The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii-U, Switch) 2017

[KHCast]

Wait, how the hell did someone decode it? It's a fake language. Is there like an official hylian alphabet translator or something lol?

[Pawn]

28 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Wait, how the hell did someone decode it? It's a fake language. Is there like an official hylian alphabet translator or something lol?

As IGN says: "NeoGAF user RagnarokX mentioned it all began when Nintendo released a teaser image with Hylian text. Another GAFer "noticed a pattern," and figured out the text read THELEGENDOFZELDA. It was enough letters to begin translating the Hylian found in Breath of the Wild's E3 footage."

[Patticus]

38 minutes ago, Marcello said:

Ganon doesn't exist until OOT, so probably not.

That... I did not consider. Kudos! Still though, there's no reason why elements from one timeline shouldn't independently arise in the others.

[KHCast]

1 hour ago, Pawn said:

As IGN says: "NeoGAF user RagnarokX mentioned it all began when Nintendo released a teaser image with Hylian text. Another GAFer "noticed a pattern," and figured out the text read THELEGENDOFZELDA. It was enough letters to begin translating the Hylian found in Breath of the Wild's E3 footage."

Zelda fans. Are fucking. Dedicated.(well either that or crazy lol)

[Tailikku]

My current theory is that this game takes place in the Downfall timeline, considering that that timeline's Ganon keeps degarding further and further from the original Ganondorf.  So wouldn't it make sense if the furthest Ganon degraded is the Calamity Ganon, a malevolent force of nature?  I mean what happened to Ganon in the other two timelines:

Adult timeline:  turned to stone and then eroded away by the waters of the Great Sea

Child timeline:  Sealed away in the Four Sword and trapped within by the Shrine Maidens and Zelda.

What happened to him in the Downfall Timeline:

Link killed him with a Silver Arrow and left him as a pile of ashes, which could be revived if the B.U.M (Brotherhood of Underworld Monsters) spilled his blood on them, leading to this:

Plus the Downfall timeline keeps making references to the other two timelines, thanks to the Oracle games and the 3DS titles.

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

3 hours ago, Patticus said:

Similarly, might it not also be the case that this game takes place before the OOT timeline split?

Also Temple of Time in ruins

[Indigo Rush]

It'd be so crazy if this really was some re-merging of time-lines and the Link that's asleep is the original Link from the NES game. 

 

[expansivelovestories]

13 hours ago, Celestia said:

I'm thinking what happened 100 years ago is that Link tried to fight the Calamity Ganon, failed, and nearly (or actually?) died. Hence why he was taken to the Shrine of Resurrection. That still leaves a lot of questions unanswered, tho'.

And I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this was a Link we've played as before, but which one? Maybe he's one of the handheld games' Links, but the only reason for me to think that is that it'd be relatively surprising.

hmm!! 

The Wind Fish explains that Koholint is all Link's dream. When Link plays the Ballad of the Wind Fish again, he and the Wind Fish awaken; Koholint Island and all its inhabitants slowly disappear.  Link finds himself lying on driftwood in the middle of the ocean, with the Wind Fish flying overhead.

It is possible that the dream that formed Link's Awakening took place while Link is in hibernation/recovery in the chamber's pool..??  When he is in the ocean it could still be a dream on the way back to waking up in the water in his actual life.

Now reading Indigo Rush's post, it could be that the original (first one that was experienced by people in a game etc) Link was put into recovery at some point during that timeline, during which the dream of Koholint island and the Wind Fish occurred and then either soon or eventually after that dream, the hibernation/recovery was complete and he wakes up! 

[Marcello]

29 minutes ago, expansivelovestories said:

hmm!! 

The Wind Fish explains that Koholint is all Link's dream. When Link plays the Ballad of the Wind Fish again, he and the Wind Fish awaken; Koholint Island and all its inhabitants slowly disappear.  Link finds himself lying on driftwood in the middle of the ocean, with the Wind Fish flying overhead.

It is possible that the dream that formed Link's Awakening took place while Link is in hibernation/recovery in the chamber's pool..??  When he is in the ocean it could still be a dream on the way back to waking up in the water in his actual life.

Now reading Indigo Rush's post, it could be that the original (first one that was experienced by people in a game etc) Link was put into recovery at some point during that timeline, during which the dream of Koholint island and the Wind Fish occurred and then either soon or eventually after that dream, the hibernation/recovery was complete and he wakes up! 

Zelda 1 and 2 Link is a different Link than Link's Awakening. LA has the same Link as Link to the Past and the Oracle games (It's also speculated this Link is the old Spot Pass man in Kakariko Village from A Link Between Worlds). Those games take place before Zelda 1 and 2.

I'm still think it's the downfall line, since we know Hyrule decays there and by the time of the first two games, Hyrule doesn't look great, so given more time and Ganon destroying it, it could work. Koroks are the most complicated part, but they can just give a random reason why the Kokiri evolved into them.

[Indigo Rush]

 

[Radiant Hero Ike]

You can deflect lasers with your shield.

You can deflect lasers with your shield.

