Despite being one of Nintendo’s flagship series, The Legend of Zelda has been pretty neglected of late. Its 35th anniversary last February was underwhelming — particularly when compared to Mario’s 35th months prior and Pokémon’s 25th a couple of weeks later — and less than half of its mainline games are playable on the Switch five years into the console’s life cycle. What gives?
At the time of writing, only three Zelda games run natively on the Switch: Breath of the Wild, Link’s Awakening DX, and Skyward Sword HD. Four more are available via emulators tied to Nintendo Switch Online: The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II – The Adventure of Link, A Link to the Past, and Ocarina of Time. Majora’s Mask is also confirmed to be coming to the service this month, but even with that addition we’ll have just eight Zelda games out of 19. When you consider that the Wii U — for all its downfalls — was a bona fide Zelda machine, it’s easy to understand why this is a bit of a sore spot for fans.
Realistically, it seems reasonable that at least some of these games are Switchbound in the relatively near future — after all, Ocarina is finally there and Skull Kid’s arrival is imminent. All 11 of them winding up on Nintendo’s beloved handheld though? Laughable.
Let’s say that, hypothetically, the Switch will eventually accommodate five of the remaining 11 mainline games. In a world where that’s the case, these are the five Zelda games that need to come to Switch as soon as possible.
