Eight distinct histories — one shared trunk, three official futures, one deliberately unplaced era, two alternate-history spin-offs, and one disowned appendix.
The single shared history every branch descends from — from the goddess Hylia's war against Demise to the fateful ending of Ocarina of Time.
4 gamesLink is sent back to his childhood and warns Zelda in time — Ganondorf's rise is averted before it begins.
3 gamesLink defeats Ganon as an adult but vanishes back to childhood — and with no hero left, the gods drown Hyrule to contain Ganon's return.
3 gamesThe Hero of Time falls. Ganondorf claims the complete Triforce, and Hyrule endures its darkest, longest history.
8 gamesTen thousand-ish years past every branch's end — and Nintendo deliberately won't say which branch leads here.
2 gamesThe Great Calamity refought — and won — in a what-if history that no official chart acknowledges.
1 gameThe ancient Imprisoning War itself — Zelda stranded in Hyrule's founding era, fighting the war TOTK only remembers.
1 gameThe Philips CD-i games — licensed out during a failed hardware deal, disowned by Nintendo, immortal as memes.
3 games