Should future Zelda games build consistency around Breath of the Wild?

[Spirit]

The Zelda timeline is a contradictory mess, BotW with a 10,000+ year back story and no defined placement almost feels as if Aonuma and the creative team are trying to distance themselves from what they have established in the past.

The Zelda games have never fit together well, but could BotW be the start of Aonuma wanting to craft a more succinct timeline for the future of Zelda?

Do you expect future Zelda games to be direct sequels/prequels to BotW rather than games having little to do with what has come before?

Or do you think the next games will just do their own things as Zelda and Aonuma always have?

 

[Jirohnagi]

There really isn't any consistency in BOTW, the game mashes alot of themes from other games, from the names to enemies. I think if they do build around it it should be geologically not physiology.

 

[YIGAhim]

The Zelda timeline is a contradictory mess, BotW with a 10,000+ year back story and no defined placement almost feels as if Aonuma and the creative team are trying to distance themselves from what they have established in the past.

The Zelda games have never fit together well, but could BotW be the start of Aonuma wanting to craft a more succinct timeline for the future of Zelda?

Do you expect future Zelda games to be direct sequels/prequels to BotW rather than games having little to do with what has come before?

Or do you think the next games will just do their own things as Zelda and Aonuma always have?

You mean they abandon all that old timeline stuff and just be like: "yeah we're starting again by placing 10k years between events". I bet they are, and I don't like it. The mashes were bad and I can only expect more of that

 

[AncientPoe]

No. Not at all. Adhering to a strict timeline is stupid, and it's a great way to write yourself into a corner. Unmoor the stories so each game can be exactly whatever it needs to be at the time.

 

[DarkestLink]

Nix the timeline, create some AUs, declare some games to be non-canon and...just...ditch the lore mess that SS started and BOTW continued. You just can't make it work.

 

[Caramel H]

Maybe I'm biased because I don't like BoTW, but no, I don't think they should cater to the timeline because the writer's will lose sight of what they're doing. The timeline will get overly confusing, especially since Nintendo loves bringing in new ideas.

 

[DekuNut]

I doubt it. BotW was pretty light on story compared to other games, in part due to its nonlinear nature. If later games take a lot from that game, if anything I feel like we'll get an era in Zelda focused more on exploration and gameplay than story.

 

[Castle]

God no. Ninty has veered off course far enough as it is. They don't know wtf they're doing anymore.

Besides, Aunoma and Shigsy don't care about the timeline, nor should they. There is exactly nothing about BotW ninty should maintain consistency with - and I'm not just talking about lore and story.

 

[PalaeoJoe]

I don't know if (or how much) they will continue to build off of BotW's Lore/time line placement. We don't know what stories they plan to tell in the future, so it is hard to guess how the next games might build on Breath of the Wild's world and story. If future games had nothing to do with BotW's time line placement I would not be surprised. Nor would I be surprised if in the near future a game took great inspiration from BotW. But surely new games will take some elements from BotW's World, there are many points of world building that BotW features which have no barring on the time line. For example TP introduced the three main provinces of Hyrule; Faron, Elden and Lanayru. Then SS and BotW both featured these regions, BotW then gave us new provinces like Necluda and Hebra, I expect future games to include places named after some of the provinces introduced in BotW.

I don't think BotW actually messed with the Lore much, everything that seams wrong about BotW in relation to the Lore of the previous games can be explained. The most baffling thing is the inclusion of the Rito as in another time line the Rito are descended from the last of Hyrule's Zora. These Rito obviously have a different origin story then those of tWW. As for the time line in whole there are certainly contradictions but I think this is the best they could do with a list of games that were originally not meant to be in a consistent chronology. I want them to have a more consistent Time Line and I think they can do it if they make an effort. Unfortunately, Up until this point they have made almost no effort and I have no confidence that they will make a real effort going forward. The games that are already placed in the time line won't have their Time Line inconsistencies corrected but as new games are added later in the timeline it is possible to have a more logical timeline in the future.