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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Game Boy, 1993

Originally envisioned as a Game Boy port of A Link to the Past, this 1993 game was instead released as an all-new monochrome adventure set on Koholint Island. Princess Zelda doesn’t make an appearance, but plenty of characters from other Nintendo series do, including Yoshi, Kirby and SimCity’s Dr. Wright.

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