Key Takeaways
- Nintendo has confirmed when exactly Echoes Of Wisdom takes place on The Legend Of Zelda’s timeline.
- The latest game in the series happens after Tri-Force Heroes and before the original The Legend Of Zelda.
- Breath Of The Wild and Tears Of The Kingdom are still separate from the timeline which includes every other Zelda game.
The Legend Of Zelda returned to its 2D roots this year via Echoes Of Wisdom and ever since its reveal, hardcore fans have been trying to figure out when the events of the game take place. Nintendo has now confirmed when exactly on the timeline Zelda is tasked with saving Link rather than the other way around, and while it’s a long time ago in our world, it’s relatively recent in The Legend Of Zelda’s.
No matter how disconnected one game might be from the next, if a well-loved series has been running long enough, its fans will try to make sense of its timeline, even if there isn’t really a timeline there to make sense of. So that there are no disputes and eternal online arguments, Nintendo has an official The Legend Of Zelda timeline that dictates when exactly every game in the series takes place, and now Echoes Of Wisdom is a part of it.
That the latest Zelda game has taken two months to show up on the timeline might suggest it has taken the devs a while to figure out where it should go. Then again, Eiji Aonuma and the rest of the devs behind the games have admitted they don’t put a massive amount of thought into where exactly Zelda games fall on the timeline during development. It sounds more like a “we’ll figure that out after” situation which is seemingly what has happened with Echoes Of Wisdom.
When Echoes Of Wisdom Takes Place On The Legend Of Zelda’s Timeline
Time To Stop Arguing, Nintendo Has Spoken
As for where Echoes falls, the latest Zelda takes place directly after Tri-Force Heroes and right before the original The Legend Of Zelda and its sequel. You might think that makes it one of the oldest Zelda games in terms of when exactly it happened in Hylian history, but it’s quite the opposite. Almost every game other than the original two titles, and Breath Of The Wild and Tears Of The Kingdom which are separate from the main timeline, canonically take place before the events of Echoes Of Wisdom.
That means Echoes Of Wisdom is technically the most up-to-date version of Hyrule we’ve seen since the late 1980s. In reality, it’s much more complicated than that. In Ocarina Of Time, the Zelda timeline splits in two depending on whether the hero is triumphant or not. Defeat leads to the timeline on which the Echoes Of Wisdom takes place, whereas victory leads to another split timeline, one that begins with Majora’s Mask, and another that kicks off with The Wind Waker.
There’s also Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom which, as noted, seem to have a timeline on their own. Nintendo separated them from the rest of the timeline in September and hasn’t clarified whether they take place in an alternate universe or if it simply can’t decide where they’re supposed to go.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom sees you play as the titular princess, searching for Link and saving Hyrule in the process. She uses the Tri Rod to created echoes, duplicates of everything from tables to enemies, to help her on her journey.
- Released
- September 26, 2024
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty