All Zelda games in order, by release date and chronologically

From its humble beginnings on the NES to the latest 3D adventure, The Legend of Zelda games are undeniably some of the best games of all time. What began as a little adventure game about a boy in a green tunic rescuing a princess has turned into a multigenerational series with tons of games across all of Nintendo’s hardware. Whether you love the 2D games or massive 3D adventures, it is a tough task to pick the best Zelda game.

What’s even harder is understanding the Zelda timeline. After the first two games, it wasn’t clear if the subsequent games were connected at all. Each game has a different incarnation of Link, and usually Zelda and Ganon as well, but everything else appeared to only have loose ties, if any. For years, fans worked to try and make sense of the timeline as games came out, but eventually, Nintendo set the record straight with the official timeline in the The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia book (which has been converted into a handy wiki). However, since that book’s publication, we’ve had a few new games come out that we need to find a way to place in the existing timeline … or should we say timelines.

This is by far the most complex timeline of any Nintendo franchise, so take notes if you need to as we draw our Master Swords and Z-target the true Zelda timeline.

All Zelda games in release order

Beginning in 1987 1986 in Japan) as one of the best NES games and showing no signs of stopping, there are almost too many Zelda games to play if you’re just starting now. However, playing them in the order they came out is never a bad way to go since that’s how everyone else first experienced them, and you will get a nice upward trend in quality (for the most part).

That said, we do have to cut out games that have no place in the real timeline, are pure spinoffs, or are otherwise non-canon (sorry CDI games). Here’s every major Zelda game in release order.

The Legend of Zelda (1987)
Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (1988)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the