With Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on the horizon, fans are more eager than ever to play the newest installment in this beloved Nintendo franchise. Since 1986, Legend of Zelda has been one of the most popular and well-loved properties under the Nintendo brand. The sheer amount of Zelda games out there really proves that. But if you don’t know just how deep this franchise and fandom goes, here’s a quick guide to the many Legend of Zelda games.
The entire Legend of Zelda franchise
When looking at the long history of the Legend of Zelda, there are 19 different official video games. All of these games follow the story of Link, Ganondorf, and Princess Zelda as they fight for the fate of Hyrule. These games include:
- The Legend of Zelda (1986)
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987)
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past (1991)
- The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (1993)
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (2000)
- The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (2001)
- The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (2001)
- The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (2002)
- The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (2004)
- The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (2004)
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006)
- The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (2007)
- The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (2009)
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011)
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (2013)
- The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (2015)
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild (2017)
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom (2023)
However, Nintendo has made even more Legend of Zelda-focused games. In addition to the nine remakes, the company published 17 spin-off games. Unlike the main series, these games don’t follow the main storyline. Instead, they follow specific characters, explore fun little bits of lore, put Zelda skins on mini-games, or Nintendo created them for specific regions. For a few examples, one of these games is about playing crossbow challenges with Link (Link’s Crossbow Training) while another follows the infamous Tingle on an adventure (Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland).
For hardcore Legend of Zelda fans, you can also check out the 1988 board game, the 1989 cartoon series, the 1999 manga, or several encyclopedia/lore books from 2011-2018.
Is Tears of the Kingdom a Breath of the Wild sequel?
While all of the Legend of Zelda games work in a sort of timeline, they tend to be out of order and have decades (if not centuries) pass between them. In Tears of the Kingdom, though, it is a direct Breath of the Wild sequel. So, this will be the same world fans explored in Breath of the Wild, simply altered over some amount of time. Only once Tears of the Kingdom is released will fans know how the iconic world they love has changed.
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