I'm kinda neutral that Ocarina of Time seems to be the focal point for the timelines.

I hate the fact that its been prequel after prequel for 25 years. Its time to move the Zelda line forward!

start from the bottom or the top? so SSword is first and zelda 2 is last?

I think if you take the term 'hero of time defeated' not so literally it makes a lot more sense. Link obviously did NOT lose, we've played this but if you infer from it that while he won the battle he didn't win the war (as in killed the SOB but didn't kill him dead as in sealing the bastard for all time) that makes sense how that line goes.

I find one thing very fascinating and kind of personally hilarious about the whole thing in that all the Zelda games I wish would just fucking die as I think they're bad (TP) to truly epic awful (MM) are all in the same time branch.

I may just have to see on future Zelda games where it falls in the timeline to save myself some money and a headache.

I think Nintendo actually did a good time sewing together a timeline from games that seemingly conflict each other. I would've thought it hilarious if they threw in the CD-i games.

Majora's Mask is actually my second favorite Zelda. What don't people like about it? =o

well when i was a kid i hated the 3 day time and the save feature in majoras mask.  i was just new into gaming with the n64 as well as ocarina of time the first game i ever had, i liked that save feature.  they stripped it away and made it hardest 3d zelda game in my opinion.  i like majoras mask now but back then i hated it, and some ppl still hate it for some of the reasons i listed.  im sure theres more things other ppl didn't like about it but those were the ones i didn't like about it as a kid.

theres a timeline? weird. i guess kinda get it. but ive usually just looked at them all as individual, non-connected worlds. like a multiverse if you would.

Why don't they split up the Ocarina of Time? Link defeated Ganon in the future, so shouldn't they mention that somewhere after Majora's Mask?

This guy has a pretty good theory for the whole "Link fails to stop Ganon" thing:





Dunno if that's the way Nintendo sees the story, but I like his explanation.

Hm. I loved it as a kid. I thought it was a great follow-up for Ocarina of Time. In fact, Majora's Mask remains my second favorite Zelda game. *shrug* Majora's Mask just seems so controversial.