Breath of the Wild Was the 10,000 year timespan of BotW too much?

[Spirit]

BotW takes place 10,000 years after the first Calamity Ganon attack (which happens at some point after whatever game Aonuma says so that may not even exist) and then the events of the gane occur over the period of 100 years.

Zelda has never had a 10,000 year jump. Thus a lot of long running fans found the timeframe to be jarring.

Did you find it jarring? Was it hard to suspend belief with such a long passing of time?

Or did you just roll with it?

 

[el :BeoWolf:]

10,000 years is a long time for things to still be medieval looking. It was too much of a jump imo. Even 1000 would have been better but even that's a lot

 

[Dio]

I just roll with it. It is obvious why they did that. It's because they are lazy and so they don't have to think about the timeline.

10,000 years is far to much time for Hyrule to still be remotely medieval.

 

[Azure Sage]

I just rolled with it. I think it can open up a lot of new possibilities for games taking place within that 10,000 year gap. Surely other villains appeared now and then while Calamity Ganon was gone. I'd like to see more new villains in that timeframe, with more Links that aren't necessarily destined to be heroes but end up proving their worth like in WW.

 

[YIGAhim]

Too long. They clearly only did that as an excuse to put in so many elements from all three timelines

 

[DJ Twitch]

I think it's the perfect time gap. After 10,000 years, anything could have happened before BoTW, meaning it can go on any timeline without contradiction.

10,000 years is a long time for things to still be medieval looking.

Hyrule can't seem to go more than a few generations without being sent back to the stone age, so I don't see any issue with this.

 

[Princess Niki]

Anyways I think the most modern Zelda has ever gotten is Spirit Tracks with the trains.

 

[Vanessa28]

I think they did it on purpose so they can create more games in the future within that time gap. It leaves more room for other games. I just take it as it is.

 

[Ninja]

BotW takes place 10,000 years after the first Calamity Ganon attack (which happens at some point after whatever game Aonuma says so that may not even exist) and then the events of the gane occur over the period of 100 years.

Zelda has never had a 10,000 year jump. Thus a lot of long running fans found the timeframe to be jarring.

Did you find it jarring? Was it hard to suspend belief with such a long passing of time?

Or did you just roll with it?

Like Vanessa said, I just rolled with it. It definitely adds more potential games within its respective timeline, and could create some more lore leading up to BotW. I hope this theme doesn't become common though. Having a "timeline" or history with many more tens-of-thousands of years would just be too much.

It's kind of shocking that many of the citizens speak of the Calamity, with it being so long ago.

 

[Lozjam]

10,000 years is a long time for things to still be medieval looking.

Before the calamity, Hylian civilization had iPads equivalents, giant mechanical creatures, a device that could literally reverse time in a person, robots with AI, and a machine that can bring people back from being gravely wounded.

And this is coming from the technology ban that the previous kings of Hyrule put in place, leaving all of this technology to be buried in a multitude of ways.


As for the topic at hand.
No. I mean, for all we know, something like between OoT and SS could hypothetically be 10,000 years. So it really isn't outlandish at all.

 

[Fraxinus]

The one thing I really dislike about the 10,000 year thing is just how unrealistic it is. Civilization hasn't even been around that long in the real world. It's insane to suggest a kingdom has lasted that long, fictional or otherwise.

 

[Aku]

I think they did it to have people be much more able to mentally separate it from the older games and while also giving a plausible reason why the games will be going in a different direction.

They did acknowledge that they needed to move away from OoT, so the massive time jump was a way to do it without breaking suspension of belief, and to avoid a need for a true reboot (which would piss a lot of people off.) The move was kind of stated that this new Zelda might as well take place in a different universe (I sense to allow much more creative freedom) so they likely (as well too) did the big jump to allow the older stuff to pass onto 'legends.'

 

[Fierce_Deity]

At first I thought it was too much, but then I became ok with. It pretty much sets the game far off from the others, whichever timeline that may be. I think it would be nice to see a prequel to game with all the ruins intact and lively. I see some complaining about the lack of technological growth and such. Doesn't really bother me, another great work also has such a huge time span without computers and cars popping up, Lord of the Rings.

 

[Ver-go-a-go-go]

It was absolutely on purpose, with the sole reasoning being that Nintendo wanted to make it loud and clear that the timeline does not matter, was not made by design, and is subject to even more future retcons for the sake of convenience and easter eggs.

As someone who has never cared about the timeline outside of immediate sequels, no, I didn't care at all. It could have been 100,000 years for all I care, I still would have evaluated the story based on BotW's merits alone.

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

a planet's population was born and reset a few times in 10,000 years in xenogears
yeah, that's definitely overkill for something like zelda, a few centuries would have been more than ok