#because the evil you defeated came back and YOU werent around to save us again

[strawberrycircuits]

Since you know lore of loz (and you actually explain it in a way that makes sense to me), could you explain to me where Botw/totk fit in the story. Cause I've been told that the first 8bit loz game is supposed to be the very last in the series, but my brain refuses to think that botw could come before that.

ok so good news: 8bit loz is, at least according to nintendo, NOT the last game in the series-- its not even the last game in a branch of the timeline.

im going to do my best to be as concise and understandable as possible, but im going to be talking about the timeline which is anything but. so. here goes!

so the zelda timeline looks like this, right? its a big mess with multiple branches, and it looks like this because Ocarina of Time is a game dealing with time travel and things got a little fucky in that game.

so the general idea here is; as an adult, link saves a future hyrule and leaves that newly-saved world to be sent back in time to before all of this happened (a world that is eventually flooded, since ganondorf returns and theres no link to save them that time, leading to wind waker). back as a child, link then runs and tells zelda about ganondorfs plans, and he's stopped before the events in the adult timeline can happen and we get the child timeline instead (and he goes off into the woods, sparking the start of majoras mask). if link dies in ocarina of time, ganondorf wins and we get the doomed timeline (leading to a link to the past)

breath of the wild is super fucking weird because its has elements from EVERYTHING ON THIS FUCKING TIMELINE. the rito? the flooding of hyrule (as mentioned in the description for rock salt)? ocarina of time Link being remembered whatsoever? islands referencing characters like Linebeck? those fuckers only exist in the adult timeline. twilight princess being referenced directly in links knighting ceremony? the mirror of twilight appearing in a side quest? arbiters grounds from TP still being in the gerudo desert? thats only in the child timeline, bro! ganon being a horrific entity of hate and darkness rather than a man? the yellow stripe on the hero of the wild gear? the abundance of monsters? doomed timeline, baby!

and the developers take on where botw is isnt exactly consistent, either

so! the consensus on where botw is is that it takes place after everything else on the timeline. that, at some point, the three timelines converged, and a shitload of time has passed since then, and now we've got the Hyrule of BOTW. and its been so much time that, as the art book for BOTW says; "Hyrule’s recurring periods of prosperity and decline have made it impossible to tell which legends are historical fact and which are mere fairy tale.” Hence the inconsistencies and weirdness about when this all takes place.

(also, fun fact that totally doesnt mean anything at all; the noncanonical spinoff game hyrule warriors? the plot for that game, loosely speaking, is that the three timelines are converged, which would explain how BOTW can be from every timeline. oh and its the first game where link wears blue. yeah the same blue he wears in breath of the wild. just a silly, funny thought.)

so.. yeah. the zelda timeline is a confusing mess, but we all kind of agree (based off of what the devs have said) that is at the end of everything that came before and waaaaaaay off in the future from there. so there ya go :]