The Legend of Zelda has been around for over 30 years and has launched on every single Nintendo gaming platform. The canon timeline itself is up for debate in many circles, and the addition of new titles has certainly muddied the waters when it comes to the Hero and his escapades throughout Hyrule's history.
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If there's one thing we know for certain though, it's how many games sit within the core series. And now we know how big they are. The sizes vary across the series, but regardless, they're all worthwhile adventures to experience. Want the exact file size? You got it.
Updated on May 18, 2023, by Casey Foot: With the launch of Tears of the Kingdom and the reveal of its unsurprisingly large file size, we thought we'd update this list so that you can see where it lands in comparison to every other entry in the series. Four Swords Adventures has also been added to make the list complete.
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was the American redesign of Nintendo's Famicom console, and it managed to pack a punch with what little power it had. This was the system that introduced a top-down adventure game called The Legend of Zelda, and so began the long-lasting legacy.
The Legend of Zelda's cartridge weighed in at a 128kB file size. It seems almost impossible when you compare it to the file sizes of today.
With a notable jump in quality from its predecessor, despite releasing on the same home console, Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link for the NES took up 256kB of cartridge space, which is twice as much as The Legend of Zelda which launched just one year earlier.
Link is twice as tall and his sword actually works like a sword. The changes made a lot of difference in gameplay and visuals, but Zelda 2 remained true to the core form of the freshly budding series.
Most long-time players of the Zelda games remember the mysterious Pink-Haired Link on the SNES and his strange proportions, but how does the game size measure up? With a leap forward in processing power and a larger map to traverse, A Link to the Past takes up just under 1MB of space.
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A Link to the Past may have been smaller than most modern indie games, but it made big strides in building the world and history of the rest of the Zelda series.
The Game Boy made Nintendo's beloved menagerie of characters pocket-sized, but just how small did they make them on the inside? Link's Awakening for the Switch, according to Nintendo of Japan, is 5.8GB, a massive upgrade from the Game Boy's 8MB limit to its cartridges, and the roughly 300kB the original SNES version of the game took up.
The Game Boy version is a stark difference from the cute, animated style of its future remake. Even without color and backlight, it still feels right at home in the core series.
Two years after the Nintendo 64 brought us 64 whole bits of power and three-dimensional video games, Ocarina of Time made its way into The Legend of Zelda canon with a huge map, a cool horse, and an ocarina that you can play using the buttons on your N64 controller.
This game was originally planned to only be 16MB, but the size was double that at launch, making the 32MB Ocarina of Time Nintendo's largest and most ambitious game at the time. The bigger size certainly paid off, as the game was highly praised by both fans and critics.
Still considered to be the darkest and most terrifying entry in the Zelda series, Majora's Mask puts you in the middle of an apocalyptic world, with only 72 hours to stop the moon from crashing down to the surface. No pressure, right?
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That's probably the same thing Nintendo was thinking when it fit the whole game into just 25.5MB. The 3D remake's 661MB size seems gargantuan in comparison. Due to its short development cycle, Majora's Mask used a lot of assets from Ocarina of Time, but it still managed to create its own identity.
Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons are nearly identical to each other in ratings, story, gameplay, and player satisfaction, with you even being able to link (pun intended) the games if you had both. But what about in size? Turns out, they're the same in that regard too, with both games taking up as much of their 8MB cartridges as they were able to.
These miniature-sized entries into the core Legend of Zelda series showcased nearly everything the Game Boy Color was capable of and gave the console much more attention.
When it launched, The Wind Waker shook things up with its cartoonish, watercolor-style visuals, differing greatly from the likes of Ocarina of Time. The 1.3GB of the original GameCube disc actually sufficed quite well, with the remake only coming in at 1.13GB itself, despite its updated graphics.
A different and controversial direction in animation made for a very smart move in storage space and file size. This wouldn't be the last time Nintendo used the same art style for core games or spin-off titles.
A Link to the Past came back to the Game Boy Advance in 2003 and brought Four Swords with it, giving the Zelda games a new mechanic - multiplayer. This combination cartridge was estimated to be around 3.5MB in size, an easy feat for the GBA to handle.
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It's no surprise these two continue to have their own remakes and spin-off games. Four Swords itself has gotten to traverse almost every portable platform Nintendo has created. Unfortunately, the Anniversary Edition was only available to download on DSi and 3DS for a limited time, so if you weren't aware of it, you would have missed out on owning it.
