Highlights
- The Legend of Zelda series has a convoluted timeline, but fans continue to try and organize it into eras based on console generations.
- One fan on Reddit divided the series into six eras, each corresponding to a console generation and anchored by influential games.
- Fans appreciated the concise organization but jokingly noted the absence of a "Forbidden" era that included the infamous Philips CD-i games.
One fan of The Legend of Zelda series took it upon themselves to separate and organize the entire franchise into six separate but distinct eras based on the console generations they were released in and shared their handiwork with fans on social media. Following the post, some Zelda fans chimed in to compliment the organizer for their work and added some feedback over a few games that could have been placed in more than one category.
Ever since The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time opened the way for the series to have diverging timelines, the Zelda series has had a notoriously convoluted timeline depending on the fate of Link in that game. But, that has not stopped fans from either trying to make sense of what Nintendo has offered or from creating their own timelines and eras that could better fit the franchise. While some fans have classified games based on Link's confrontation with Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time, a few other gamers have taken a more practical approach to dividing and organizing the franchise. One player decided to use the latter and offered some explanations.
On Reddit, a user named Scdsco divided The Legend of Zelda franchise into six eras in a post on the Zelda subreddit. The OP listed the series as the Foundational era (1987 to 1993), the Ocarina era (1994-2001), the Toon era (2002-2005), the Motion era (2006-2011), the Transitional era (2012-2016), and finally named the current era the Open era (2017-2023). Furthermore, the OP explained that each era coincided with a console generation, starting with the NES and the SNES during the Foundational era. Plus, each era was anchored by at least one of the most influential games in the Zelda series, with the Transitional era being an exception due to the fact that the series was in a strange spot at the time.
In the comments section, other Zelda fans praised the OP for organizing the eras into concise ways that were easy to understand, and some fans chose to list their personal favorite eras based on different criteria. However, one Reddit user jokingly pointed out that the OP left out a "Forbidden" era that would have consisted of the much-maligned Zelda games on the Philips CD-i such as The Wand of Gamelon and Zelda's Adventure.
With the success of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, the current open-world era of the Zelda series is showing no signs of slowing down. It remains to be seen what Nintendo will do in the future, and what fans will make of it.