The Legend of Zelda Games, Ranked

Nintendo shipped this for the Super Nintendo in 1991 and every 2D entry since has been built out of it: the item you win in one dungeon opens the road to the next. Flipping between the Light World and the Dark World turns one map into two puzzles that argue with each other. Thirty-five years on there is nothing here you have to forgive. A Nintendo console exclusive that was never ported to a PC storefront, so not on Steam.

Renting your gear instead of finding it demolishes the series' oldest lock: with Ravio's shop open from the start, dungeons stop being a fixed order and become a menu, and Breath of the Wild took that idea outdoors four years later. Merging flat into a wall is the other trick. What you forgive is the map, which is A Link to the Past's again. A 2013 Nintendo 3DS exclusive, so not on Steam.

Two consoles at launch on 3 March 2017, a Wii U on its way out and a Switch on day one, then a Switch 2 edition on 5 June 2025. The chemistry engine hands fire, metal, wind and rain fixed rules and then lets you break every puzzle with them, and the whole modern series is built on it. Weapon durability is the standing charge. Nintendo hardware exclusively, so not on Steam.

Every 3D action game that snaps the camera onto the thing you're about to hit owes the 1998 Nintendo 64 original something, and every 3D Zelda until 2017 was built on it. Hold Z, the camera holds the enemy, and swordfighting becomes legible in three dimensions. Z-targeting is the invention. Pace is the charge: Hyrule Field is a long walk. Nintendo announced a Switch 2 remake on 9 June 2026, the only route it gets, so not on Steam.

Released in North America on 26 October 2000, two years behind Ocarina of Time, and it answers that game by removing the thing Zelda had always guaranteed you: time. Playing the Song of Time to reset to 6:00 am on the first day surrenders everything you gathered, so the collect-and-keep loop the series runs on stops working. Nothing since has repeated it, which cuts both ways. Nintendo 64 exclusive, and no Steam listing has ever existed.

Started as programmer Kazuaki Morita's experiment on one of the first Game Boy development kits, with colleagues joining after hours, and the freedom shows: no Hyrule, no Triforce, no Princess Zelda, just Koholint Island and a whale-shaped god you must wake knowing what waking him costs. The idea that a Zelda can leave Hyrule entirely starts here. Grezzo's 2019 Switch remake is ranked with it. Game Boy exclusive in 1993, so not on Steam.

Ultrahand is the whole argument: glue a plank to two fans and a steering stick and you have built a machine no designer drew, and it works because the physics underneath do not cheat. What you forgive is the map, Breath of the Wild's Hyrule again with sky and depths bolted on, and nothing has yet been built on top of this one. Switch and Switch 2 only, 21.67 million copies by March 2025, no Steam listing.

Cel-shading took a beating in 2002 and it is the one Zelda art style that has not aged a day; twenty-four years on, this still looks drawn rather than rendered, and the look outlived the sailing. Crossing the Great Sea, forty-nine gridded squares of it, is the pleasure; the late Triforce hunt is the charge. Its 2013 Wii U HD version was delisted when that eShop shut on 27 March 2023, and the GameCube original was not sold on Steam.

Two million copies sold in 1988, an internal battery in the American cartridge for saving, and a flip-screen overworld that tells you nothing. It invented the lot, and it sits here rather than higher purely on what you forgive: no markers, no guidance, and the old man's sword is the last thing anyone explains. Then the Second Quest rearranges the map. Family Computer Disk System first, a Japan-only floppy peripheral, and Nintendo machines only ever since, so not on Steam.

Flagship built these, not Nintendo: a Capcom studio, working on Game Boy Color, releasing both halves in Japan on 27 February 2001. Standing on a stump and swinging the Rod of Seasons to drag a whole map from winter to summer is the sharpest single idea in either. Finish one and it hands you a password unlocking a different version of the other. Little to forgive, and little downstream. Game Boy Color only, and no Steam release for either.

Capcom and Flagship made this one too, shipping in Japan on 4 November 2004 for the Game Boy Advance. Ezlo, a talking cap with opinions, shrinks Link until a puddle is a lake and a bookshelf is a cliff, and the scale trick never stops being funny. Kinstone fusion is either a charming excuse to talk to everyone or busywork. Almost nothing to forgive, almost nothing taken forward. A handheld Nintendo exclusive, not on Steam.

Required hardware is a strange ask, and the November 2011 Wii release made it: the MotionPlus expansion had to be plugged in or you could not play. The stamina meter Breath of the Wild later took wholesale starts here, draining as you sprint, climb and haul, so plenty went forward. Then it charges for it: motion controls, and Fi explaining what you knew. The 2021 Switch HD remaster is ranked with it; both are Nintendo-exclusive, so not on Steam.

Grezzo co-developed this with Nintendo, and on 26 September 2024 it became the first mainline entry where Princess Zelda is the one you steer. Her Tri Rod copies objects and monsters into echoes you can drop anywhere, so a ledge you cannot reach becomes three stacked beds. Scrolling that list mid-fight is the charge, and at two years old nothing is downstream of it yet. Switch exclusive, and no Steam listing has ever existed.

Both versions arrived in late 2006, and the Wii one is a mirror image of the GameCube one because the team flipped the entire world rather than remodel Link as a right-hander. Almost nothing here went downstream: the wolf is the only genuinely new verb it added. Midna riding on that wolf's back is the reason to visit, rude and funny and actual company. The long opening is the charge. Nintendo consoles exclusively, so not on Steam.

Possessing a Phantom Guardian and steering her along a stylus-drawn path turned Zelda into a second body you control, fifteen years before Echoes of Wisdom made her the lead, and that is the one thing downstream of it. Nintendo's 7 December 2009 DS release also wants you blowing into the microphone to play her pan flute, charming once and a chore by the fourth time. Handheld-exclusive, so not on Steam.

Japan got this on the Family Computer Disk System on 14 January 1987, nearly two years before the American cartridge, and it is still the strangest thing in the catalog. Meet a wandering monster on the overworld map and everything drops into a side-scrolling battle screen where experience points upgrade Attack, Magic and Life. Towns and talking survived; the series abandoned the rest. It asks more forgiveness than anything else here. Disk System and NES only, not on Steam.

Drawing your own route across a sea chart with the stylus and watching the ship follow it is a two-screen idea no mouse reproduces, which is much of why the 2007 Nintendo DS original never traveled to a machine with a keyboard. The Temple of the Ocean King is the charge: you re-enter it again and again for the charts, and each return feels like homework. Spirit Tracks was built on its scheme. A DS exclusive, not sold on Steam.