The Complete Professor Layton Timeline
(or at least an attempt at making one)
 

“Unwound Future takes place in winter 1963/1964” has been chosen as the original starting point of reference for this timeline in terms of year count. The source behind this is an artwork/concept art from 2008, which is present on the official Japanese website of Unwound Future, and on the Japanese & US box arts of the game.

This is a semi-arbitrary choice whose canonicity can be debated.American (left) and Japanese (right) Box Arts:

Luke and Layton are obstructing the view, but it can still be seen that the clock is the same as the one from the official website.



The in-game version of the clock has no digits:

Within the game itself, the digits have been removed and replaced with random buttons; this is why the canonicity of this date is up for debate.

It has been chosen here for the sake of convenience, but it should be relatively easy for you to change the year if it does not suit your personal views.

Here is a close-up of the date shown on the artwork. Unwound Future is about time travel, between “the present” and “ten years later”: it can be assumed that these moving digits are meant to reflect this. The rightmost two digits are changing, to give the year(s) 『１９ＸＹ』. From this, we can deduce that:

• Ｘ alternates between 6 and 7. The number 7 is easily recognisable. Furthermore, we can deduce that the digit above it is 6 and not 8: the series’ aesthetic was confirmed to have been inspired by the 1960s

  Page #029 of The World of Professor Layton (Photo):

  I’d say Professor Layton’s London is based on London from around the 1960s, though we tried not to restrict ourselves too much in terms of the era because the series does have a lot of fantasy elements to it, like giant robots.

  , and the DS version of Curious Village contains an unused, now obsolete artwork reading “Year 1960” (more on that later). Therefore, it is safe to conclude that “the present” is set in the 1960s, and that the (fake) “ten years later” is set in the 1970s.

This also helps clear up the problem behind the last digit:

• Ｙ alternates between 3 and 4. Once again, 4 is unmistakable; as for whether the number above it is a 3 or a 5, I made the assumption that all four digits are displayed in the same order: in the previous case, 6 was displayed above 7, therefore 3 should be the number displayed above 4, and not 5.
• In conclusion: This image seems to be leaning towards the message “Your destination is the year 1973/1974 (not really but spoilers).” And thus, Unwound Future took place in 1963/1964.

In practicality, it should not be a 100% certainty; but since 3 and 4 were the numbers chosen by the artist, I decided to go along with it.

• Furthermore, I figured that Unwound Future was more likely to take place in winter (between roughly November 1963 and February 1964), since it snows at the end.

Small digression: December 31, 1963 would be quite poetic for the events of Unwound Future, as another explanation for the change between 3 and 4; but this is just a personal opinion and we will not consider it in this timeline.

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An alternative to this point of reference could be the unused artwork mentioned earlier datamined from Curious Village, which would imply that Curious Village would have taken place in the year 1960. This unused artwork has been ignored here in favour of the 1963/1964 artwork because the latter is more recent and still publicly available on both the official website and various Unwound Future merchandise; while the Curious Village artwork is older and was never used or even shown publicly, as the only way we can even know of its existence is through datamining.

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If there is a contradiction between the translations (for example, Puzzle #030 of Diabolical Box gives a different date for Dropstone’s foundation depending on the language of the game), the Japanese version will be chosen by default.

If two Japanese sources contradict each other (for example, the Unwound Future “1963/1964” promotional artwork vs the Curious Village “1960年” datamined image), the more recent source will usually be taken as a canon fact retconning the older one unless this newer source ① is significantly less reliable than the older one (e.g. an interview would be taken as less reliable than in-game proof), or ② contradicts more previously established facts than the older one would.

I will only add a character’s age in the timeline if it has officially been stated. For example, though we know that Layton was 27 when he became professor, and though we know that the events of Unwound Future took place “ten years later,” we have no tangible evidence that Layton is actually 37 during the latter. Depending on the calculations, since it is not necessarily exactly ten years later, it is entirely possible that Layton would actually still be 36, or already have turned 38. Therefore, I will only state their age if it has been canonically given, and let you do the math for the missing entries.

Additionally, if a character’s age is officially revealed in relation to a given story, then it is assumed until proven impossible by subsequent evidence that their age remains constant during the entire duration of that story. This is especially relevant in the case of Azran Legacy, which takes place over the span of multiple months.

For example, Emmy’s age is stated to be 26 in Azran Legacy: it is thus assumed that her age is 26 from the moment she embarks on the Bostonius, up to the moment when she leaves Layton and the credits roll.

I wrote a python script (available here) which is able to take a list of requirements (e.g. “Event A took place x amount of time before Event B”) and a list of the characters’ known ages, and which will help find one possible combination of dates that suits all of these requirements. If you see in this timeline an extremely precise date that seems to come out of nowhere (see the Deduced Date column), this python script is the reason why this date was picked. As more and more information regarding the characters’ ages and time between events will be found, the list of possible combinations will decrease in size.

Do note that this script may contain errors and/or oversights, so please do review it carefully if you intend to use it, and let me know if you find any mistake!

In short, the Deduced Date column in the timeline is one possible date that happens to work so far, but which is absolutely not the only possibility. It is also extremely likely to change as more information is added to this timeline, which may or may not make these preliminary guesses impossible afterwards.

This timeline will completely disregard any parallels with real History, and only mention events and facts that have been stated in-universe. Even if we assume that the in-universe date is 1960, they have steampunk mechas, ancient civilisations with magic (you are not going to convince me that resurrecting the dead is not magic), dubious chemicals that definitely would not work that way according to our laws of physics. So even if they mention St Paul’s Cathedral, Scotland Yard or the Tower Bridge, it would be (in my opinion) a bit presumptuous to assume that they were built under the same conditions and at the same time as the versions we know in our world.

The same goes for real world events such as wars, major discoveries, or walking on the Moon; I will assume that they did not occur in the Layton universe until proven otherwise (in the case of Historical events); and then, if it does turn out that they took place in-universe, assume that they did not necessarily take place at the exact same time as in real History. The Layton series mentions going into space and landing on the Moon, which occurred in 1969 in our world: I will thus assume that in the Layton universe, especially since technology is more advanced than in our world’s 1960s, the Moon landing took place earlier; solving the apparent anachronism.

When referring to specific games, novels and other media, I will be using the American name rather than the European one (for example, “Diabolical Box” instead of “Pandora’s Box”). This is a purely arbitrary choice for simplicity purposes.