If you want to hear a Zelda fan talk for hours and hours about something nobody gives a crap about, bring up the idea of a Zelda timeline. There is so much debate as to whether all the Legend of Zelda games exist in the same universe that you'd be dead before you read it all.
That said, Skyward Sword producer Eiji Aonuma has actually come out to definitively say that a timeline exists. Wait a minute ... hasn't Nintendo repeatedly denied that one exists?
"Yes there is a master timeline but its confidential document," the producer tells Official Nintendo Magazine. "The only people to have access to that document are myself, Mr. Miyamoto and the director of the title. We can't share it with anyone else!
"I have already talked to Mr. Miyamoto about this so I am comfortable in releasing this information -- this title [Skyward Sword] takes place before Ocarina of Time. If I said that a certain title was ‘the first Zelda game’, then that means that we can't ever make a title that takes place before that! So for us to add titles to the series, we have to have a way of putting the titles before or after each other."
Well, that was nice and vague. Still, the debate has finally been lain to rest. The Legend of Zelda has a timeline ... at least until the next Nintendo executive comes along to say that it doesn't!
Skyward Sword Before Ocarina of Time in Zelda Timeline [Zelda Dungeon]
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
10:00 PM on 07.21.2010 | 
The real problem is all Zelda games are the same but with updated visuals.
Cept Wind Waker.
As to the question behind a Zelda timeline, Corduroy Turtle (and Jesse Jackson) said it best.
Well here goes another argument about the timeline about to start
RELEASE THE DOCUMENT NINTENDO
I wonder if they're included?
2 Words: Flying Beetle
But can a random Nintendo employee who works the e-mail station supersede the man currently overseeing the franchise? It would seem to me that Aonuma's admission holds infinitely more weight than Joe Mario.
I don't know why people insist on looking so deeply into things.
Actually, the best explanation of the series I've heard so far is the Literary Agent Hypothesis: all the games represent the same story being retold in a different fashion each time. Sort of how myths and legends from oral tradition will change and incorporate different characters and events depending on who's telling it. I personally think it makes far more sense than shoehorning the games into an actual timeline of causality.
The timeline matters - on top of that, it's extremely interesting to read about and study. I can't fucking stand people who come in to threads just to say that shit. If it doesn't matter to you, don't click the story, and fuck off. To those of us who do care, this is awesome. If this tells the true origins of what we've been playing for 20+ years, I can't wait to learn it.
if there's no timeline, don't you think it would be easier on the developers in the future? Having an alternate universe where things never happened or happened differently could open up all sorts of possibilities.
If they actually have a time line planned out, that's cool, but most likely they are making shit up as they go.
Also, 3D did wonders for Zelda. All home-console installments post-Ocarina have wonderful cinematic atmosphere that you just don't get in something like LttP. Not saying LttP is a bad game, but it seems very, erm, 'flat' compared to games like Twilight Princess and Wind Waker.
Personally, I don't follow it. In situations like Ocarina of Time --> Majora's Mask, I care, because it's clearly the same dude in the same world. But trying to link A Link to the Past to Wind Waker to Phantom Hourglass? It's so hard! Kudos to the people that get a buzz from that kind of thing, though.
Yeah...I call bullshit...
Like Kojima and Metal Gear 1.
Really need an edit function, this is horrible on a phone.