The Legend of Zelda Turns 35
Wednesday, March 24th, 2021The year 2021 marks the 35th anniversary of one of the most beloved video game series of all time. “The Legend of Zelda” is a fantasy adventure series developed by Nintendo for play on the company’s video game consoles and handheld game systems. A video game console is a specialized gaming computer that connects to a television.
In the main series of Zelda games, the player controls an elflike boy named Link on a solitary quest. Zelda is the name of a princess whom Link must often rescue. Armed with a sword, shield, and other magical items, Link must explore puzzle-filled dungeons and battle fantastical monsters. Critics have widely praised the Zelda games for their rich, interactive worlds, engaging puzzles, and dramatic musical scores.
The Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto created the first Zelda game, The Legend of Zelda, released in 1986. The game’s spirit of adventure and mystery was inspired by Miyamoto’s recollections of his childhood explorations of a cave by lanternlight. He took the name Zelda from Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of the American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Legend of Zelda became the first video game to enable players to save their progress across multiple play sessions.
Sequels to the game featured increasingly complex gameplay. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991), for example, challenged players to explore a parallel “dark world” that mirrored the game’s main world. In The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (1998), players use a magic ocarina (flutelike instrument) to change the passage of time. Early Zelda games, like most early electronic games, featured two-dimensional gameplay. The Ocarina of Time is considered a pioneering work of three-dimensional play.
Since 2000, Eiji Aonuma, another Japanese designer, has led development on most Zelda games, with Miyamoto playing a more advisory role. Aonuma’s games include The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2002), in which players control the wind to sail across a vast ocean. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006) was noted in part for its darker, spookier tone. Aonuma also produced The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011). The game introduced virtual sword fights that closely track the player’s swings and thrusts with the game controller.
The Zelda series returned to its open-world roots with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017). The game presented players with a sprawling three-dimensional world to explore: killing monsters, foraging for natural materials, and completing quests in the desired order. This setting was also featured in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (2020), an action game that served as one of many spinoffs of the Zelda series.