After the reveal of the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, Nintendo has issued an update to the official Zelda timeline that makes an already head-spinning history even more complex. The update appears to confirm a fan theory that’s been around since Tears of the Kingdom launched a few years ago: there are, in fact, two different Hyrules.
The official Zelda timeline splits into three different branches from the end of Ocarina of Time. All three branches eventually come to a dead end where Link and Zelda’s stories fade into myth. Then comes Breath of the Wild – a unifying tale set amid Hyrule’s ruins where a new story begins.
But then we got Tears of the Kingdom, where Zelda is flung back in time to witness the founding of Hyrule. But that set off a question for fans: was this the beginning of the Hyrule we’d known in the previous games, or the foundation of a new Hyrule? In other words, is the kingdom we see in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom entirely disconnected from the one that had come before?
As noted in a new lore video by Zelda specialist Zeltik, there’s a revamped version of the timeline on the official Japanese Nintendo website. The broad strokes of the timeline are the same as ever, but there’s a notable addition: an entry for the founding of Hyrule just ahead of the events of the flashbacks in Tears of the Kingdom. This is presented entirely separately from the founding of Hyrule in the earlier part of the timeline.
That’s probably as close as we’re ever going to get to an official confirmation of the refounding theory. So yes, we should probably be operating under the assumption that there are two different Hyrules. But things might actually be even more complicated than that.
In the video above, Zeltik goes on to note that the Ocarina of Time remake is full of minor visual references to the Breath of the Wild era. Some of the Kokiri kids now have tattoos matching those Queen Sonia sports in the Tears of the Kingdom flashbacks. There are also now Sheikah patterns matching those in the modern Switch games.
What’s that mean? Heck, man, I don’t know. Maybe the Ocarina of Time remake will be subtly altered to fit into the Breath of the Wild era of the timeline. Maybe these are just small design flourishes ensuring that the remake feels in line with the visual language of the modern games. It’s fun thing to consider, but I wouldn’t expect any concrete answers when the remake launches in November.
Interconnecting lore rarely gets a direct reference in the actual games, and while Nintendo has apparently kept an official timeline since 2003, it was never “that important” to Shigeru Miyamoto. Still, ever since that timeline was made public in 2011, Nintendo has dutifully updated it for each new game, while leaving plenty of room for fans to develop their own theories. It’s just as well – the theories are usually more fun than the answers, anyway.