The Threads of Time tapestry appears on the menu screen of the remake of Ocarina of Time For Switch 2 and also hangs from a wall of Hyrule Castle. Link can see it by peering into one of the windows on the right side of the patio, before meeting Princess Zelda and talking to Impa. By then the embroidery is already complete: collect your entire adventure, from beginning to end.
That is the starting point of the analysis that Brett Cardaro signs in CBR, where the detail is read as a track from a fourth branch in the Zelda chronology. The hypothesis does not have Nintendo confirmation and is based only on what the game puts on the screen.
It is worth remembering where the matter comes from. Ocarina of Time was published in 1998 and is the title of which the three classic branches of the saga start, which were fixed in Hyrule Historia. Any addition to that scheme touches a sensitive fiber for a good part of the community.
The paradox of the tapestry already embroidered
The reasoning of the article is simple: if the tapestry is already hanging when Link arrives at the castle, someone had to finish it before he did anything. And that someone can’t be him.
The quickest explanation would be for Zelda to send him embroidering from his prophetic dreams, those in which he anticipates his encounter with Link. The text discards it: to reproduce the complete trip in chronological order, the princess would have to know each stage of an adventure that has not yet happened.
The game itself suggests at the end that it is Link who completes the threads of time with his actions. If the tapestry is born from its route, there should be a previous moment in which it does not exist, and that moment does not appear in any visit to the castle.
The chronology of Zelda that Nintendo did move on its website
The ground on which the theory rests is more shifting than it seems. Nintendo silently updated its official chronology on the new Japanese website of the franchise, released for the 40th anniversary and presented after a dedicated Nintendo Direct. The change was not highlighted during the broadcast, and who first warned was the YouTuber Zeltik.
The review adds a second Hyrule foundation. The first is still located after Skyward Sword and before The Minish Cap. The second is placed before the ancient events of Tears of the Kingdom, including the transformation of Ganondorf into Demon King and the Imprisoning War.
With an important nuance: The Nintendo website does not describe that second episode as a refoundation. And the location of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom on the timeline has been ambiguous for years; The new chronology does not solve it completely.
Fourth branch, second hyrule or simple reading
There’s the disagreement. GamesRadar reads the addition as an almost official confirmation of the two Hyrule theory, while Gamerant recalls that holding two different realms still requires a guess. The fourth branch defending CBR is a third way, and none of the three comes accompanied by a statement.
What is on the table are visual nods of the remake to the era of Breath of the Wild, such as tattoos in the Kokiri children similar to those of Queen Sonia and patterns Sheikah. Those connections are just a possibility, and the launch will not bring closed answers.
Ocarina of Time remake for Switch 2 is dated November 5, 2026. Until then, the tapestry will remain that: an image that each player orders in their own way within a timeline that Nintendo has never fully counted.
Read also
- Ocarina of Time: The remake changes that fans miss
- Ocarina of Time: The Remake Changes That Fans Miss
- Ocarina of Time remake moderated the terror of her redeads
Source: CBR Games
