Zelda: Breath of the Wild timeline is a wellspring of theories

People love their timelines, there’s no two ways about it. We like to classify things, especially when they are seemingly connected. Zelda’s timeline has been pretty weird for a long time now, and it would appear that Breath of the Wild will only add to the confusion. Speaking of confusion, if you are playing the new Zelda, feel free to check our extensive guides list.

Since the game has been out for a few days now, this means that many of the previous theories have been put to the test. The main issue seems to be that the game itself freely borrows elements and names from earlier games in a seemingly unconnected way. For example, the Koroks are there, the happy tree-planters from Wind Waker. Are they just a Zelda thing now or are they pointing to the fact that this Zelda fits after Wind Waker in the timeline? Do we count Amiibos in? Because the Wolf Link from Twilight Princess is technically in BotW if you have the right Amiibo.

Eiji Aonuma, Zelda producer, has not helped keep things any clearer by doing interviews in Ocarina of Time T-shirt, as well as stating that Link has been asleep for a 100 years at the beginning of the game. This would definitely mean that this Link is from one of the previous games, which still limits it to some 16 games plus spin-offs! And for the first time we have DLCs coming as well.

There’s always the possibility that Breath of the Wild is a convergence of sorts. A place where all the previous timelines come together. It is certainly big enough for that and it does have elements borrowed from many Zeldas of yore. If you are into this type of overthinking, look up some of the discussion forums out there, you’re bound to be surprised by how well the people know their Zelda.And if you are currently playing BotW, you are probably not even reading this, so good on you.