The Legend of Zelda timeline isn’t a cut-and-dry thing during the development of Zelda games, including The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It’s only considered “to an extent” as it can lead to constraints on Nintendo’s creative freedom and keeping the fanbase happy.
During an interview with Game Informer, Director Hidemaro Fujibayashi explained that fans love theorizing and thinking what goes in what timeline, and the team respects that and takes it into consideration. That said, it also holds off on going “too into the weeds” because it negatively impacts creative freedom as the team now has to fit it into one timeline.
Notably, things like Ultrahand and Ascend would stand out (as pointed out by Nintendo Life) as they just break things in the timeline. That said, in its own right, the features are cool, but we also think it would be wild to just assume Nintendo takes the absurdly complex Zelda timeline entirely. We doubt this surprises anyone as few games in the series naturally flow together, but it’s at least nice to see the team give little nods to the community that has supported it throughout its life.
