Before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild even released, fan speculation about its place on the official Zelda series timeline ran wild, and Nintendo's final word left more questions than answers. One of the biggest remaining unknowns involves The Wind Waker's Rito "bird people," which live alongside the Zora "fish people" in Breath of the Wild, despite having evolved from them in The Wind Waker's timeline. But is this actually a contradiction, or are there possible explanations for the species' simultaneous existence?
Prior to Breath of the Wild, the Rito were only ever seen in the "Hero Triumphant - Adult" timeline branch, where the The Wind Waker and its Nintendo DS sequels are placed. Ocarina of Time's friendly, human-like Zora only remained in Twilight Princess' "Hero Triumphant - Child" timeline, while the Zora devolved into monstrous, hostile creatures in A Link to the Past's "Hero Defeated" timeline. Breath of the Wild's official timeline placement puts it at the end of all three branches, but it's not connected to any of them, specifically. This leaves much about its version of Hyrule up in the air, including how the Zora and Rito came to live alongside one another.
Because The Wind Waker's Great Sea was actually just an illusory ocean, only monsters and the less humanoid Fishmen could live there, according to The Legend of Zelda: Encyclopedia (via the Zelda Gamepedia Wiki). This forced the Zora to adapt to non-aquatic lifestyles, eventually turning them into the Zora. In the real world, evolution is not linear, so it would be conceivable that a portion of the Zora evolved into the Rito, while another group stayed underwater, remaining as Zora but changing overtime to match the look of Breath of the Wild's Zora. But The Wind Waker's illusory ocean is specifically stated to be uninhabitable to any Zora at all, meaning this couldn't have happened. If Breath of the Wild's Zora were meant to be the same ones seen in The Wind Waker's past, this pokes a big hole in its world's logic.
Still, there is the possibility that, over the many years between The Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild, a group of Rito split off from the rest and evolved back into a fish-like race, which then came to be known once again as the Zora. This lends itself to one theory about how Breath of the Wild's placement at the timeline's end could work: The cyclical nature of the Zelda series' constant good vs. evil struggles could have occurred again and again for so long in each timeline that, by coincidence, they all converged into the exact circumstances of Breath of the Wild. This is pretty absurd, however, as it would necessitate that each timeline experienced essentially slightly different versions of every timeline's previously unique events.
A more likely scenario is that all three timelines were deliberately merged into one. The Zora lived on in the Child timeline, after all, and Breath of the Wild takes place at the end of that branch, too. Zelda is no stranger to time manipulation and even dimension-hopping, as seen in the many Dark World-like alternate realities found throughout the series. Popular YouTube channel Game Theory suggested Koei Techmo's Hyrule Warriors could be the key to explaining things, as its story deals with the merging of all three realities through temporary portals. Nintendo has so far officially classified Hyrule Warriors as non-canon, but it has also said the timeline can change as new information is discovered, so it's entirely possible that a version of Hyrule Warriors' story could be added to the official timeline. There are problems with the theory, however, as the portals between worlds are closed by the end of the game. But regardless of the means, an intentional timeline merge is likely, and it would give a much simpler explanation for how the Child timeline's Zora and the Adult timeline's Rito coexist in Breath of the Wild, easily justifying what would otherwise appear to be a big The Wind Waker oversight.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was released for the Nintendo Switch and Wii U on March 3, 2017.
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