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30 years of Zelda: a timeline of the legend so far

By Andrew Webster on February 21, 2016 09:30 am # Email

30 years of Legend of Zelda

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When he was looking to create a new game for the Famicom

Disk System — an add-on for the NES that never launched
outside of Japan — designer Shigeru Miyamoto built a
prototype in which two players could make their own
dungeons, and then explore their friend’s creation. The
exploration proved to be the most fun part, so Miyamoto and
his team scrapped the creation tools and went ahead
building a world of mountains and forests and lakes that
players could traverse. They called it Hyrule. The game
would eventually become The Legend of Zelda, a defining
game for Miyamoto, Nintendo, and gaming in general.

“We named the protagonist Link because he connects

people together,” Miyamoto explains in the book Hyrule
Historia. Since the original Legend of Zelda first launched 30 years ago today, Link has starred in many
adventures, each one like a retelling of an ancient fable. The core ingredients are almost always the same
— you have a hero named Link, a princess named Zelda, and a villain named Ganon. But other aspects
are changed, resulting in a new twist on a familiar formula. Over the past three decades Link has explored
oceans and dungeons, partnered with pirates and fairies, and battled countless octoroks and skulltulas.

And the legend doesn’t look like it will end any time soon, with three games due to launch in 2016,
including the next big adventure on the Wii U. Here's a brief timeline of the legend so far.

February 21st, 1986

The Legend of Zelda
January 14th, 1987
The Adventure of Link

The game that started it all, the original

Legend of Zelda on the NES introduced all
of the key elements that are still in the series
to date. Characters like Link, Zelda, and
Ganon all appear (though Ganon doesn’t
have a name just yet), as do the iconic
Triforce and the land of Hyrule. Even the
structure is largely the same: it may be a 2D
game played from an overhead perspective,
but it lays the foundation for the entire
series.
November 21st, 1991
A Link to the Past
The sequel moves in a different direction.
You still play as Link attempting to save
Princess Zelda, but you do you so from a
side-scrolling perspective. Whereas as
Zelda games tend to focus on exploration,
The Adventure of Link has a heavy
emphasis on combat, and introduces RPG-
like mechanics, letting Link earn experience
to upgrade his abilities. He can even cast
spells. It’s a formula that no other game in
the series emulated, making The Adventure
of Link the black sheep of the Zelda family.

June 6th, 1993

Link's Awakening

For the series’ debut on the SNES, Nintendo

went back to the original formula. Much like
its contemporaries Super Metroid and Super
Mario World, A Link to the Past takes the
familiar structure of a popular NES game
and expands on it for new hardware. It also
introduces a new concept that became a The first portable game in the series is also
series trademark: parallel worlds. The game the first to not take place in Hyrule. Link’s
has Link traversing two different realms — Awakening introduces a new island, called
one light, one dark — swapping back and Koholint, that Link needs to escape. It plays
forth in an attempt to defeat Ganon. a lot like the other top-down games in the
series, but it’s missing two key ingredients:
neither Zelda nor the Triforce make an
appearance.
October 10th, 1993
The Faces of Evil / The Wand of Gamelon

November 21st, 1998

Ocarina of Time

Zelda’s 3D debut was an important moment

The Zelda games Nintendo would prefer
you'd forget, The Faces of Evil and The
Wand of Gamelon were released
simultaneously as the first games in the
series for non-Nintendo hardware, launching
on the CD-ROM powered Philips CD-i. That
extra power is used to add animated cut-
scenes, complete with voice acting for the
typically silent Link. Unfortunately, the
games themselves are awful — though
licensed by Nintendo, they're developed by
animation company Animation Magic — and
serve as probably the biggest stumble for
the series.
for gaming. The early days of the
PlayStation and Nintendo 64 were filled with
awkward 3D experiences, as game
designers were still coming to grips with the
notion of navigating three-dimensional
spaces. Ocarina of Time, on the other hand,
is confident and ambitious. Its vast, open
rendition of Hyrule is a joy to explore, and it
introduces concepts that helped shape the
way 3D games were made moving forward.
January 21st, 1999
Super Smash Bros.

April 27th, 2000

Majora’s Mask

A year after Ocarina of Time, Nintendo

introduced a crazy idea: a fighting game
where characters from its most popular
games would beat the crap out of each
other. From the very beginning, Zelda
characters have been a big part of Smash
Bros., with the likes of Link and Zelda

Much like The Adventure of Link, Majora’s appearing in every instalment, often in

Mask is a direct sequel that differed from its multiple incarnations.

predecessor quite a bit. Though it looks like

Ocarina of Time, the sequel swaps the wide
open fields of Hyrule for the parallel land of February 27th, 2001
Termina, where Link must re-live the same Oracle of Seasons / Oracle of Ages
three days over and over, Groundhog Day-
style. Its smaller scope made it a
disappointment to many looking for more of
the same, but the game has since gone on
to become a cult classic.

