The Legend of Zelda is one of the most beloved franchises in video game history, right next to Super Mario Bros., Pokemon, and Sonic the Hedgehog. For nearly 40 years, fans have enjoyed playing through the vast world and lore of Hyrule with various incarnations of Link, the mute green-clad knight sworn to protect the kingdom and Princess Zelda from the evil of Ganon.
Now that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been out on the Nintendo Switch for a while, you may be looking play all the games in the series in release order or chronologically. If you’re going down the latter route and don’t know which Zelda game to start with, you’ve come to the right place.
Read on for the full Legend of Zelda timeline below.
How to Play The Legend of Zelda Games In Chronological Order
If you’ve been a hardcore Legend of Zelda fan since 1986, you may have noticed that Link appears as a young adult in one game, a child in another, and vice versa. The inconsistency in Link’s age is because Nintendo made the timeline open to interpretation. However, Nintendo released the master timeline in Hyrule Historia in 2011, which starts with Skyward Sword and branches into three different timelines after Ocarina of Time: the Child Timeline, the Adult Timeline, and the Fallen Hero Timeline. The Calamity Timeline, which aptly starts with Age of Calamity, is separate from those timelines because it rendered them a myth.
That being said, here is the list of The Legend of Zelda games in chronological order according to the fictional continuity. Hyrule Warriors is its own separate thing because it was developed by Koei Tecmo, Omega Force, and Team Ninja — the creators of Dynasty Warriors — so we’re excluding the game from the list for that reason.
Jump to a time in the Zelda timeline:
- Early History Timeline
- Child Timeline
- Adult Timeline
- Fallen Hero Timeline
- The Calamity Timeline
- Release Order
Early History Timeline
1. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Skyward Sword takes place thousands of years after the Ancient Battle in the Era of the Goddess Hylia, set on the floating island of Skyloft where knowledge of the surface world below is nonexistent. This game stars the first Link, who forges the Master Sword from the Goddess Sword with the help of Fi as he rescues Zelda from the demon lord Ghirahim in order to revive his master, Demise.
Nearly 10 years after its release as a Wii game, Skyward Sword received an HD remaster for the Nintendo Switch. The remaster has two control schematics: one where the Joy-Cons replicate the motion control maps of the Wiimote and the Nunchuck, and another where the sword can be used with the right analog stick in handheld mode.
Read our review of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD
2. The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
The Minish Cap is the only canon Zelda title developed by a company other than Nintendo, which is Capcom. Link accompanies Zelda to the Picori Festival to celebrate tiny people who call themselves Minish. It's here that sorcerer Vaati, the first reincarnation of Demise, seeks the Light Force as he believes it hides the Picori Blade. After Vaati unleashes a horde of monsters from breaking the sword’s seal and turns Zelda to stone in the process, Link sets off to reforge the Picori Blade with the help of Ezlo, the eponymous Minish Cap who has the power to shrink the wearer down to the size of the Minish..
The Minish Cap is a prequel to Four Swords because once the Picori Blade is reforged, it turns into the Four Sword, which seals Vaati inside it. You can currently play the game on Nintendo Switch thanks to the GBA game update.
Read our review of The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap.
3. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords
Vaati breaks from the seal of the Four Sword and kidnaps Zelda with the intent of making her his bride. After drawing the Four Sword, Link splits into four copies himself — green, red, blue, and purple — and they all have to work together to defeat various foes to get to Vaati, reseal him in the Four Sword, and rescue Zelda.
Fours Swords is the first multiplayer game in the series that was bundled with the 2002 Game Boy Advance version of A Link to the Past. It was later released as a standalone game for DSiWare.
Read our review of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords.
4. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
After having premonitions of Ganondorf seizing the Triforce, a young Link is gifted the fairy Navi by the Great Deku Tree, who is cursed and dying, and sets them on a quest to stop him. He meets Princess Zelda, who had the same prophetic dreams as Link and they plot together to open the Door of Time to get to the Triforce before Ganondorf does. Unfortunately, when Link attempts to draw the Master Sword from the Pedestal of Time, he gets sealed away for seven years and wakes up to a Hyrule ravaged by Ganondorf. Finally old enough to wield the Master Sword, he accepts his destiny as the Hero of Time, and travels throughout the broken kingdom — and time — to re-assemble the Triforce and defeat Ganondorf.
Here’s where the time split comes in. After Ganondorf is sealed away in the Evil Realm, Zelda uses the Ocarina of Time to send Link back to his own time, but it splits into three branches — the Fallen Hero Timeline, where Ganon defeats Link; the Child Timeline, which follows Link back to his own time; and the Adult Timeline, where Link disappears from Hyrule. The Master Sword exists in the last two timelines; however Link places the sword back in the Pedestal of Time in the former, while Zelda does so in the latter.
Read our review of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or check out more top N64 games.
Child Timeline
1. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
During his months-long search for Navi in this direct sequel to Ocarina of Time, Link runs into the Skull Kid, who wears the titular mask and steals Link’s horse, prompting the hero to chase him into the parallel world of Termina. The mask itself is inhabited by a demon named Majora, and corrupts the Skull Kid to the point where he plots to destroy Termina by bringing down the moon. With only three days to stop the apocalypse, Link uses transformative masks to free the Four Giants from four different regions to help keep the moon from colliding with the earth and defeat Majora.
After saving Termina from getting pummelled by the moon, Link resumes his search for Navi, never to be seen again. He turns into the Hero’s Spirit after his death.