Long-time Legend of Zelda producer/director Eiji Aonuma has revealed that a Breath of the Wild timeline placement will never happen. Fans have been wondering exactly where Breath of the Wild places on the official Legend of Zelda timeline. Now, thanks to the release of The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild Creating a Champion (a new companion book for the game), we have our answer.
Eiji Aonuma has confirmed that Breath of the Wild will never appear on the official Zelda timeline. Despite this being contradictory to what Aonuma has argued before, this is now the official word of Nintendo. Aonuma argues that Nintendo is simply enjoying hearing everyone’s predictions to officially place the game on the timeline. He argues that video games go “much, much farther” than the vision of a developer and can take on new meaning.
Aonuma explains that Nintendo made Breath of the Wild “with the intention of returning to our roots, so the response from players about feeling the same as they had when they were young is promising.”
Speaking on the official Zelda timeline, Aonuma added that “in books like the recently released The Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia, we revealed where each Zelda game fell on a timeline and how their stories related, but we didn’t do that for Breath of the Wild. There is a reason for that. With this game, we saw just how many players were playing in their own way and had those reactions I just mentioned.” Nintendo “realized that people were enjoying imagining the story that emerged from the fragmental imagery [the Zelda team was] providing.” Aonuma argues that if “Nintendo defined a restricted timeline, then there would be a definitive story, and it would eliminate the room for imagination, which wouldn’t be as fun.”
Without adding Breath of the Wild to an official timeline, Nintendo is hoping that players are “able to continue having fun imagining [the] world even after they are finished with the game.”
[H/T Nintendo Insider]
