The History of the Zelda Series (NES to Tears)

The history of zelda series stretches from a 1986 NES cartridge with a gold sticker to two of the most acclaimed games of the modern era. The Legend of Zelda has reinvented itself more aggressively than any other Nintendo franchise, jumping between top-down 2D, 3D adventure, and open-world systems-driven design. This piece walks through the series from the original Legend of Zelda through Ocarina of Time, Breath of the Wild, and Tears of the Kingdom — with stops at the entries that mattered most.

The Legend of Zelda (1986)

The Legend of Zelda launched on the Famicom Disk System in Japan in February 1986 and arrived in North America on the NES in 1987. It was directed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka, with music by Koji Kondo. The game was Nintendo’s first attempt at an open-world adventure: a top-down 2D map of Hyrule, eight dungeons hidden across it, and a hero (Link) who started with no equipment and had to figure out how to find everything.

The original NES cartridge famously had a gold-colored shell and included a battery-backed save system — a novelty at the time. The game’s design was strikingly open for 1986: players could approach the dungeons in roughly any order, find items that unlocked new areas, and explore without a strict critical path.

The series’ core elements were established here: Link as the silent green-clad protagonist, Princess Zelda as the kidnapped figure to rescue, Ganon as the boar-shaped antagonist, the Triforce as the central magical artifact, the boomerang and bombs and bow as recurring tools.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987)

The immediate sequel, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, took the series in a sharply different direction. Side-scrolling combat. Experience points. Towns and NPCs to talk to. It’s the black sheep of the series — significantly different in feel from every other Zelda — but historically important. The game introduced Dark Link, the magic system, and the experience-based progression that subsequent Zelda games would mostly drop.

A Link to the Past (1991) and the Game Boy era

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past launched on the Super Nintendo (Super Famicom) in 1991. It returned to the top-down 2D style of the original but added the dual-world structure: a Light World and a Dark World, both versions of Hyrule, with items required to move between them. The game refined essentially every part of the formula — combat felt better, dungeons were more elaborate, the map was richer.

A Link to the Past is widely considered one of the best games of the 16-bit era and the strongest 2D Zelda. Its template — hub overworld, themed dungeons with item-puzzle gating, a final confrontation with Ganon — became the recurring Zelda structure for decades.

Link’s Awakening (1993) brought Zelda to the Game Boy in a quirky standalone adventure set on Koholint Island. It’s beloved for its dream-logic story and got an excellent Switch remake in 2019.

Ocarina of Time (1998): the 3D revolution

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time launched on the Nintendo 64 in November 1998 and changed the action-adventure genre. It was the first 3D Zelda, the first 3D game to widely use a lock-on targeting system (Z-targeting, which became standard in 3D action games), and the first 3D game many critics felt successfully translated a 2D game series into three dimensions.

The game’s design — Hyrule Field as a central hub, dungeons themed around tools (the Hookshot, the Lens of Truth, the Mirror Shield), the time-travel structure between young Link and adult Link — set a new template for action-adventure games. Ocarina of Time spent years at or near the top of “greatest games ever made” lists, and remains a benchmark for the genre.

Majora’s Mask (2000) was the direct N64 follow-up, reusing the Ocarina engine in a much weirder game about three days repeating endlessly. It’s divisive — some players find it the best Zelda; others find the time mechanic stressful — but it’s universally respected for its design ambition.

The Wind Waker (2002) through Skyward Sword (2011)

The early 2000s Zelda entries on GameCube, DS, and Wii experimented with style and structure. The Wind Waker (2002) used cel-shaded “toon” graphics that aged remarkably well, set the world on an ocean dotted with islands, and used sailing as a primary traversal mechanic. Twilight Princess (2006) returned to a more realistic art style and added wolf-form Link.

The DS entries — Phantom Hourglass (2007) and Spirit Tracks (2009) — used touch-screen controls and continued the toon-graphics direction. Skyward Sword (2011) on the Wii used motion controls for sword combat and was the first Zelda where Link’s sword corresponded to your physical sword movements. The game was divisive but visually striking.

Through this period the series was clearly searching. None of the post-Ocarina entries had the universal impact of the N64-era games. Critics speculated about whether Zelda’s formula was tapped out.

Breath of the Wild (2017): the open-world reinvention

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild launched alongside the Nintendo Switch in March 2017 and completely reinvented the series. Director Hidemaro Fujibayashi’s team rebuilt Zelda from the ground up around an open-world structure: no fixed dungeon order, no hand-holding, no linear story sequence. The player could attempt the final boss Calamity Ganon within the first hour of the game if they wanted (and were ready to die).

The design innovations were huge. A physics-driven world where every object had material properties (wood burned, metal conducted electricity, rocks broke). A chemistry engine where weather, fire, and electricity interacted in ways the designers hadn’t fully anticipated. Climbable surfaces almost everywhere. Weapon durability that forced constant adaptation. Cooking, paragliding, shield-surfing — dozens of small systems that combined into emergent gameplay.

