Zelda: Ocarina Of Time – the timeline explained and why it doesn’t matter

Do you require to play anything else to comprehend the Ocarina Of Time remake?

Brief response: no. Apologies for burying the lede, however in an age where individuals can be delayed from delving into a long term franchise out of worry they will not comprehend the plot, or who anybody is, we can ensure you that is not an issue for the Zelda video games.

Characters might share names and functions throughout the video games, with Link and Zelda being the most typical, however they’re typically entirely various characters with the exact same name– either forefathers or from another truth.

When it concerns Ocarina Of Time particularly, not just is its story extremely easy (and will likely stay so even with the remake guaranteeing to flesh things out a bit), however it’s likewise completely self-contained and has no obvious connections to any of the video games that come before it in the timeline.

If you are the sort of individual who want to dive deeper into the broader tradition of the Zelda series, however, there is one video game you’ll wish to play which’s The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Initially launched for the Wii in 2011, it’s more easily offered through its 2021 Switch remaster and is chronologically the very first Zelda video game. At the time, Nintendo even made a point of highlighting how this video game works as an origin story for the Master Sword, which regularly appears throughout the series as Link’s go-to weapon for battling evil.

Without ruining excessive, Skyward Sword likewise supplies a description for why repeating bad guy Ganondorf keeps turning up to antagonise Link and Zelda. Like those 2, it’s not the precise very same Ganondorf each time (normally, however we’ll get to that later on), however rather he is routinely reincarnated in a brand-new type to threaten the land of Hyrule.

What about the Skyward Sword manga?

Exists a follow up to Ocarina Of Time?

If you’ve taken a look at the timeline, you’ll understand Ocarina Of Time remains in an unusual area, because it divides off into 3 various timeline branches; each with their own video games. As an outcome, it has a couple of video games that follow-up on its story, however in various methods.

This is because of the nature of Ocarina Of Time’s ending. As a fast explainer, in Ocarina Of Time, Link begins the video game as a kid however is later on sent out 7 years into the future, where Ganondorf has actually effectively dominated Hyrule. Connect beats him and the video game ends with Link going back to his initial time.

Both Link’s initial timeline as a kid and the future timeline he conserved as an adult co-exist. This is why they’re formally described as the Child and Adult ages.

To attempt and keep things basic, we’re going to break the various Ocarina Of Time sequels up by period.

The Legend Of Zelda’s Child age

The Child period is where the most standard Ocarina Of Time follow up– The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask– occurs. This video game sees Link start a brand-new experience soon after the occasions of Ocarina Of Time.

If you’re looking for a direct extension of Ocarina Of Time’s story, you will not discover it here. While it does include the very same Link, it sees him deformed to the land of Termina– a weird parallel variation of Hyrule– and the occasions that take place have no ties to Ocarina Of Time.

Zelda does not make any looks beyond one flashback and Ganondorf isn’t even referenced, with the brand-new bad guy, Majora, being an independent entity. And while you’ll see a lot of side characters that look similar to ones from Ocarina Of Time, this is due to the fact that Majora’s Mask was constructed by re-using the majority of Ocarina Of Time’s possessions.

Majora’s Mask is among the very best Zelda video games, however, so you ought to play it anyhow. If you can discover a copy, the 3DS remake provides some excellent lifestyle touches, however the initial N64 video game is much easier to gain access to through the classics brochure, for Switch Online customers.

There’s The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which is set after Majora’s Mask however is more meaningfully connected to Ocarina Of Time’s plot.

It’s never ever revealed in-game, nor in any extra product, it’s presumed Link utilized his understanding of the future to alert Hyrule’s royal household about Ganondorf’s machinations, leading to the bad guy’s jail time.

We see this jail time in the backstory of Twilight Princess, where Ganondorf is sentenced to death. He endures his execution, nevertheless, and is rather eliminated to another world, which begins the occasions of the video game appropriate and causes his ultimate return several years later on, having actually kept himself alive through dark magic.

While he sports a somewhat various style, Twilight Princess’ Ganondorf is implied to be the very same one from Ocarina Of Time, whose strategies to dominate Hyrule were prevented before they even started. The Link and Zelda he fights are brand-new versions, however, and not the very same ones from Ocarina Of Time.

The only other tie-in to Ocarina Of Time is the Hero’s Shade, a small character who teaches you brand-new battle strategies. He is, in reality, the very same Link from Ocarina Of Time and Majora’s Mask, who is now an uneasy spirit following his death. How he passed away has actually never ever been elaborated on and he just talks about how he is sorry for never ever giving his understanding.

Golden Princess is sadly not that simple to play nowadays, because there’s no contemporary re-release for the Switch or Switch 2. You’ll need to locate an old physical copy, either for the initial video game on GameCube and Wii or the HD remaster for the Wii U.

