Every Legend of Zelda Game, Ranked
Updated May 2023 to add Tears of the Kingdom.
The Legend of Zelda, now over 35 years old, is one of Nintendo’s strongest, most popular and longest-running franchises. The latest Zelda title, Breath of the Wild for the new Nintendo Switch console, has drawn rave reviews from critics, with many giving it a perfect score.
Is Breath of the Wild just a great Zelda game … or the greatest Zelda game of all time? To answer that question, we have ranked every Zelda game by Metascore. (Note that some of the older titles are not available on Metacritic, and in those instances we have used scores from our sister site, GameRankings.)
Additional content by Jason Dietz
#8 (tie): The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Wii, 2011
Though first released in 2011, Skyward Sword is actually the first game chronologically in the (admittedly hard-to-follow) Zelda continuity. It tells the origin story of both the Master Sword and the kingdom of Hyrule.
Raves NintendoWorldReport: “Skyward Sword is an epic, the sort of epic you call out of work or school for a few days to complete.”