According to the Zelda loremasters, Echoes of Wisdom exists on the alternate timeline created by Link’s potential failure in 1998’s Ocarina of Time. It sits somewhere between Tri Force Heroes (the multiplayer-focused Nintendo 3DS game from 2015) and the decline of the Hyrule Kingdom, an event that precedes the series’ NES debut in 1986. As you can see, the official timeline kind of ping pongs through our own reality without always following the order in which the games were released.
Believe it or not, this is the second major adjustment to the Zelda timeline this year. A large “The Legend of Zelda History” mural displayed at Nintendo Live 2024 in Sydney showed massive Switch entries Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom as separate from the known timeline entirely — a change that’s now reflected on the official website as well. Some thought this meant Nintendo was taking steps to reboot the confusing chronology — which would be hilarious after keeping it a secret for so long — but today’s development likely puts that theory to rest.
But, really, does any of this matter? Polygon guides producer Jeffrey Parkin tackled this question last year (go read it!), but my own take is the non-committal “yes and no.” The big draw of an official history is that it gives Zelda fans something to mull over between games while also not really affecting the games themselves all that much. Princess Zelda’s emotional breakdown in Breath of the Wild, for instance, was a powerful piece of storytelling on its own, but in the context of the franchise’s cyclical timeline, one might appreciate its deeper representation of the cumulative weight every Zelda has felt throughout the ages.
As long as there are video games, there will be Zelda, and like the eponymous legend itself, we are destined to repeat these conversations forever.