The Legend Of Zelda’s Adult age

In the Adult period of Ocarina Of Time, Ganondorf was sealed away after his defeat at Link’s hands. Following that video game’s occasions, nevertheless, the seal ultimately broke and considering that there was no version of Link around to stop him, the gods themselves flooded the world, sealing Ganondorf as soon as again, together with the majority of Hyrule.

This is the backstory for The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which ultimately sees Ganondorf break complimentary to attempt and dominate the world. To repeat, this is the exact same Ganondorf from Ocarina Of Time, however the one who effectively took control of Hyrule and was beat.

That’s the only genuine connection in between Ocarina Of Time and The Wind Waker as, as soon as again, several years have actually passed in the interim, and the latter stars brand-new versions of Link and Zelda.

Paradoxically, the initial GameCube variation of The Wind Waker is more available than the Wii U remaster given that it’s offered in the classics brochure for Switch Online customers, however just on Switch 2.

While both the Child and Adult periods continued to see more video games, those are entirely gotten rid of from Ocarina Of Time’s story. In the Adult Era, Ganondorf does not even include in any video games set after The Wind Waker.

What about the Hero is Defeated timeline?

Yes, there is a 3rd timeline after Ocarina Of Time; one that presumes a situation where Link lost and Ganondorf effectively acquired supreme power, changing into his satanic force monster Ganon type.

Additional product states that Zelda and Ocarina Of Time’s Seven Sages still handled to seal him away, which leads into SNES video game The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past. That video game has 2 worlds to check out and among them– the Dark World– is an outcome of Ganon’s existence damaging the world he was sealed in.

Beyond that, there’s definitely no story material connecting A Link To the Past to Ocarina Of Time, however similar to Majora’s Mask, it’s one of the series’ finest entries so we extremely suggest playing it through the Switch Online’s classics brochure.

Does The Legend Of Zelda timeline matter?

In case it wasn’t currently evident, no, the Zelda timeline isn’t something you must seriously think about when approaching the video games. Aside from whatever we simply discussed, Nintendo itself isn’t as fanatically worried about it as some fans are.

Fans had long hypothesized what the Zelda timeline appeared like through the 1990s and 2000s, and though members of the Zelda group did discuss it periodically in interviews, it wasn’t till 2011 that a main timeline was released to accompany Skyward Sword’s launch as the chronologically very first video game.

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While the timeline has actually regularly been upgraded with( most) subsequent releases, it’s plainly not that essential of an aspect when it pertains to establishing brand-new video games. Or a minimum of not from Nintendo’s perspective.

Tears Of The Kingdom director Hidemaro Fujibayashi stated as much in a 2023 interview with Game Informerdescribing that choosing where each Zelda video game suits the timeline is just something the group thinks about to a degree.

‘If we get too into the weeds or too detailed because positioning, it leads to type of developing restraints for our imagination; the procedure of developing originalities ends up being limited due to the fact that we’re so bound and attempting to make this fit into a really particular area in the timeline,’ stated Fujibayashi.

It’s such a technicality throughout each video game’s advancement that we have a slipping suspicion that Nintendo’s been attempting to even more minimize what little bit significance the timeline has since Breath Of The Wild came out in 2017.

For beginners, neither Breath Of The Wild nor Tears Of The Kingdom have a specific positioning on the timeline. They’re totally sequestered off from the other video games; the ramification being they’re set up until now in the future that they might possibly follow any of the 3 branches. Or that they’re totally different alternate truths.

It’s a comparable scenario for each brand-new Zelda video game to have actually launched in the last 9 years that isn’t a remake or re-release. The Cadence Of Hyrule spin-off isn’t thought about a main part of the timeline (most likely since it wasn’t made internally at Nintendo) and while the latter 2 Hyrule Warriors video games– Age Of Calamity and Age Of Imprisonment– are, they’re simply easy prequels to Breath Of The Wild and Tears Of The Kingdom

The only brand-new entry to make it onto the timeline was 2024’s The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom, which happens throughout the Hero is Defeated period, right in between Tri-Force Heroes and the extremely first Zelda video game.

While an intriguing factoid for fans, this positioning does not notify Echoes Of Wisdom’s facility or story whatsoever. Nintendo might choose to retcon it to occur in other places on the timeline and it ‘d make no distinction.

Just how much you wish to engage with Zelda’s chronology is totally approximately you, however the crucial takeaway is that there’s no ‘proper’ method of beginning the series … though there is an incorrect method which’s through the Phillips CD-i video games, which are so embarrassingly bad that Nintendo likes to pretend they never ever took place.

Whether the Ocarina Of Time remake is your very first Zelda ever or your only experience is with Breath Of The Wild, you’re not losing out on years’ worth of essential tradition and backstory. And unless Nintendo later on reveals Ocarina Of Time 2: Electric Boogaloo, you do not require to stress over not comprehending the next video game’s plot if you avoid the remake.

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