Fast on the heels of the E3 2010 announcement of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (and just mere seconds after the celebratory jig done across the vastness of the intertubes), many of us blurted out a series of questions that probably resembled something like this:
When is the game coming out (Pssst, in early 2011!)? Will it be as good as Ocarina of Time? Will it look graphically better? How smooth will the Wii gameplay be? How is the story going to shape up? Aw jeez, how long is the line for the midnight release going to be?!
To be honest, you probably had to go pretty far down the list until you arrived at this one: Where in the Zelda timeline will Skyward Sword fit in?
Nintendo continues to leave us in the dark regarding many of the former questions, but it has surprisingly answered the latter: Skyward Sword will take place before Ocarina of Time. In an interview with Nintendo Magazine, Eiji Aonuma, chief architect of the Zelda installments Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, The Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess, confirmed Skyward Sword’s place in Zelda’s narrative timeline:
“Yes, there is a master timeline, but it’s [a] confidential document! The only people to have access to that document are myself, Mr. Miyamoto and the director of the title. We can’t share it with anyone else! I have already talked to Mr. Miyamoto about this so I am comfortable in releasing this information – this title [Skyward Sword] takes place before Ocarina of Time. If I said that a certain title was ‘the first Zelda game’, then that means that we can’t ever make a title that takes place before that! So for us to add titles to the series, we have to have a way of putting the titles before or after each other.”
While the confirmation of the existence of a master list regarding the Zelda timeline might have blown people away during the heyday of the Nintendo 64, it rings a little bit hollow in our current video game era. With a dozen or so games already to the franchise’s name (Not all of them made by Nintendo, mind you), a litany of back-stories and legends, and a multitude of landscapes, enemies, villains, and dungeons, the task of trying to make sense of such a convoluted timeline can only fall to the most adventuresome of Zelda fanboys.
And let’s be honest here: The Legend of Zelda series isn’t about some overarching, interconnected narrative that spans the course of multiple games. Rather, the series is about a singular story and a whole lot of dungeon exploring, item hunting, and Master Sword mashing. Instead of being at rapt attention listening to the Great Deku Tree droning on about the Triforce goddesses and wondering how it all fit in with the other Zelda games, we were trying to figure out what we could bash to death with a Deku Stick.
To top it off, it feels like Nintendo has its work cut out for it if it really wants to make a sensible timeline out of The Legend of Zelda. Only in the latter part of Twilight Princess did we even get a strong sense that the individual games of the series might be connected with one another. With so many installments of the franchise already out there, Nintendo faces a whole lot of backstory to try to fill in.
Perhaps Skyward Sword will go a long way toward bringing the overall narrative of The Legend of Zelda into focus. From the look of the game it certainly seems like it is capable of getting that job done.
But is that what we really want?
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will release in early 2011.
Source: NintendoEverything
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I knew it! Those jerks at Nintendo have been telling us for years that there was no official timeline… but there is!
Uh, so what do we do now?
Raise our glasses to the Great God of “Meh”?
Those jerks actually have always said there IS a timeline
I don’t get why everyone is so excited about this… We know that the SS is the MS, so this is no surprise!
Direct quote from Nintendo: “This means — unless otherwise specified — each new game represents a new Link and that there isn’t a true frame of reference or timeline possible for the series.”
Other quotes include: “No timeline to speak of.”
It’s always been the official stance that there was no timeline. Where you comin’ from Phillipe?
“Only in the latter part of Twilight Princess did we even get a strong sense that the individual games of the series might be connected with one another.”
You mention this one instead of Wind Waker? o.O
http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline
Apparently, there are two timelines in the Zelda universe that split after Ocarina with one following the life of Adult Link and one following the life of Child Link. It’s a good read.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m super excited for Skyward Sword. But, its place on the timeline is important why exactly?
It’s more interesting than important.
Right, that might’ve been some PR guys response, but I’m suuuuure Miyamoto/Aunoma has said this very same thing before.
Ok, though definitely a fan of both, I’m not a massive Zelda or Nintendo expert, but, as far as I’m aware, there’s always been an official (though secret) “master” list. Not sure who/what my source(s) was/were, or how reliable they were,
But it’s always seemed to me to be common sense that they’d have some form of timeline to consult themselves on. Even if the games aren’t that connected to previous/future titles in the series, as Aonuma pointed out, if they say that a game is the first chronilogically, they limit themselves. So, when making a new Zelda game, whatever their intention with the game’s timeline-placement is, they must be aware of the chronilogical order of the games, just to make sure that they don’t make some (even obscure) reference to something that hasn’t happened yet.
Probably not the best ‘example’/reason I could give for that, but I still believe they’ve always had an ‘official’ timeline for the series.