Breath of the Wild won Game of the Year at most major 2017 awards, sold over 30 million copies on Switch alone, and became a reference point for open-world design across the industry. Subsequent open-world games from other studios visibly took notes.

Tears of the Kingdom (2023)

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom released in May 2023, a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild on the same Hyrule map. It kept the open-world structure and physics systems and built new mechanics on top: Ultrahand (a freeform crafting system that lets players glue any objects together to build vehicles, weapons, or contraptions), Fuse (combining items to create new weapons), Ascend (passing through ceilings), and Recall (rewinding the timeline of any object).

The Ultrahand system in particular created emergent creativity at a level rarely seen in mainstream games. Players built motorized vehicles, flying machines, bomb-throwing contraptions, and physics-defying combat tools. The internet filled with clips of bizarre Tears of the Kingdom builds that the developers hadn’t anticipated but the system allowed.

The game also added a sky layer above Hyrule and an underground “Depths” beneath it, effectively tripling the explorable space. Tears of the Kingdom sold over 20 million copies, won multiple Game of the Year awards, and is widely considered the best sequel of the modern era.

The spin-offs and side series

Hyrule Warriors (2014) and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (2020) brought the Zelda cast into the Dynasty Warriors mass-combat format. Cadence of Hyrule (2019) combined Zelda with the Crypt of the NecroDancer rhythm system in an unexpected and beloved crossover. Link’s Awakening got a Switch remake in 2019.

The CDi Zelda games (released in 1993-94 on the Philips CDi after a Nintendo/Philips deal) are famously terrible and disowned by Nintendo. They’re notable only as a meme. Tingle, the green-suited character introduced in Majora’s Mask, got his own Japan-only spin-off games that are weird in interesting ways.

Why Zelda keeps reinventing

Most long-running franchises iterate. Zelda reinvents. The series has had at least three major design overhauls — the 2D-to-3D jump in Ocarina, the move to non-linear exploration in Breath of the Wild, and the systems-driven crafting in Tears of the Kingdom. Each overhaul abandoned formulas that the previous games had spent decades refining.

The willingness to break the formula is what keeps the series fresh. A Zelda fan who played the original NES game in 1987 and Tears of the Kingdom in 2023 has experienced wildly different games in the same franchise. That’s unusual. Mario evolves more conservatively. Pokémon barely evolves at all. Zelda actually changes, and that’s why it keeps producing transcendent entries.

The Legend of Zelda Wikipedia entry tracks the complete release list across forty years. For a closer look at the original NES game’s development and lasting influence, our history of the Legend of Zelda piece covers the 1986 entry in depth.

The Zelda timeline question

Nintendo published an official Zelda timeline in 2011 (in the Hyrule Historia art book) that places every game in one of three branching timelines split from the events of Ocarina of Time. The timeline is contested — many fans don’t take it seriously — and Nintendo has been deliberately vague about where Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom fit. The timeline matters more as a meme and discussion topic than as a strict narrative framework.

Frequently asked questions

When was the first Zelda game released?

The Legend of Zelda launched on the Famicom Disk System in Japan in February 1986. The NES version arrived in North America in 1987, packaged in the distinctive gold cartridge. It was directed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka.

Who is the main character in Zelda?

The hero is Link — a silent green-clad protagonist. Princess Zelda is the title character but is usually a supporting figure (and sometimes a playable one). The naming confusion is intentional; Nintendo has long acknowledged that many casual players assume “Zelda” refers to the protagonist.

Which Zelda game is considered the best?

The most common top picks are Ocarina of Time, Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, and A Link to the Past. The “best” depends on what you value — Ocarina for influence, Breath of the Wild for open-world design, Tears of the Kingdom for emergent systems, A Link to the Past for refined 2D design.

Are the Zelda games connected by a single story?

Nominally yes, but loosely. Nintendo published a canonical timeline in 2011 (Hyrule Historia) that places the games in three branching timelines, but the games are designed to be played individually rather than as a connected narrative. Most players don’t worry about the timeline.

What’s the difference between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom?

Tears of the Kingdom uses the same Hyrule map as Breath of the Wild but adds a sky layer above and an underground “Depths” beneath, plus a freeform crafting system (Ultrahand) that lets players build vehicles and contraptions from objects in the world. It’s a direct sequel with substantial new mechanics rather than a refinement.

The takeaway

Zelda is the rare long-running series that earns its reputation by actually changing. Forty years of reinvention have produced multiple all-time-great games and a franchise that still feels alive. For a different kind of one-tab adventure, the Chrome Dino game is the minimal-input arcade contrast to Hyrule’s systems-driven complexity.

Related: The History of the Mario Series (NES to Switch) · The History of the Pokemon Series (Red to Scarlet) · The History of the Final Fantasy Series