YOU CAN DEFLECT LASERS WITH YOUR SHIELD.

have they invented time travel yet I'd like to play this game

[WhoWhatMan]

http://gonintendo.com/stories/259779-aonuma-tries-to-create-link-with-a-gender-neutral-design

 

So yea, Link is made to be more gender natural in this game. I already got that feeling way before they even said but I do like that they went out of their way to make Link like that

[Patticus]

So it has nothing at all to do with Japan's long-standing cultural preference for androgyny, then?

[BlueFlare]

This seems to be the game for the rest of my life. Currently playing MM3D, gets me more hyped for this.

[Patticus]

23 hours ago, Mando-Whirl-Wind said:

Also Temple of Time in ruins

It was in ruins in Skyward Sword too, if you recall.

[Diogenes]

20 hours ago, I'm Dan said:

http://gonintendo.com/stories/259779-aonuma-tries-to-create-link-with-a-gender-neutral-design

 

So yea, Link is made to be more gender natural in this game. I already got that feeling way before they even said but I do like that they went out of their way to make Link like that

So like, why not just go for it and give us a gender option, then? Or at least actually commit to them being gender-neutral and not go "oh but he's really definitely a guy!"

[Indigo Rush]

I'm not too terribly gun-ho either way on gender options for Link (it'd be cool, mind), but yeah I wish they'd stick to their guns with "we just don't wanna because Link's a guy" rather than come up with frivolous excuses or something. Consistency would go a long way.

[Nepenthe]

I don't think Aonuma means gender neutral as in "he has no gender," which is an inherently contradictory statement. I think he more means "androgynous," which is physically looking of an indeterminate gender. But that's how Link looked the last time to me which was an appearance directly spurned from internal dissatisfaction with TP's more masculine incarnation, so I think he's only reiterating this because of the gender argument. I don't think this statement has much to do with the hypocrisy of making much ado about nothing because it mainly concerns his appearance.

[Dizcrybe]

LiNKS Into Dreams

But yeah, I'm with Indigo on this one. they're trying to make him more gender-neutral but still insist he's a guy. Like...

Also, if they're trying to get female players to relate to him more (Which, 1, isn't Link asupposed to be a blank slate? How do you relate to that? 2, if you can relate to that, is it really that much harder for women?), I don't see why they don't just go the whole nine and make him a girl. I dunno, it feels like they're trying to have their cake and eat it too.

 

EDIT: Eh, you can probably disregard this post.

Edited June 19, 2016 by Dizcrybe

[Nepenthe]

Link isn't really a total blank slate. He has characterization within the later games. But I don't think androgyny- the act of looking genderless (versus being genderless)- is really what people should be focused on, because for one, you can have androgynous characters in fiction that are a single gender, and two, Link's current appearance wasn't spurred on by the Internet gender debate but by the team's own dislike of a more masculine looking Link in TP anyway. Even if Link was the most Arnold Schwarzenegger-looking dude ever, the issue of why he can't reincarnate as a woman would still remain because of the lack of rules in canon Nintendo has skirted by with since reincarnation was a thing on the table. His appearance, to me, has little to do with that.

[Radiant Hero Ike]

Have you guys seen this yet?

Ooh. Ganon.

So this is after SS right? Since Ganon is the reincarnation of Demise?

[Celestia]

Yeah, as long as there's a Ganon around, it has to be set long after Skyward Sword (I'm pretty sure it has to specifically be post-OoT, since that covers his origins?). Unless this isn't the Ganon or something.

I can't wait until the game comes out and we have more material to work with to try and piece together where in the timeline the game fits. And then Aonuma or someone else will announce the official answer and it'll turn out the most popular theories were all dead wrong.

[Patticus]

5 hours ago, Gambling Idol Luka said:

So this is after SS right? Since Ganon is the reincarnation of Demise?

Yep, I'll say that's probably Ganon, so we're most likely looking at a game set a good while after the OOT timeline split, which is itself set a few centuries after Skyward Sword.

I don't know if I'd call Ganon the reincarnation of Demise, though. The way I understand it, Demise's all-consuming evil is destined to return time and again, but not necessarily in the same vessel. Ganon just happens to be an immensely evil character from a critical juncture in Hylian history, but that ancient evil could easily pick out a new host to fill up if Ganon lost his appeal.

I'm expecting that whatever game fills the Skyward Sword position at the end of the eventually-reunited timelines will see Demise return for a last hurrah. Hopefully his colossal form won't look like something out of Viva Pinata then.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

To be honest, I hate the split timeline thing so fucking much, I really just wish this game was retconning everything into a new universe.

Hell, do it Stone Ocean style and have every prior plot point flow into this universe, blow the whole thing up at the end, and move on to a different one.

[Patticus]

Conversely, I actually quite like the split timeline mechanic - it makes things interesting by allowing for contradictory events to take place concurrently. It's a great big What If? machine built right into the series. I just find the manner in which it originated in OOT with adult, child and... other Link(?), to be confusing as all hell.

I would love to see the timelines united eventually though, birthing a new era of Zelda games, but you know that won't happen until each timeline gets its own fantastic conclusion - although I guess they could wrap them all up in one yuge game if they so desired. I think that the Twilight Princess and Wind Waker timelines are under-populated, though, so I'd like to see more games in them before we jump to a new era of new timelineiness.