Launched on the GameCube in 2004, Four Swords Adventures prioritizes a multiplayer adventure, allowing you to join up with three other players to solve puzzles and take on bosses in Hyrule, or control all four Links yourself.
Coming in at 1.3GB, it was much bigger than its Game Boy Advance counterpart, Four Swords, thanks to being on a home console rather than a portable one. Surprisingly, it has the same file size as The Wind Waker, despite offering up a completely different kind of experience.
Two words: Bird Hat. The Minish Cap for the Game Boy Advance returned to the toon whimsy that everyone loved so much from The Wind Waker, and added a few extra dashes of campiness.
Not much seems to be known about the inner workings of GBA cartridges, but The Minish Cap is estimated to be a little over 7MB. A nice, balanced size for such a cute and fun game, with a lot to love and hours of adventure to enjoy. Despite the world of the Minish being tiny, The Minish Cap has lots to explore, and you'll spend hours fusing Kinstones alone.
One of the most beloved entries in the Zelda series, the dark and gloomy Twilight Princess for the GameCube, and later the Wii, introduced a variety of brand-new mechanics, including one where you get to turn into a wolf and live your wildest dreams.
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As long as your dream is to be a wolf in a video game about saving princesses. Twilight Princess has a surprisingly modest file size of 1.19GB for everything that's showcased in the gameplay. At its launch, it had one of the biggest maps of any Zelda game to date, so there's plenty of adventure to be had in that 1.19GB.
Nintendo DS owners had to wait three years after launch to see another portable mainline Zelda game for their handhelds, but the day finally arrived with Phantom Hourglass.
At 35MB, it's certainly not the biggest Zelda game on the roster, but it's a good chunk of storage for the DS itself. The restrictions of the Nintendo DS system of course meant it was never going to be as huge of an adventure as Twilight Princess, but it made use of the console in its gameplay and puzzles.
Up next is Spirit Tracks, a fun adventure for the DS featuring a lot of touchscreen-based mechanics and a bunch of animated charm. As delightful as the game is, it pushed the internal storage limit with its 51.7MB of train-bound joy - a notable size increase from the previous title, Phantom Hourglass.
Still, having it take up most of your system is pretty worth it for a good time in a well-animated universe with our favorite characters. Link and Zelda sure do look great in this art style.
Skyward Sword for the Wii is an underrated game, and the 3.93GB file size definitely shows that the team put a lot of work into this adventure beyond the clouds. Though its use of motion controls are divisive, many people enjoy it for its narrative and portrayal of Link and Zelda.
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The Nintendo Switch HD remake is 7.5GB, giving the game over double the amount of space for the graphics and a mechanical overhaul. It may be more streamlined and well-paced, but it sure takes up a lot of space.
A Link Between Worlds filled in a missing piece of the Hyrule timeline, taking place in the same Hyrule as A Link to the Past, but how much of the 3DS did it fill? A modest 685MB, making it one of the most size-efficient games on the 3DS.
Having an easier platform to make simple animation transitions, like the 2D Link crossing between worlds as a wall painting, definitely paid off for Nintendo. It shows the creativity involved in making games playable and fun to look at.
Multiplayer once again made an appearance in the Zelda canon with Tri Force Heroes, a 3DS title you and your friends can still easily enjoy. Unlike its multiplayer predecessors, there are three players instead of four, hence the name Tri Force Heroes.
It does, however, take up 1GB of the included 2GB storage card, so maybe have some expanded storage on hand if you plan to return to this game multiple times. It's one of the more quirky Zelda games, with lots of 'unique' costumes for Link to wear.
It's hard to believe Breath of the Wild came out all the way back in 2017. With a new open-world formula, hundreds of hours of gameplay, and players still discovering new secrets years after its launch, it's no surprise that it was the largest Zelda game at the time, offering a Hyrule like nothing we'd ever seen before.
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It takes up over 40 percent of the Switch's internal storage capacity with its 13.4GB game file. It's probably those 900 Korok Seeds. Or maybe the massive map of Hyrule. There's that too.
Considering Breath of the Wild's sizeable 13.4GB, it's unsurprising that Tears of the Kingdom overtook its predecessor, weighing in at a huge 16.2GB. Tears of the Kingdom takes Breath of the Wild's Hyrule and expands on it extensively, adding areas to explore both in the sky and underground.
In fact, Tears of the Kingdom is one of the Nintendo Switch's largest first-party games, putting it up there with the likes of gigantic RPGs such as Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Just like Breath of the Wild, there's no shortage of places to explore.
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