Zelda Timeline 2026

Last verified: 2026-11-10

Adult timeline

On the adult timeline the Hero of Time is gone, Hyrule is flooded, and the games are The Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks.

Original parchment chart of the Downfall, Child, and Adult branches
Official key art for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Key art © Nintendo, used with a link to the product page. Chart art on this site is original.

Games in this branch, in current chart order

GameOriginal platformPlacement status
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind WakerGameCubeNintendo chart + independent release reference
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom HourglassNintendo DSNintendo chart + independent release reference
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit TracksNintendo DSNintendo chart + independent release reference

This column is the adult world that continues after Link defeats Ganondorf and Zelda sends him back to childhood. The world he saved does not get the child. Generations later the gods flood Hyrule. The kingdom is a story told above the waves. I keep that flood on this path only. It is not the backstory printed for Twilight Princess.

The Wind Waker is the start of the playable list. You are a new Link on Outset Island, Tetra is the pirate who is also this era's Zelda, and the sea is the map. The GameCube game released in Japan on 13 Dec 2002, North America on 23 Mar 2003 in the individual Wikipedia article or 24 Mar in the media-list record (source disagreement retained), and Europe on 2 May 2003. The Wind Waker HD released in Japan on 26 Sep 2013; its North American digital launch was 20 Sep, and North American physical and European launches were 4 Oct. A later Nintendo Classics release is noted in our obtain line as 2025 without a day, so I am not inventing one. None of those packages is a new node.

Phantom Hourglass follows on Nintendo DS, as Link and Tetra explore another sea with Linebeck. Spirit Tracks takes place in a new Hyrule founded on another land by Tetra and her companions, with a railroad and a later princess beside a new Link. Japan 23 Dec 2009, North America 7 Dec 2009, Europe 11 Dec 2009. The chart ends. Nintendo does not list a further game in this branch.

The Zora question is the one this path is asked. Zelda Wiki's Rito page and its Zora page both describe the Rito of the Great Sea as the Zora's descendants, with Laruto remembered as a Zora sage. These are two articles from the same community wiki, so they count as one independent source, and I do not have a sentence on Nintendo's timeline page that says “the Zora evolved.” So the status on this site is: two wiki sources for the descendant reading, and the official page silent on the mechanism. I will not print it as a Nintendo quotation.

ClaimEvidence status
Rito descend from Zora in the Great Sea1 independent community source: two Zelda Wiki articles; Nintendo chart does not discuss the mechanism

Questions

Where do the Zora go after Ocarina of Time?

On this path the usual reading is that the seafaring Rito descend from the Zora. That reading is in the Zelda Wiki's Rito and Zora articles. Nintendo's timeline page names the games, not a biology chart.

Sources