Official Zelda continuity timeline exists, Skyward Sword set before Ocarina of Time

We love the internet. Why? Because of the arguments and inconsistencies, of course. Take The Legend of Zelda, the legendary first party Nintendo franchise that seems so disconnected from one game to another that it may as well have “final” and “fantasy” someplace in the title. That doesn’t stop folks from trying to finagle some sort of continuity between all of those games across all of those platforms, though.

Above: One day, it will all make sense. One day… 

Well, it turns out that a definitive continuity and timeline actually exists after all. The bad news? We’ll never lay eyes on it. In an interview with the Official Nintendo Magazine, series producer Eiji Aonuma states that yes, a master timeline exists, and that the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will fit within it just before Ocarina of Time, but that the actual document is a pretty tightly kept secret. Aonuma’s full quote:

“Yes there is a master timeline but it's confidential document! The only people to have access to that document are myself, Mr. Miyamoto and the director of the title. We can't [sic] share it with anyone else! I have already talked to Mr. Miyamoto about this so I am comfortable in releasing this information – this title [Skyward Sword] takes place before Ocarina of Time. If [sic]I said that a certain title was ‘the first Zelda game’, then that means that we can't ever make a title that takes place before that! So for us to add titles to the series, we have to have a way of putting the titles before or after each other.”

This all means that we have to start planning our ninja raid on Nintendo HQ in Japan to get that piece of paper. Japan, from what we’ve been told, is chock full of ninjas. This should be a snap.