Every Legend of Zelda Game, Ranked

by Fox Van Allen, for Metacritic – March 7, 2017

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

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#4 (tie): The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Nintendo 64, 2000

In this time-travel “wonder”—a “magnum opus of epic proportions,” as Nintendophiles called it—Link must relive the same 72 hours over and over until he finds a way to keep the moon from crashing down and destroying the world of Termina.

“This could be the last truly legendary title for the Nintendo 64,” raved GamerWeb Nintendo.

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