Notes:

Nintendo has said quite a few times that they aren’t all that worried about the timeline placement of Legend of Zelda games. The Big N has made it clear that they worry about gameplay first and then figure out other things like timeline placement later. While placement of Zelda games in a timeline may not be Nintendo’s focus, it doesn’t mean they don’t have some sort of plan either.

Nintendo Live 2024 Sydney is going on right now, and Nintendo has plenty of content for Legend of Zelda fans to enjoy at the big show. Turns out they also put together an officially-updated timeline for the entire Legend of Zelda franchise. This updated timeline gives us a look at where Nintendo has decided to slot in titles like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

As you can see at the top of the post, according to Nintendo’s overall plan, both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are on a completely separated timeline from other Zelda games. That means they don’t fall into the “Hero is Defeated” or “Hero is Triumphant” paths that fans have known about for years.

What does Nintendo plan to do with the two latest Zelda games in terms of timeline placement? If the above timeline map is any indicator, it seems like Nintendo isn’t ready to share that information just yet. Either that, or Nintendo hasn’t come up with an answer themselves!