The Legend of Zelda is a video game franchise created by video game designers Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka and mainly developed and published by Nintendo. The universe of the Legend of Zelda series consists of various lands, the most predominant being Hyrule. The franchise is set within a fantasy world reminiscent of medieval Europe which consists of several recurring locations, races and creatures. The world was also partially inspired by Miyamoto and designer Hidemaro Fujibayashi's home town, Kyoto. The most prominent race in the series are the Hylians, a humanoid race with elfin features identifiable by their long, pointed ears. The series' lore contains a creation myth, several fictional alphabets, the most prominent being Hylian, and a fictional almost-universal currency, the rupee. The games involve the protagonists Link and Princess Zelda battling monsters to rescue the various lands they are in, and defeat a villain, which is often the series' main antagonist, Ganon. Link is usually the main player character in these settings, but players primarily play as Zelda in 2024's Echoes of Wisdom. Nintendo developed the series' lore into a timeline that spans thousands of years across its history. Hyrule was created as the original setting for 1986's The Legend of Zelda and has remained the main environment for successive games in the series. Inspired by dungeon crawlers, Miyamoto and Tezuka developed a high fantasy world in the form of a 2D map filled with monsters, puzzles and dungeons. Hyrule transitioned to a 3D environment with the development of Ocarina of Time, released on the Nintendo 64 in 1998. For Breath of the Wild, released on the Wii U and Nintendo Switch in 2017, Nintendo developed Hyrule into a seamless open world. Since the launch of the original game, the series has been a commercial and critical success and introduced landmark innovations in world design that have influenced numerous developers in the video game industry.
Overview
The Legend of Zelda series is set in a fantasy world that first appeared in the original The Legend of Zelda, which was developed and published by Nintendo. The game introduced Hyrule as the series' primary setting along with the series' protagonists Link and Princess Zelda, and primary antagonist Ganon. Link has been the primary player character since the start of the series, though he is only playable in the prologue of Echoes of Wisdom. The storyline of each game varies, but follows a common overarching plot that involves Link, a Hylian boy or young man, traveling through Hyrule or another land to save the world from evil, which is typically Ganon. He is often guided in these plots by Zelda, a Hylian girl or young woman, usually from Hyrule's royal family, who appears in every game in the series except for Link's Awakening and Tri Force Heroes, and is the main player character in Echoes of Wisdom. A recurring plot element in the games is Ganon's attempts to obtain the Triforce, a mystical artifact introduced in the first Legend of Zelda that will enable him to possess ultimate power. Although Link and Zelda have similar appearances in each game, there are different characters who go by those names throughout the series who appear whenever evil threatens the world. Skyward Sword was established as the beginning of the series' history and involves the antagonist Demise cursing the first incarnations of Link and Zelda so they reincarnate in an endless cycle to protect Hyrule from evil.
Hyrule
Concept and design
Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto conceived the land of Hyrule as the setting for the original The Legend of Zelda (1986), describing it as "a miniature garden that you can put into a drawer and revisit anytime you like". He drew his inspiration from the Kyoto countryside that he had explored in his childhood and wanted to recreate the experience of adventure and discovery. Alongside writer Takashi Tezuka, Miyamoto created a fantasy world in the style of fantasy authors like Tolkien, which was viewed from a top-down perspective. It was populated with colourful characters, monsters and dungeons for the player to explore.
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