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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Nintendo 64, 1998

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is our highest-rated Zelda game, ever. It’s no surprise why: Not only was the game the first in the series with 3D graphics and time travel, the 256-megabit Ocarina of Time was the largest game ever produced by Nintendo at the time. Over 7.6 million copies have been sold worldwide.

“This Zelda adventure will undoubtedly withstand the test of time and take its place as one of the best games to ever grace a home system,” wrote James Bottorff of The Cincinnati Enquirer.

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