The Legend of Zelda

The cartridge remembers you, so the campaign can be longer than one evening.

Released 1986 Developer Nintendo R&D4 Publisher Nintendo Platform Famicom Disk System Genre Action-adventure Era 8- and 16-bit

Mechanics this game introduced

These are recorded as first appearing here. Each links to a full history of where the idea went next.

Progression & Persistence · 1986

Battery-Backed Save File

Battery-backed saving puts a small amount of powered memory inside the cartridge so a game can record its own state, a…

Origin: The Legend of Zelda

Mechanics it built on

Ideas The Legend of Zelda inherited rather than invented — each traceable back through the ontology to a root.

Flip-Screen Room Graph ~~1980~~Hit Points ~~1980~~Experience Points and Levels ~~1980~~

Directly influenced

Tunic ~~2022~~

The The Legend of Zelda series in this dataset

1986

The Legend of Zelda ~~this page~~

1987

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link ~~1987~~

1991

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past ~~1991~~

1998

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time ~~1998~~

2000

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask ~~2000~~

2002

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker ~~2002~~

2006

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess ~~2006~~

2011

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword ~~2011~~

2013

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds ~~2013~~

2017

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild ~~2017~~

2023

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom ~~2023~~

Look this game up elsewhere

Wikipedia ↗MobyGames ↗Giant Bomb ↗

~~Next in series →~~Zelda II: The Adventure of Link