Gossip Stone: At What Point on the Timeline Should a Future Zelda Game Take Place?

Nintendo has made many very dramatic decisions regarding their more popular series, but few trump the decision to reveal their three-path timeline in Hyrule Historia. Fans from all over started supporting, denying, and theorizing on the newly made-official timeline, and while several series-wide questions were answered, many more arose, one of which being where future Zelda games may fall. With Zelda titles so often appearing earlier and earlier in the series history, and three seperate branches in the later half, who knows where new games may fall?

Join the discussion after the jump!

The genius of what Nintendo has created with this series is that they can do one of a few things with this timeline of their’s. They can make a game like A Link Between Worlds, easily placed in a rather obvious space based on it’s connection to a previously released game, they can make one like Tri Force Heroes, not fitting into any particular spot, or they can make one like, say, Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword – an “independent” game (for lack of a better term) with no blatant connection to any other games, but that is built in a way that connects to other games through subtle but relevant historical events, while also creating new major events for the player to experience. Nintendo sure has cast a wide net to build their new little worlds in. Zelda Wii U could be any of these types of games, or it could even do something totally new. You never know with this company.

As I mentioned, Zelda are no stranger to having new games “appearing earlier and earlier in the series history”. The earliest titles to release are at the tail-end of the timeline, while the more recent games often appear at the very beginning. This may mean that more Zelda titles will keep up this backwards motion, so to speak, but I don’t think so. With the release of Skyward Sword, the very first on the timeline, I think that, a least for awhile, Nintendo is done telling us the origin stories of things, and they are ready to show us brand new worlds with brand new things to see, mid-way down, or even at the very end of the timeline. Zelda Wii U sure seems unlike much of what we’ve seen before, so maybe it will be at the end of a branch. Of course, that brings up the most controversial topic regarding the timeline: the three splits.

Because of the obvious differences between each of the three splits after Ocarina of Time, there are now drastically different worlds to explore between games, with totally different circumstances regarding Hyrule, the Triforce, and Ganon. If you only look at the end of each branch, you have a broken Hyrule with a (theoretically) permanently dead Ganon, New Hyrule with potentially no Triforce or Ganon at all, and Hyrule with a brand new iteration of Ganon sealed inside of the Four Sword. Personally, I am hoping for a game on that last branch, coninuing the Four Sword story. And again, that is just the very end of each branch. In between games, there are endless possiblities, and that’s where you guys come in.

What do you guys think? Where will/should Zelda Wii U, and other future titles fall on the timeline? Take another gander at the full timeline below, and drop a comment!