Here are my thoughts on the placement of
Breath of the Wild in the
Zelda timeline. There's a tl;dr version at the bottom.
First, there appear to be five options:
- Child timeline (the timeline Twilight Princess and others are in)
- Adult timeline (the timeline Wind Waker and others are in)
- Downfall timeline (the timeline A Link to the Past and others are in)
- A new fourth timeline
- A unified timeline (all the timelines have somehow converged into one with elements from them all)
For simplicity, I'm going to eliminate #4 and #5. They're purely speculative, and there's no evidence to back them up. Unless Nintendo says otherwise, I am going to assume these aren't where
Breath of the Wild fall, since they've so far only given us three options canonically.
1. Best evidence for the Child timeline: Princess Zelda goes over the history of the Master Sword and specifically references events from
Skyward Sword,
Ocarina of Time, and
Twilight Princess. However, this could just be an Easter Egg. It's circumstantial evidence, but it's currently the best evidence we have for timeline placement. It has also been discussed online that other games, such as
Wind Waker and
A Link to the Past, might have been referenced in this cutscene in other localizations of
Breath of the Wild, which would discredit this evidence.
2. Best evidence for the Adult timeline: The presence of the Rito, the presence of the Koroks, references to an ancient sea in the Ancient Sea Salt description, an apparent reference to Medli (Divine Beast Medoh), references to other sages who were not awakened in the Child timeline, and the whale skeletons on the land of Hyrule. However, all of this is pretty circumstantial. There's no real reason the Rito and Koroks can't exist in other timelines, we know that parts of Hyrule have been previously covered by oceans before even
Skyward Sword, Medli is not directly mentioned (unlike two of the other Divine Beast namesakes), and any references to awakened sages from the Adult and Downfall timelines could be explained by Link bringing that information back in time with him to the Child timeline and talking about it.
3. Best evidence for the Downfall timeline: References to the other sages who were not awakened in the Child timeline, the outfit you get for completing all 120 shrines, references to Hyrule being repeatedly attacked by Ganon, and the Master Sword's location. As I mentioned earlier, references to awakened sages who were not awakened in the Child timeline can be explained by Link bringing that history back in time with him and discussing it. In fact, the Zora tablets refer to the Ruto history as being in "
a past," not "
the past." The outfit is purely circumstantial. Repeated attacks by Ganon are present in all three timelines, and we know that Calamity Ganon has attacked Hyrule multiple times offscreen in
Breath of the Wild's 10,000-year history that likely falls after all other games, which would be true regardless of which timeline it falls on. The Master Sword's location is irrelevant because we don't know where Link pulled it from 100 years before the events of
Breath of the Wild; its location in the Lost Woods is just where Princess Zelda decided to put it for safe keeping under the watchful eye of the Deku Tree.
tl;dr version: All of the evidence is circumstantial, so Breath of the Wild could fall on any timeline until we get confirmation from Aonuma, etc. The best evidence we have right now is the scene in which Princess Zelda seems to go through the history of the Master Sword, listing the events of Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess. Since Twilight Princess falls under the Child timeline, and events from other timelines are omitted (depending on what you believe about other localizations and their canonicity), that makes it likely that Breath of the Wild also falls on the Child timeline. However, it's still circumstantial, and we just don't know for sure. I'm assuming it's the Child timeline until I'm told otherwise.