Which video game series has the most convoluted timeline?

64-Bit Nintendo Machine

64 Bits of Power!
Some video games have pretty simple timelines like Mario, others like Mega Man and FNAF have timelines that are complicated and long. Which is the most convoluted video game timeline?
 
kingdom hearts
 
Can't speak for video games as a whole but as far as Nintendo goes? Zelda. Easily.

There are two timeline branches in the Zelda series as a result of the time travel in Ocarina of Time: the Young Link timeline and the Adult Link one. There's also another timeline split in the Adult Link one, determined by whether Link successfully defeats Ganon in that game. Most Zelda games seem to belong to the Adult Link Was Defeated branch, but there are a lot of exceptions. BotW pretty much ditched this timeline split, with the developers saying that it's "at the end", but which timeline it's the end of is subject to player interpretation. (You can see the timeline mapped out on the Japanese Zelda Portal.)

Probably would have just been better to leave its canon undefined like Mario does.
 
Zelda and Sonic. Their timelines are very confusing to look at. It makes every game that releases so hard to place into a certain era of the timeline.
 
honestly. mario really doesnt even have a timeline to speak of and you could interpret the games in so many ways, and some still dont seem that compatible with each other like galaxy 1 and 2, so in practice i wanna say its at least a bit convoluted
 
Galaxy 2 is a new universe, so we could say Galaxy is kind of an Ocarina of Time, it splits the timeline two ways
 
For Nintendo it's probably Zelda if only because you can't figure most stuff out without supplementary material, whereas at least something like Kingdom Hearts it all makes as much sense as it possibly can given the content of the games. Zelda's story is less nonsensical but more obscure. Pokemon had a pretty clear storyline until generation 3 where everything went south including the storyline, now it's almost like unrelated games just taking place in the same universe.
 
FNAF has a timeline that is just confusing as all hell.
 
Once you digest the timeline provided by the Hyrule Historia, Zelda really isn't too confusing. However there are some noticeable contradictions like how Link has his hat in Skyward Sword despite Minish Cap (the game that comes directly after) being the origin story on why each Link wears that iconic green hat.
 
Back