December 2nd, 2002

Four Swords

Zelda games are often about interconnected

When Nintendo ported A Link to the Past to
the Game Boy Advance, it added a special
bonus: Four Swords, a co-operative,
multiplayer twist on the Zelda formula that
was later expanded into the Gamecube
game Four Swords Adventures in 2004.
worlds, and these Game Boy Color games
took that idea to its logical conclusion.
Though separate, and taking place in two
different locations, Oracle of Seasons and
Oracle of Ages tell one interconnected story
that you can only fully understand by playing
both.
December 13th, 2002
The Wind Waker

March 27th, 2003

Soulcalibur II

If nothing else, The Wind Waker will be

remembered for its distinctive look. The
Gamecube debut for the series looks and
feels like a playable cartoon, with cel-shaded
visuals that turn its watery rendition of
Hyrule into a beautiful fantasy world.

November 4th, 2004

The Minish Cap

Fresh off of his appearance in Smash Bros.,

Link became a playable character in yet
another fighting game, though one not made
by Nintendo. Those who picked up the
Gamecube version of Soulcalbur II were
Many Zelda games are focused on scale,
able to play as the green-clad hero, facing
giving you a huge world to explore. But The
off against familiar faces like Heihachi and
Minish Cap goes in a different, much smaller
Yoshimitsu.
direction. The GBA game partners Link with
the titular cap, which turns the hero into a
miniature version of himself, letting him
September 2nd, 2006 explore a new, tiny world hidden in Hyrule.
Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland

November 19th, 2006

Twilight Princess

After the bright and colorful Wind Waker,

One of the rare spin-offs for the series,
Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland
takes one of Zelda’s strangest characters
and gave him his own game. It features
somewhat familiar adventure and puzzle
solving, but instead of Link it stars Tingle, a
grown man who thinks he’s a fairy.
Nintendo went in a much darker direction for
Link’s next big adventure. Twilight Princess
features a hero who could turn into a wolf,
and a dark parallel world called the Twilight
Realm. It's the first game in the series to
launch on the Wii and utilize motions
controls, though a more traditional,
controller-based version was available on
the Gamecube as well.

June 23rd, 2007

Phantom Hourglass
November 18th, 2011
Skyward Sword

Nintendo continued its quest to make motion

controls an important part of Zelda with
Skyward Sword. Not only is it the first game
in the series built from the very beginning for
the Wii and its unique controller, it also
requires a special add-on, the Wii
MotionPlus, that offers greater precision for
virtual sword fighting.

The cel-shaded look wasn’t gone for long,

November 22nd, 2013
though. Nintendo followed The Wind Waker
A Link Between Worlds
with a direct sequel on the DS. Phantom
Hourglass keeps the same colorful look and
aquatic theme, but introduces a new control
scheme that lets you draw a path for your
boat on a map using the handheld’s
touchscreen. Two years later it was followed
by another similar DS game, Spirit Tracks,
which swapped the boat for a train.

More than two decades after A Link to the

Past, Nintendo followed it up with an
August 14th, 2014 inventive spiritual successor on the 3DS. A
Hyrule Warriors Link Between Worlds takes place in the
same world as its predecessor — though a
few generations later — but adds a new
twist, letting Link turn into a two-dimensional
painting so that he can slide along walls to
sneak past enemies and solve puzzles.

What do you get when you combine the November 13th, 2014
iconic Zelda universe with the ridiculous, Mario Kart 8
mindless action of the Dynasty Warriors
series? The answer looks a lot like Hyrule
Warriors on the Wii U, a surprisingly
enjoyable action game that lets you battle
literally hundreds of enemies simultaneously
while playing as characters like Link and
Zelda. Later this year will see the release of
a 3DS version of the game, which introduces
a brand new character: Linkle, the Not content with just co-starring in fighting
crossbow-wielding female version of Link. games, Link is now a racer as well. As part
of a downloadable content package for
Mario Kart 8, you can now not only race as
Link, but speed through a track in Hyrule
October 22nd, 2015 while riding a motorcycle that looks like his
Tri Force Heroes horse Epona.

2016
The Legend of Zelda

Following in the footsteps of the Four

Swords games, Tri Force Heroes is a
collaborative game where three players
need to work together to solve puzzle-filled
dungeons. It’s also arguably the goofiest —
The next big Zelda game is largely a
and stylish — Zelda game yet, letting you
mystery. We know that it will feature an
deck out Link in everything from a Goron suit
open-world rendition of Hyrule, offering
to a princess dress.
players more freedom to explore however
they like. Other than that, though, we know
very little. After multiple delays, the game is
finally set to launch sometime this year, and
it’s likely to be the swan song for the Wii U
platform; a new console, codenamed NX,
will be revealed later this year.

Correction (February 22nd, 2016): This article originally stated that the original Legend of Zelda was never
released on the Famicom Disc System; it was, though only in Japan.

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